A Public Faith

Just finished reading A Public Faith by Miroslav Volf.  I had never heard of him and was just perusing the books available for download from the library and this caught my eye.  It was a great read about the Christian faith and how it functions and malfunctions within society.  I believe I will purchase it soon in order to take a slower, more deliberate, journey through the book.

Here are a few quotes that caught my heart's attention:

"In asking God to help us succeed, though, are we not abdicating some of our own responsibility?  We would be if receiving God’s blessing meant that God did things that otherwise we would have to do.  But that’s not the case.  When God blesses, God does not create finished products; God works through human means to achieve God’s ends.  With regard to our success in work, we pray not so much for God to miraculously bring about a desired result but to make us willing, capable, and effective instruments in God’s hand – which is what we were created to be in the first place."

"With respect to social relations, one of the most important aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity concerns notions of identity.  To believe that the one God is the Father, the Son, and the only Spirit is to believe that the identity of the Father, for instance, cannot be understood apart from the Son and the Holy Spirit.  The Father’s identity is from the start defined by the Son and the Spirit, and therefore it is not undifferentiated and self-enclosed.  One cannot say without qualification that the Father is not the Son or the Spirit because to be the Father means to have the Son and the Spirit present in oneself.  The same holds true, of course, of the Son and the Spirit in relation to the Father and one another."

"Whatever we have, we want more and different things, and when we have climbed to the top, a sense of disappointment clouds the triumph.  Our striving can therefore find proper rest only when we find joy in something infinite.  For Christians, this something is God."

"To reject wisdom as a way of life, or Christ as the embodiment of wisdom, is not like leaving the dessert untouched after a good meal; rather, it is like refusing the very nourishment without which human beings cannot truly flourish."

"One important feature of sharing wisdom:  it is more like playing a musical piece for a friend than treating her to a meal.  When I serve a meal to a friend, what she eats I no longer have; in contrast, when I play music for her, she receives something that, in a sense, I continue to posses.  When I share wisdom, I don't part with what I give; to the contrary, I may come to possess it in a deeper way."