A Theology of Mark - Some quotes

“Despite their religious upbringing, the disciples persist in self-dependence, for both their day-to-day lives as well as their understanding of God and his will. The disciples come to Jesus with fixed religious ideas, which are a selective sample from the Old Testament as taught by Pharisaic synagogue teachers during the disciples’ early adolescence. Jesus does not only teach a defined “curriculum,” but intends to reshape their thinking and heart-attitude towards themselves and God, thus affecting every aspect of their lives. Jesus pursues nothing less than the complete reshaping of the disciples in mind and heart.”

—	A Theology of Mark by Hans F. Bayer, p. 62

“Rather than understanding the call to discipleship primarily as a call to exercises and performance, we should see it, at the very heart, as surrender to the love of God. It is surrender to the liberation of truth, to the “exodus” from our own autonomy by embracing the substitutionary atonement of Christ. It is the liberation of the soul through the power of Jesus. Without that liberation, there will not be liberty and strength to live godly lives. It is the love and the kindness of God that frees us to surrender. We are not forced into being disciples of Jesus. We surrender to the One who pursues us in sacrificial love, kindness, and deep knowledge of our inner selves.”

—	A Theology of Mark by Hans F. Bayer, p. 72

“We can rest assured that we will not surprise our Master with anything he will discover in our souls. So why keep it hidden? Why live with it anymore? Why continue a divided life between the outside (pretence) and inside (reality)? Why continue that hopeless battle when, in fact, the One who calls us has the power to overturn our self-centeredness?”

—	A Theology of Mark by Hans F. Bayer, pp. 71-72

Killer Quote - from Reason within the Bounds of Religion by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Prof. Nicholas Wolterstorff has reviewed Mark Noll's Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind. I have also reviewed the same book. However, (and I know this will come as a big surprise to many) Prof. Wolterstorff's review is better. Wolterstorff has been writing about the issue surrounding scholarship and the intellectual life for a while. In Reason within in the Bounds of Religion he writes:

The Christian who is a scholar finds himself in two communities: the community of his fellow Christians and the community of his fellow scholars. Each has its own criteria for membership, its own characteristic practices, its own characteristic beliefs, its own characteristic training programs. Without a doubt a person can simply live in the two different communities ... But if one who is a scholar as well as a Christian wants coherence in life - or even if he only wants self-understanding - he cannot help asking, how does my membership in these two communities fit together? (p. 21)