Quotes about Life

Zehr, Paul M. Biblical Criticism in the Life of the Church. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald, 1986.

Adam in primordial times plays out Israel's national life. He is proto-Israel—a preview of coming attractions. This does not mean, however, that a historical Adam was a template for Israel's national life. Rather, Israel's drama—its struggles over the land and failure to follow God's law—is placed into primordial time. In doing so, Israel claims that it has been God's special people all along, from the very beginning.

We're so crucified, in fact, that we read elsewhere, "You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Our lives are hidden—strong language, like we're not even in the picture. And being hidden with Christ and being "in" God sounds downright mystical enough to unsettle—as it should—anyone who thinks that the Christian's first duty is to make sure to think the right thoughts.

When we seek and follow wisdom in the precious few years given to us, we are truly accepting a sacred responsibility to live intentionally in the Spirit's presence. And what that looks like will be different for each of us and will likely change through the seasons of our lives.

To put it plainly, the life of faith is the pursuit of wisdom.

And here's another important dimension of this book. When we accept that biblical invitation, we will see not only how the Bible challenges us to work out what it means to live the life of faith here and now. We will also see—if I may stress the point once again—how the biblical writers themselves were already challenged by the need to move past a rulebook mentality and respond to new circumstances with wisdom.

God wants us dead. Or better: God wants us to get used to the need to die, not once, but as a pattern for our lives.

Wisdom is about learning how to work through the unpredictable, uncontrollable messiness of life so you can figure things out on your own in real time.

Think of it this way: the same wisdom that was with God when God "ordered" creation (Gen. 1) is available to us as we seek to "order" the chaos of our lives.

This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love.

One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.

If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.