Prophets…declare what God will do and what God requires. They speak the truth that people often do not want to hear. This rubs against the grain of a culture that treats religion as a consumer item. Those who adjust the Word of God to meet market trends, assuming the consumer is always right, are simply peddlers (2 Cor. 2:17). Those who come to religion assuming that the chief goal of God is to glorify humankind and asking, “What will it all get me?” receive only spiritual chaff.

David Garland (b. 1947), Neutestamentler / Theologe

Related Bible passage: 2CO.2.17

Topics: The Bible & the Word of God, Church & Congregation, Discipleship

Occasions: For Reflection

David Garland

David E. Garland (* 1947) ist ein US-amerikanischer baptistischer Theologe und Neutestamentler, der über Jahrzehnte am Southern Baptist Theological Seminary sowie an der Baylor University lehrte. Er ist vor allem für seine fundierten Bibelkommentare zu den Evangelien und neutestamentlichen Briefen bekannt, die historische und altgriechische Textanalyse mit theologischer Ausgewogenheit verbinden. Für heutige Bibelleser bieten seine Auslegungen verlässliche Zugänge zum antiken Kontext und den theologischen Grundaussagen des Neuen Testaments.

All quotes by David Garland (26)

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I read the Bible the way I harvest my apple tree: I shake it, and what falls down and is ripe, I take. The rest I leave hanging for now.

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The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.

Martin Luther

The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.

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Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.

Madeleine L'Engle

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