Processing Perspectives

At long last! Time to be able to process some of the richness from Perspectives class by sharing some favorite quotes. Things have been hectic, and even Sabbaths have been occupied with family things the last few weeks. My parents are away this weekend, so there's really nothing going on that I'm missing if I spend some down time in my apartment.

The Perspectives on the World Christian Movement was recommended to me years ago by Mrs. Bertsche, mother of two of my EQUIP students. I've looked it up and thought about attending different times. This time the time was right because Jayne R. also wanted to attend, so I had a travel buddy for the three hours (round trip) of driving. A couple of others from Bible School/church, Amy and Gerry, also jumped aboard the bandwagon. And Mr. and Mrs. Reed have also come to some of the classes. So it's a merry little bunch.

Attending the class itself reminds me a lot of EQUIP. Our first evening, we walked in and found card stock to make name cards. Just a little bit of deja vu. We have different speakers each Monday evening. My main regret is that we hear each one for a mere three hours. Our first speaker was John Chung, missions pastor at Park Street Church in Boston. The second was Dr. Andrew Saperstein, affiliated with Yale in some way. And this past week's speaker was Josef Tson of the Romanian Mission Society. (He was precious!) Anyway, we sit at tables and soak up the wisdom and experience from a diverse group.

The quotes are all from my 781-page reader, which is a compilation of writings from scores of writers in scores of publications. (Never fear; I haven't read it all yet!) They are in no particular order.

• "God's promises come true, but they are inherited "through faith and patience" (Heb. 6:12). We have to be content to wait for God's time." --John R.W. Stott, "The Living God is a Missionary God," from You Can Tell the World.
• "The old English word 'peculiar' came from the Latin word which meant valuables or movable goods, e.g. jewels, stocks or bonds, in contrast to real estate or goods attached to the land. The fact was that Israel was to be . . . His special treasure. . . . God has placed such a high value on people. This is exactly as Malachi 3:17 describes us: 'jewels.'" --Walter C. Kaiser, "Israel's Missionary Call"
• "We may be very weak. I sometimes wish we were weaker. Faced with the forces of evil, we are often tempted to put on a show of Christian strength and engage in a little evangelical saber rattling. But it is in our weakness that Christ's strength is made perfect and it is words of human weakness that the Spirit endorses with his power. So it is when we are weak that we are strong." --John R.W. Stott, "The Bible in World Evanglization"
• Throughout the rest of Scripture the idea of blessing remains linked to the idea of flourishing toward an intended fullness. When blessing is fulfilled in creatures, people, households, or nations, they are enabled to move toward their intended destiny. That change may be slow or rapid. Blessing is never seen as magical, but rather a dynamic of God's life." --Sarita D. Gallagher and Steven C. Hawthorne, "Blessing as Transformation"
• "And Jonah stalked
  to his shaded seat
  and waited for God
  to come around
  to his way of thinking.
  And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs
  in their comfortable houses
  to come around
  to his way of loving."
  --Thomas Carlisle, "You Jonah"
• "To glorify someone is to recognize their intrinsic worth and beauty, and to speak of that feature in a public way." --Steven C. Hawthorne, "The Story of His Glory"
• "Worship is also God's way of glorifying people--in all the best sense of bringing people to their highest honor." --Steven C. Hawthorne, "The Story of His Glory"
• World evangelization is for God. . . . Compassion is biblical and necessary. However, our love for people takes on balance and power when our overriding passion is for God to be honored by the kindness extended in His name; and even more, for God to be thanked personally by the people transformed by the power of the gospel." --Steven C. Hawthorne, "The Story of His Glory"
• "The greatness of God has the paradoxical effect that he does not need people to work for him, but rather magnifies himself by working for them, if they will renounce self-reliance and 'wait for him.'" --John Piper, "Let the Nations Be Glad!"
• "Missions is not a recruitment project for God's labor force. It is a liberation project from the heavy burdens and hard yokes of other gods." --John Piper, "Let the Nations Be Glad!"
• "Don't wait for a feeling of love to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God." --John Dawson, quoted by John Piper in "Let the Nations Be Glad!"
• "The weakness of much current mission work is that [we] betray the sense that what is yet to be done is greater than what [Christ] has already done. The world's gravest need is less than Christ's greatest victory." --Tim Dearborn, "Beyond Duty"
• "God desires that we be living signs of the kingdom, to provide visual aids of what life will look like one day when the kingdom is fully here. We will not bring the kingdom or build the kingdom, but our privilege is to live out previews of 'coming attractions,' revealing what this kingdom will look like." --Tim Dearborn, "Beyond Duty"
• "The servant does not tell the Master what kind of assignment he needs. The servant waits on the Master for the assignment. As you obey Him, God will prepare you for the assignment that is just right for you." --Henry T. Blackaby and Avery T. Willis, Jr., in "On Mission with God"
• "But it is hardly less puzzling [than the New Testament scholars who have concluded that Jesus was only a moral teacher] how so many believing Christians today can read these same Gospels, commit themselves to following this Jesus, and yet never seriously consider treating sickness and disease (to say nothing of demonized people) the way Jesus treated them. Far from considering these evils scourges of the devil the way Jesus did, we modern Christians most often attribute them to God's 'mysterious providence.' Rather than revolting against them as scourges of the enemy, we are more likely to ask God's help in accepting such difficulties 'as from a father's hand.'" --Gregory A. Boyd, in "God at War"
• "If instead we followed the example of our Savior, our basic stance toward evil in the world would be characterized by revolt, holy rage, social activism and aggressive warfare--not pious resignation." --Gregory A. Boyd, in "God at War"
• "'And lo, I am with you . . .' The final command [of Jesus] was actually 'Behold!' which meant 'Watch for me. Keep utterly focused on me. Lean and look to me.' He had just commissioned them to go to the most distant places of the planet. But He was not sending them away from Him. He was actually beckoning them to come nearer to Him than they ever had been." --Steven C. Hawthorne, in "Mandate on the Mountain"

So, lots to think about! I think my favorite quotes from the ones above are the Jonah one and the ones on how we as believers view sickness and disease. There are so many thoughts rolling around in my head. Perhaps I'll share speaker quotes in a future post. Josef Tson's presentation got me thinking about how God uses our dying (potentially both figuratively and literally) to accomplish His purposes.