Sublime

Moralists tell us to control our passions

(Alex Banfield Hicks and Richard Cunningham, “Identification, Persuasion and Invitation,” Christian Persuaders Podcast #1, www.bethinking.org/what-is-apologetics/introductory/identification-persuasion-and-invitation.xhtml [accessed January 20, 2012]).

I propose that there are three powerful themes of Christian teaching that can serve us in this way when it comes to the pain and suffering of life.

Paul did not focus so much on the sinful behavior as on the sinful attitude of self-righteousness that lay beneath it.

Because of the upside-down, kingdom/incarnation aspect, the church will place great emphasis on deep community, cell groups or house churches, radical giving and sharing of resources, spiritual disciplines, racial reconciliation, and living with the poor.

virtually all ministry contexts are increasingly shaped by urban and global forces.

Is the purpose of marriage to deny your interests for the good of the family, or is it rather to assert your interests for the fulfillment of yourself? The Christian teaching does not offer a choice between fulfillment and sacrifice but rather mutual fulfillment through mutual sacrifice.

Fifth,

But the Bible sees God as the supreme good—not the individual or the family—and that gives us a view of marriage that intimately unites feeling and duty, passion and promise. That is because at the heart of the Biblical idea of marriage is the covenant.