This Sunday’s readings: Matthew 2:13-23

Reflections

If you have a beautiful story, it has to have conflict. If you don’t have conflict, it can’t be a good story.
~ Donald Miller, 1971- , Author

No one who ever met Jesus Christ ever responded moderately to him. The only three things you see people doing when they meet the real Jesus are to run away from him in terror, assault him with fury, or prostrate themselves in utter surrender.
~ John Stott, 1921-2011, Priest/Theologian, Author: Basic Christianity

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If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.
~ William Law, 1686-1761, Church of England

If we live in a denial of the realities of our need and we persist in this, we run the risk of existing in this forever. We will move towards something that’s like an asylum. Those in hell are diminished by the fact that they have denied the reality of themselves and the grace of God as well.
~ Dr. Jerry Root, Professor Emeritus, Wheaton College

A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.
~ Fidel Castro

Jesus died for our sins not so that we could sort out abstract ideas, but so that we, having been put right, could become part of God’s plan to put his whole world right. That is how the revolution works.
~ N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began

I protect myself by refusing to know myself.
~ Floriano Martins, 1957- , Essayist

I’m convinced that most men don’t know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man’s atrocities, but wouldn’t dream of imprisoning a mother for her son’s crime?
~ Criss Jami, 1987- , Author: Killosophy

This Sunday’s readings: Luke 1:39-55

Reflections

You and I have been trained by our culture to not believe in the supernatural… a Jewish woman, Mary, had been trained by her culture to not believe that God could ever become a human being. So, though they are different, the barriers she faced against belief in the Christmas message were every bit as big as the barriers you may be facing. And yet a combination of evidence and experience shattered those barriers and she came to faith. That is exactly the way it works now. She doubted, she questioned, she used her reason, and she asked questions—just as we must today if we are going to have faith.
~ Tim Keller, Pastor, Author

People are always clinging to what they want to hear, discarding the evidence that doesn’t fit with their beliefs, giving greater weight to evidence that does.
~ Paula Stokes, Author, The Key to Everything

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Many know how to flatter, few know how to praise.
~ Wendell Phillips, 1811-1884, Orator, Attorney. Abolitionist

I’ll just put two words out there one is community and the other is mentors … one of the biggest Concepts here is community versus networks. A community is a group of real people who are kind of stuck together you can’t just come and go as you please. It takes a while to get in and it’s hard to get out, so you have to get along with each other. [We] need to be embedded in communities and I would say a religious community is the quintessential perfect Community.
~ Jonathan Haidt, 1963- ,Social Psychologist, Author

Confirmation bias is the most effective way to go on living a lie.
~ Christopher James Gilbert, 1987- , Philosopher, Musician

Our misbeliefs often make it impossible for us to realize, and/or to accept, some facts.
~ Mokokoma Frans Mokhonoana, 1985-2023, Social Critic, Satirist

Common sense is what tells us the earth is flat.
~ Stuart Chase, 1888-1985, Social Theorist, Writer