Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking,  or all of the above.

Kim:

More good reading in Grant Osborne's commentary, Revelation, Verse by Verse. I really encourage you to try reading a commentary as you read any other book. Choose a book of the Bible, and find a devotional or pastoral commentary, and have your daily Bible readings and prayer in conjunction with a commentary. If you're ever looking for a place to find commentaries, try Best Commentaries. This site has many good suggestions, and indicate whether the commentary is devotional, pastoral, or technical.

In a passage discussing the church at Laodicea (Rev. 3:19-20), we learn about the redemptive aspect of God's wrath:

We are used to thinking of the wrath of God as the basis of judgment, yet God's love is shown to the spiritually defeated as well as to the victorious. All passages on judgment against God's people from the 40 years in the wilderness to the exile to discipline in the New Testament, are redemptive in purpose and meant to wake God's people up spiritually and bring them to repentance. For the righteous, God's discipline is a purifying process; for the weak it is a wake up call. Rebuke and discipline build on each other. The first connotes a reproof that points out a problem and convinces the person to act on it. The second refers to a punishment that corrects the error and trains the person in the right way to live for God.

Persis:

My pastor, Ryan Davidson, who is also a counselor, taught the adult Sunday school class yesterday on the Christian and Anxiety. He wrote a short booklet on the subject, which I am quoting here:

The Christian, including the Christian struggling with anxiety, is united to Christ (Rom. 6). Christ is our redemption and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30) and the Lord will complete the work He has begun in us (Phil. 1:6). Therefore, in our continual wrestling with fear, worry, and anxiety, we need to constantly remember, that we are assured resurrection and ultimate freedom from every sin and infirmity on the last day. Our struggle must be framed with the reality of who we are in Christ. This One, who will not bruise a tender reed (Jer. 42:13), is the One to whom we are indivisibly united. 

Rebecca:

James M. Hamilton on God's design for work in his creation as it was before the fall:

In the very good world as God created it (Genesis 1:31), prior to the entrance of sin (cf. 3:1-8), God gave man marriage to enable the completion of God-given and God-sized responsibilities. This is true in merely logistical terms—without the woman the man cannot be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. What the narrator draws our attention to, however, is the more significant relational blessing that God's gift of the woman was designed to be. God said that it was not good for the man to be alone (Gen. 2:18), and he created a very good companion in the woman (2:22). This means that the fellowship and companionship and soul-deep oneness in the marriage of the man and the woman (2:23-25) were given to make the filling, subduing, and ruling over the world a delightful adventure undertaken together. [Work and Our Labor in the Lord, page 20.]

Of course, we live after the fall, so this picture of work and marriage is not our reality. But this is how it should be: shared responsibility and shared joy in work that fulfills God's purpose for us as image bearers.