Pithy quotes from our current reading which give us pause to reflect

[Kendel]

Reminds me of TEA and Penner talking about, for example in this part of the discussion of the book:

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Penner writes (p. 102):

Whether the truth I proclaim is true for me will be evident from how I live—if that truth is appropriated by me as an integral part of how I live and act. This means the act of witness is much more like a confession of personal conviction than a logical argument for the objective truth of its propositions.

This really raises the stakes and the challenge for what prophetic witness must entail. Now it isn’t me saying something (a comparatively easy way for me to let myself off the hook), but I must now live something out in front of and to my neighbor (a much harder and higher challenge). And in my visible life, my neighbor sees whatever truth I may have to share. My words and propositions to my neighbor are little more than a decorative overlay on all that, and succeed only in either confirming what the neighbor has already observed, or else turn me into a hypocrite when it is obvious to my neighbor that I don’t live up to them.