Sampler Platter: Friday, June 6 2014

Most of us have eaten out at a restaurant and tried a "sampler platter" - a plate with bite-sized portions of a few items from the menu.  I've known people who use this platter as their meal.   And I know others who have used this platter as a way to learn what they like, so they can order a full meal of that menu item next time around.

This post will launch us into what will be a (most) weekly series where I give you a "sampler platter" of some of the things I've been reading.  Even more specifically, I want to introduce you to some of the most worthwhile portions of what I've been reading - usually 3 or 4 excerpts.  The hope is that these bite-sized sections of books, articles, blog posts, etc will stand on their own and be beneficial in-and-of-themselves.  But I also hope that some of you will like these excerpts enough that they pull you into the larger work from which they've been taken.

Let's start sampling:

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Dane Ortlund, "Inaugurated Glorification: Revisiting Romans 8:30" in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Vol 57, No 1 (Mar 2014), p. 133: 
“The reality of glorification, according to Rom 8:29-30, is accomplished; the open manifestation is yet to be revealed.  The eschaton has arrived, and glorification with it.  The divine image, manifest supremely in Christ, has been restored.  The tin soldiers have been turned into real flesh and blood, as Lewis put it, and are coming to life.  We have become human again.”  

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Kevin DeYoung in Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me (Crossway, 2014), p. 108:
"Jesus has no problem referencing human authors of Scripture like Moses, Isaiah, David, and Daniel.  But they stand in the background.  They are the sub-authors working beneath the principal author of Scripture, namely, God himself....For Jesus, Scripture is powerful, decisive, and authoritative because it is nothing less than the voice of God" (emphasis added).

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Dallas Willard in The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus' Essential Teachings on Discipleship (HarperOne, 2006), p. xv: 
"...the greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heart-breaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as 'Christians' will become disciples - students, apprentices, practitioners - of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence" (emphasis original).