|
c4993d9
|
La mayoria de las interpretaciones de esta parabola se han centrado en la huida y regreso del hermano menor, el "hijo prodigo". Sin embargo, asi se pierde el verdadero mensaje de la historia porque hay dos hermanos, y cada uno de ellos representa una manera diferente de estar alejado de Dios y de buscar la entrada en el reino de los cielos."
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
20c8959
|
How does this destruction of social relationships flow from the internal effects of sin? If we get our very identity, our sense of worth, from our political position, then politics is not really about politics, it is about us. Through our cause we are getting a self, our worth. That means we must despise and demonize the opposition. If we get our identity from our ethnicity or socioeconomic status, then we have to feel superior to those of ..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
e82ac5c
|
Jesus esta diciendo que tanto los irreligiosos como los religiosos estan perdidos espiritualmente, ambos estilos de vida llevan a callejones sin salida y que todas las ideas que la humanidad ha tenido acerca de como reconciliarse con Dios han sido erroneas.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
622b72c
|
Regret is sorrow over the consequences of a sin, but not over the sin itself. If there had been no consequences, there would have been no sorrow. There is no sorrow over the sin for what it is in itself, for how it grieves God and violates our relationship with him.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
d71235d
|
En virtud de Su obra redentora, Jesus es a la vez nuestro Amigo y nuestro Prometido, y ese es el modelo que ha de imperar en el matrimonio cristiano. Marido y mujer tienen que ser al mismo tiempo amantes y amigos, en imitacion a Cristo.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
ae3ac41
|
Change my heart so I can walk in your footsteps. Amen.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
ef87604
|
The amazing truth is that God works through sinners, and through sinful situations. He keeps his promises to bless his people in the dark and disastrous periods of our lives, as well as through the times when things are going "right." Not even our own sin will stop him saving us, or using us. Mysteriously, often unseen, and usually far beyond our comprehension, God works through the free (and very often flawed) choices people make: "In all ..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
345408a
|
There is ultimately no such thing as unanswered prayer. If the answer at first is "no" or "not yet," it is because he gives us what we want in ways better than we asked." --
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
8fddd99
|
Reformer John Calvin wrote of the divinitatis sensum, the sense of deity that all human beings have. "There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity," and therefore "the seed of religion is planted in all."
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
1fe3b91
|
El Senor del universo se identifico con los mas excluidos y los mas pequenos de la raza humana.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
bbea61f
|
Christian living is therefore a continual realignment process--one of bringing everything in line with the truth of the gospel.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
5e0248a
|
Lord Jesus, you answered your opponents wisely and brilliantly but patiently and constantly. How I want to give back to my critics--with verve--the same disdain they show me. But I want to be like you, not them. Change my heart to make it so. Amen.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
af8aabe
|
Idols of power, then, are not only for the powerful. You can pursue power in small, petty ways, by becoming a local neighborhood bully or a low-level bureaucrat who bosses around the few people in his field of authority. Power idolatry is all around us.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
bac74b2
|
Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before; Since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more. . . . To see the law by Christ fulfilled, and hear his pardoning voice Changes a slave into a child, and duty into choice.35
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
9cade5b
|
Jesus is the prophet Jonah should have been. Yet, of course, he is infinitely more than that. Jesus did not merely weep for us; he died for us. Jonah went outside the city, hoping to witness its condemnation, but Jesus Christ went outside the city to die on a cross to accomplish its salvation.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
452ea93
|
The law has the power to show us that we are not righteous; but it cannot give us the power to be righteous.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
eac6162
|
Moralistic behavior change simply manipulates and leverages radical selfishness without challenging it. It tries to use that selfishness against itself by appealing to fear and pride. But while this may have some success in restraining the heart's self-centeredness, it does absolutely nothing to change it. Indeed, it only confirms its power.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
4d0fa5a
|
Jonah undertook what we could call an urban mission. He went to a city that was one of the largest in the world at that time. When God is arguing about why he should be deeply concerned for Nineveh, he cites its population figure as a reason for the city's significance to him and uses the term adam--the word for humankind: "120,000 of humanity." It is as if God was saying, "I care about human beings, and so how much more should I be concern..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
73a6ec7
|
the quartet of the vulnerable.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
b360d49
|
These two chapters give us a great example of the banality of evil. Evil does not usually make people incredibly wicked and violent-- that would be interesting, and tends to wake people up. Rather, sin tends to make us hollow-- externally proper and even nice, but underneath everyone is scraping and clutching for power, in order to get ahead. We continually just step on each other, as Micah was stepped on by the Danites and his Levite. But ..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
bc4fa38
|
In literature, plays, and cinema, substitutionary sacrifice is always the most riveting and moving plot point. In the movie The Last of the Mohicans, British major Duncan Heyward asks his Indian captors if he might die in the flames so that Cora, whom he loves, and Nathaniel can go free. When, as he is being dragged away, Duncan cries, "My compliments, sir! Take her and get out!" we are electrified by his unflinching willingness to die to s..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
acf9611
|
When we set our hearts on power, we become hardened predators. We become like what we worship.94
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
80b6bda
|
Paul is not saying that I must have nothing to do with the people and things of the world. Ironically, if I must have nothing to do with the world and must separate from it, then the world still has quite a lot of power over me! Paul means that the Christian is now free to enjoy the world, because he no longer needs to fear it, nor to worship it.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
35e9829
|
This means that Jesus's message, which is "the gospel," is a completely different spirituality. The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism. Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles--it is something else altogether."
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
bf654be
|
By comparing ourselves to other people and trying to make ourselves look better than others, we are boasting. Trying to recommend ourselves, trying to create a self-esteem resume because we are desperate to fill our sense of inadequacy and emptiness. The ego is so busy. So busy all the time.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
168e75e
|
The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
7d4262d
|
Eventually you can instinctively identify the way your spouse would react to a situation, assess its wisdom in this situation, and adopt it sometimes in a way that you never would have been able to pre-marriage. Let's call this "cross-gender enrichment." In this way, male and female "complete" each other and reflect the image of God together (Genesis 1:26-28). But this is not something that only married people can do. It happens quite natur..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
eb8733e
|
Marriage does and should somewhat limit the extent of friendships you have with others of the opposite sex. In Christian community, however, singles can have a greater range of friendships among both sexes.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
4b2762b
|
This kind of foolishness is gullibility. "The simple believe anything" (14:15). They are too easily led and influenced. Like children, they may be overimpressed by the spectacular and dramatic, or they may need approval too much and so be taken in by forceful personalities who give it to them. They will support dictatorial leaders who promise them peace and prosperity. They can be intellectually lazy, not wanting to ponder and think out a m..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
7107a85
|
The angel literally says, "Do not be fearing. Be perceiving. For I am telling you the Gospel." This is the principle--behold and you won't be afraid. If you take time to comprehend (behold) what is in the Gospel message, it will remove the fear that has dominated and darkened your life. To the degree you truly behold--gaze at, grasp, relish, internalize, rejoice in--the Gospel, to that degree the fears of your life will be undermined."
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
807a423
|
To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
ed8718c
|
The Divine Dance Christianity, alone among the world faiths, teaches that God is triune. The doctrine of the Trinity is that God is one being who exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity means that God is, in essence, relational. The Gospel writer John describes the Son as living from all eternity in the 'bosom of the Father' (John 1:18), an ancient metaphor for love and intimacy. Later in John's Gospel, J..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
1f64355
|
Jonah wants a God of his own making, a God who simply smites the bad people, for instance, the wicked Ninevites and blesses the good people, for instance, Jonah and his countrymen. When the real God--not Jonah's counterfeit--keeps showing up, Jonah is thrown into fury or despair.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
fedaff3
|
This psalm is famously quoted in Romans 3:11: "There is no one who seeks God." Left to ourselves, we would never want to find God, much less know him."
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
2bf2b63
|
Jesus is the true and better Adam, who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us (1 Corinthians 15). Jesus is the true and better Abel, who, though innocently slain, has blood that cries out for our acquittal, not our condemnation (Hebrews 12:24). Jesus is the true and better Abraham, who answered the call of God to leave the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void "not knowing whither he went" to create a..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
0387c2b
|
you hold either position, however, your life will be characterized by fear and insecurity, because you will never feel like you are being quite good enough; or it will be marked by pride and disdain for other people if you feel like you actually have been good enough; or it will be marked by self-loathing if you feel you have failed. You may find yourself whiplashed back and forth between two or more of these ways of life.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
c2cfd73
|
Everyone gets an identity from something. Everyone must say to himself or herself, "I'm significant because of This" and "I'm acceptable because I'm welcomed by Them." But then whatever This is and whoever They are, these things become virtual gods to us, and the deepest truths about who we are. They become things we must have under any circumstances. I recently spoke to a man who had been in meetings in which a financial institution decide..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
d0b1dc9
|
Instead of trying to shape our desires to fit reality, we now seek to control and shape reality to fit our desires. The ancients looked at an anxious person and prescribed spiritual character change. Modernity talks instead about stress-management techniques.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
5951c19
|
pastor replied, 'What if God hasn't given us a watertight argument, but rather a watertight person?'3 Jesus is saying 'I am that person. Come to me. Look at who I am. Look at my cross. Look at my resurrection. No one could have made this up! Come to me, and you will find rest for your souls.' Ultimately faith and certainty grows as we get to know more about Jesus, who he is, and what he did.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
cf43032
|
She must be able to say in her heart, "My desire for completely successful and happy children is selfish. It's all about my need to feel worthwhile and valuable. If I really knew God's love--then I could accept less-than-perfect kids and wouldn't be crushing them. If God's love meant more to me than my children, I could love my children less selfishly"
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
67b1158
|
Paul looks back to this when he writes: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. . . . For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (Rom 8:18, 20-21). The word frustrati..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
b703d2a
|
This is an enormous claim, but there is a certain logic to it. One of the most recent people to note this logic is Bono, the lead singer of U2, in a conversation with Michka Assayas: Assayas: Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that far-fetched? Bono: No, it's not far-fetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesti..
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
563190b
|
Jesus, unlike the founder of any other major faith, holds out hope for ordinary human life. Our future is not an ethereal, impersonal form of consciousness. We will not float through the air, but rather will eat, embrace, sing, laugh, and dance in the kingdom of God, in degrees of power, glory, and joy that we can't at present imagine.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |
|
eeefe2d
|
Only if you commit yourself to loving in action, day in and day out, even when feelings and circumstances are in flux, can you truly be a free individual and not a pawn of outside forces.
|
|
|
Timothy J. Keller |