Tag: eugene peterson
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“The devil is a great intellectual.”
Eugene Peterson: It is the devil’s own work to take the stories Jesus told (and the many other stories that provide so much of the content of our Scriptures) and distill them down to a truth or a moral that we can then use without bothering with the way we use them- unconnected from the…
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“…in trouble most of the time.”
The language of prayer occurs primarily at one level, the personal, and for one purpose, salvation. The human condition teeters on the edge of disaster. Human beings are in trouble most of the time. Those who don’t know they are in trouble are in the worst trouble. Prayer is the language of the people who…
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“…a recovery of personal, relational, revelational language…”
The language we are really fluent in, the language we are most used to, deals with impersonal data and functionalized roles. The practice of prayer, if it is going to amount to anything more than wish lists and complaints, requires a recovery of personal, relational, revelational language in both our listening and our speaking. -Eugene…
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“Crowds are a worse danger…” cont.
A pastor recently left a lengthy and incredibly thoughtful comment on a post from last year. In that post I quoted Eugene Peterson twice from his memoir about the danger of churches becoming crowds. I’m copying the entire comment here as this pastor’s experience and perspective is one that should be heard. Peterson’s statements hit…
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“Crowds are a worse danger, far worse, than drink or sex.”
I’m finishing up Eugene Peterson’s wonderful memoir, The Pastor, a book I’ve anticipated eagerly since I first learned of it last year. About halfway into the book, in a chapter titled “Company of Pastors,” Peterson includes a letter he wrote to a colleague who was leaving his church for one “three times the size of…
David W. Swanson 