“This is the essence of faith — dying to an old existence characterized by disobedience to God through complete identification with the obedience of Jesus. Paul both defines this complete identification with Jesus’ death (co-crucifixion) as faith and states that it occurs in the public expression of that faith known as baptism (Rom 6:1-11). Moreover — and this is crucially important — the act of co-crucifixion is not a matter of human effort; it is a graced response.”

“Reconciliation with God, then, is by God’s own initiative, or faithfulness, expressed in the faithfulness of Jesus, to which we respond by sharing in that faithful death in the act of saying ‘yes’ to God and expressing that ‘yes’ in baptism.”

“The person who says ‘yes’ to the gospel and is justified by co-crucifixion with Christ in the experience of faith and baptism makes a spiritual and sociological move from being outside Christ and the covenant people of God to being inside Christ and God’s people. Using what is sometimes called ‘transfer language,’ Paul can speak of ‘believing into Christ’ (the literal meaning of a key phrase in Gal 2:16) or being baptized into Christ (Rom 6:3; Gal 3:27). More vividly, he calls this being clothed with Christ (Gal 3:27), an experience that must be renewed day by day (Rom 13:14). Christ envelops the individual and the community that lives in him, beginning a long-term process of shaping both believers and churches into his image (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18), a process also of having the mind of Christ within (Phil 2:5).”

In case you don’t know much about what’s going on there, check this site.

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My study has been enriched this year by reading these books by Michael Gorman:

Reading Paul

Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

Here is a rather dense sentence from Michael Gorman (Reading Paul) that I like — though, admittedly, it takes a good bit of unpacking:

Paul preached, and then explained in various pastoral, community-forming letters, a narrative, apocalyptic, theopolitical gospel (1) in continuity with the story of israel and (2) in distinction to the imperial gospel of Rome (and analogous powers) that was centered on God’s crucified and exalted Messiah Jesus, whose incarnation, life, and death by crucifixion were validated and vindicated by God in his resurrection and exaltation as Lord, which inaugurated the new age or new creation in which all members of this diverse but consistently covenantally dysfunctional human race who respond in self-abandoning and self-committing faith thereby participate in Christ’s death and resurrection and are (1) justified, or restored to right covenant relations with God and with others; (2) incorporated into a particular manifestation of Christ the Lord’s body on earth, the church, which is an alternative community to the status-quo human communities committed to and governed by Caesar (and analogous rulers) and by values contrary to the gospel; and (3) infused both individually and corporately by the Spirit of God’s Son so that they may lead “bifocal” lives, focused both back on Christ’s first coming and ahead to his second, consisting of Christlike, cruciform (cross-shaped) (1) faith and (2) hope toward God and (3) love toward both neighbors and enemies (a love marked by peaceableness and inclusion), in joyful anticipation of (1) the return of Christ, (2) the resurrection of the dead to eternal life, and (3) the renewal of the entire creation.

Whew! Now, would someone please diagram that sentence for us?

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Ever wondered what makes one a great actor? Let Sir Ian (AKA: Galdalf) explain in this brilliant piece of British comedy.

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We did, indeed, Ski Ohio yesterday. Thanks to snow-making machines and the energy of a couple teenagers, it was a blast.