Ancient Paths (2016.09.25 Sermon)
September 25th, 2016 | John Chandler
John Chandler continued our short series on being a Creative Minority with a sermon on Daniel 1.
Quotes and links mentioned:
- “Living with gospel resilience in the corrosive soil of Western culture requires a posture of living as a creative minority. Throughout history God has replenished cultures, through the witness of minorities of believers who hold true to their beliefs while blessing the surrounding culture. It is to this position we must return.” — Mark Sayers
- “… habitus—reflexive bodily behavior. The sources rarely indicate that the early Christians grew in number because they won arguments; instead they grew because their habitual behavior (rooted in patience) was distinctive and intriguing.” — Alan Kreider
- “So how were Christians made? By a process of formation that, as time progressed, was increasingly self-conscious. It was rooted in the habitus of the communities—their reflexive behavior. It was embodied knowledge rooted in predispositions that guided the Christians’ common life and expressed themselves in practices.” — Alan Kreider
- For Christians are no different from other people in terms of their country, language, or customs. Nowhere do they inhabit cities of their own, use a strange dialect, or live life out of the ordinary. . . . They inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, according to the lot assigned to each. And they show forth the character of their own citizenship [politeias] in a marvelous and admittedly paradoxical way by following local customs in what they wear and what they eat and in the rest of their lives. They live in their respective countries, but only as resident aliens; they participate in all things as citizens, and they endure all things as foreigners. . . . They marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose them once they are born. They share their meals but not their sexual partners. They are obedient to the laws that have been made, and by their own lives they supersede the laws. . . . They are impoverished and make many rich. . . . To put the matter simply, what the soul is in the body, this is what Christians are in the world.” — Epistle to Diognetus
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