Sublime

When God calls a man, he calls him to come lose himself, and so it is no wonder that the most eager of those called tend to already know what it is like to lose. The Beatitudes help us see the upside-down ethos of the kingdom of God. To preach the good news of his kingdom and build legacies of faith, Jesus is looking primarily for losers.

Soon enough, the most central question for both mainline and evangelical pastors was, How can we reach more and more people? They did not ask how they could testify to God’s eternity breaking into time. They asked how they could keep from losing pace up against the threat of secular 2.

In City of God, St. Augustine wrote: “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are always too full to receive them.

to live as the beloved self-in-God is to be about the belovedness of others.

God lives within the human situation to the extent that we live his will. As a radio converts waves into sound, so a holy life translates God’s word into deed.

From this depth God is seen to be the ground of both peace and chaos, one with ourselves and one with all the world, the ground “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?

Yet what’s fascinating is that Henry upped the ante. He called for a change in the conception of the pastor. Henry claimed that the pastor is to witness to this divine

and eloquently. He knows that God is always with him. He puts first things first—not the opinions of others but his relationship with his father.