Klyne Snodgrass Quotes

Our true history is the history of Christ into which we are grafted. His history, within which and to which our personal history is subsumed, is our defining history. That is what faith, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper are about. Christians lay the story of their lives—damage and all—in the hands of God, confess that parts of their story are not good, affirm that they do not direct their own story, and ask that their story be taken into and conformed to the narrative of what God is doing in Christ.

The crucial point is that you must not be passive in claiming and forming the identity God says is yours.

Christ is not an add-on to an existing identity; he seeks to remake your identity.

Each of us also has his or her individual history of experiences, choices, and acts, and these memories form a story that shapes our self-understanding. As we mature we become the one interpreting and explaining what has happened to us. Our lives are not a series of unconnected events, and something within us longs—is even forced—to create a connected story that makes sense of the pieces and moves us in a successful direction. We create our story from the events and circumstances life hands us, even if we do not do it well. We have a narrative identity.

Events are not mere items from the past; they are the fabric from which our lives are woven.

Henri Nouwen said, “Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’ Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

The focus is not the body but what the body should do.

your mind must be under constant revision, under construction all the time, to be what God wants you to be. Why must there be a constant renewing of the mind? Because you are changing each day, your circumstances are changing, the world is changing, and your mind was deficient anyway. We need a continual God-directed renewal process in our heads, but God will not hit you on the head and make it happen. God seeks to engage you, to participate with you. You will have to give attention to construction of your mind in relation to God. The purpose of this is so you will be smart enough to make good decisions in forming your own identity. You will have to be serious about learning.

Jesus describes the identity people should have, what God intended from the beginning. The assumption is that if people see that identity, they will want to choose and could choose that identity.

Is such a life too hard? Is the sermon an impossible ideal, too hard for mere humans? What is hard is a life of sin. Too many people, Christians included, think that a life of sin is easy and a righteous life is impossible.

If our values have not been converted, we have not been converted. Valuing what God values shapes us and directs us. In naming Christ as Lord we honor ourselves. As a second-century Christian put it, “Whatever you honor most will rule you. Honor what is best that you may be governed by what is best.”9 People render themselves worthless by investing their lives in worthless things.

How can you find a foundation for living that is more substantive and enduring than appearance?

Image of God” is primarily intended to convey that humans are connected to God, were created for relation to God, point to God, represent God, and are accountable to God. The image is about participation with God and vocation given by God.

Image of God is not merely about pointing to God, though. It is also about connection to God, living in relation to and participating with God. Also, the image is not merely an individual thing; we are not in the image of God by ourselves. The image of God is communal and involves our relations with God and with each other in ways that reflect the being of God. It is about humanity as a whole as well as about individuals. Additionally, the image of God involves male and female together, a point emphasized in Genesis 1:27 and 5:2. The emphasis on male and female together is not mentioned with the creation of animals.19 In the interaction of male and female we reveal—or distort—the image of God. Male and female together in community reflect the image of God, and not merely in marriage. Suddenly human sexuality takes on an enormous significance, for how we relate sexually has to do with mirroring God!

We are all created with certain tendencies and abilities, each contributing to our uniqueness. At the same time, those tendencies, abilities, and inabilities are not merely accepted as givens. They must be schooled and augmented, and some inabilities will have to be overcome for us to function well in life. Some tendencies, such as self-centeredness, aggression, anger, and timidity, will have to be changed, controlled, redirected, or eliminated so that our actions and attitudes fall within a legitimate range of what it means to mirror the character of God.

We are not bound to our tendencies, even if they are not easily set aside.

What really counts is who God says we are. For Christians identity is founded on what God says, and it is affirmed and tested by the interaction of self and community.

The role of prayer, worship, and meditation becomes clearer; they are avenues for our minds to remember and interpret and to be reformed with the identity God seeks for us.

We are defined by investments of interest, time, and money since that to which we assign value assigns value to us.