11 Quotes by Michael J. Gorman

To pray for the coming of the kingdom, the coming of the Lord, is to commit oneself and one’s community to embody the values and practices of that kingdom-now-in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

According to Revelation, in the church’s worship we should remember and honor the prophets and martyrs, not veterans and fallen warriors; faithful witnesses, not loyal patriots; the One who was slain to secure our true freedom, not the ones who killed and were killed to preserve (so it is claimed) our freedom. That this self-evident truth about worship seems so odd, so radical, simply demonstrates how comfortable the church has become in bed with the beast.

To be sure, this justification is a gift, an unmerited act of sheer divine grace, but from start to finish the gift demands and offers complete identification with the cross of Christ, not only as the basis of a right relationship with God, but as the very shape of that relationship.

Faith, then, for Paul is first of all cruciform participation with Christ that liberates participants from the hostile powers that rule human existence and brings them into the powerful sphere of Christ’s benevolent lordship and community.

The other corollary of this principle is an understanding of scriptural interpretation not merely as an academic exercise, but as an ecclesial practice. For theological interpreters, even the most technical and sophisticated academic biblical interpretation has the church as its primary location and ultimate focus. Good theological biblical scholarship is a form of prayer, communion, and, most importantly, service to the church.

For Paul, the will of God is known in essence in the obedient death of Jesus. In concrete and specific ways, however, God’s will is known only when one offers oneself and one’s body daily as a living sacrifice to one’s rightful Lord:.

Those who respond in trust or faith to the faith of Christ are moved into Christ, into the sphere of his life. In that sphere, and there alone, is justification to be found. Simultaneously, those who move into Christ find that Christ has moved into them, so to speak.

This is the consistent witness of the New Testament: that the exalted Lord remains the crucified Jesus.20 And this one is “the true face of God.”21 When this witness is neglected or forgotten, trouble follows swiftly.

To be in Christ is to be a living exegesis of the narrative of Christ, a new performance of the original drama of exaltation following humiliation, of humiliation as the voluntary renunciation of rights and selfish gain in order to serve and obey.