i just finished reading this book...
in a word it was...
freeing.
ha.
and yet really it was.
here are a couple of my favorite quotes...
“You ought to live your life with such freedom and joy that uptight Christians will doubt your salvation.”
“If there is no laughter, Jesus has gone somewhere else. If there is no joy and freedom, it is not a church: it is simply a crowd of melancholy people basking in a religious neurosis. If there is no celebration, there is no real worship.”
“The good news is that Christ frees us from the need to obnoxiously focus on our goodness, our commitment, and our correctness. Religious has made us obsessive almost beyond endurance. Jesus invited us to a dance...and we've turned in into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we're doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers. We know a dance would be more fun, but we believe we must go through hell to get to heaven, so we keep marching.”
“You are really and truly and completely free. There is no kicker. There is no if, and, or but. You are free. You can do it right or wrong. You can obey or disobey. You can run from Christ or run to Christ. You can choose to become a faithful Christian or an unfaithful Christian. You can cry, cuss, and spit, or laugh, sing, and dance. You can read a novel or the Bible. You can watch television or pray. You're free...really free.”
“The only people who get better are people who know that, if they never get better, God will love them anyway.”
all quotes from Steve Brown, A Scandalous Freedom: The Radical Nature of the Gospel
you can also listen to free podcasts that look like they mirror the book's chapters... how kind of steve. offering something FREE. ha.
i love that he defines himself as a very conservative guy theologically. and as a pretty hard core calvinist. two things that i ascribe to as well. i liked how he said this about most hard core calvinist churches...
“I’m a Presbyterian, and we believe in a doctine called ‘radical and pervasive depravity.’ If we find any depravity, however, we kick you out!”
which is one reason why i don't attend a hard core calvinist church. because they would kick me out. for radical and pervasive depravity. and they would use this blog as proof. and they would be right. and wrong.
make sure and notice on that podcast page that he says that you can buy his book or the CD's of the podcasts "both make excellent gifts for uptight religious folks." ha. that steve. he is a laugh a minute. wonder where he got that from? oh, i think i know because...
my favorite line in the book is one about his mother...
My mother is one of the most godly and earthy women I have ever known. She read the Bible in in the morning, Spurgeon in the evening; and in between, she taught me how to cuss.
may my children rise to greet me with such praises....
but more importantly may they know the scandalous freedom that ONLY Christ offers...
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. galatians 5:1
