Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them, is not something dreadful also.
All human governments are intended by God to do justice and mercy - to look after, in particular, the needs of the poor and disadvantaged.
Jesus himself, as the gospel story goes on to its dramatic conclusion, lives out the same message of the Sermon on the Mount: he is the light of the world, he is the salt of the earth, he loves his enemies and gives his life for them, he is lifted up on a hill so that the world can see.
While some who downplay Christ's divinity have imagined Jesus as a great social worker 'being kind to old ladies, small dogs and little children,' orthodox Christianity has not wanted Jesus to have a political message.
Whatever life after death is, being with Christ which is far better, being in Paradise like the thief, etc, the many rooms where we go immediately. . . that is the temporary place. The ultimate life after life after death is the resurrection in God's new world.
Learning to live as a Christian is learning to live as a renewed human being, anticipating the eventual new creation in and with a world which is still longing and groaning for that final redemption.
We can glimpse it in the book of Acts: the method of the kingdom will match the message of the kingdom. The kingdom…goes out into the world vulnerable, suffering, praising, praying, misunderstood, misjudged, vindicated, celebrating: always – as Paul puts it in one of his letters – bearing in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed.
I'm being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it's not polite. There!
I was a knight," Andrea said. "I'm not just going to start shooting every dickhead who mouths off to me. " "Just making sure. " "Besides, if I shot him, I'd do it so nobody could trace it back to me. I'd shoot him somewhere remote, his head would explode like a melon, and they would never find his body. He would just vanish.
Small pictures since the Renaissance are like novels; large pictures are like dramas in which one participates in a direct way.
Americans have been given goals to achieve in Iraq, but not the standards by which to measure progress. And the only assurance Americans have been given that we can reach those goals is to trust the President and his Administration at their word.