"A gentle revolution will come through the little cadre of Christian fools who are willing to overthrow the established order by rearranging their lives around the mind of Christ. Their quest is transparency through truthfulness, and their lifestyles will be shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ... Their priorities are personal, determined not by the popular religion of the day, by power politics, or by the consumer culture, but by the Sermon on the Mount and the paschal mystery. To the fool, Jesus Christ is not a sage or a starry-eyed reformer; he is the second Adam, author of a new creation... He has redirected reality and given it a revolutionary orientation. Jesus did not tidy up the world. He brought it to a screaming halt. What he refashioned out of the human stuff of the old order is not nicer people with better morals but brand-new creations." (emphasis mine)
"The sense of mission among the fools will create havoc in the neighborhood. Fears will be aroused, and rumors will circulate that these people are becoming 'peculiar.' Their friends will advise them to settle down and do something constructive with their lives (like seek out security, pleasure, or power). Neighbors will whisper that they are religious fanatics. Relatives will regale them with ostentatious displays of their dubious achievements. Each ploy will be designed to make them look and feel like what they actually are: fools."
"Today Christianity is largely inoffensive; this kind of religion will never transform anything. Jesus Christ the master revolutionary offended the religious and political order of Palestine. Christians too are bound to offend, and if we do not it is a bad sign--we cannot be very revolutionary."
"At an exact day and hour known only to the Father... Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, will upstage all the beautiful, famous, and powerful people who have ever lived. Every man and woman who has ever drawn breath will be appraised, evaluated, and measured solely in terms of their relationship with the Carpenter from Nazareth. This is the realm of the really Real. The Lordship of Jesus Christ and his primacy in the created order (Ephesians 1:10) are at the center of the gospel proclamation. This is reality."
"When the fools who seek to live with the mind of Christ ask themselves, 'Why do I exist?' they answer, 'For the sake of Jesus Christ.' If the angels ask, it is the same answer: 'For the sake of Jesus Christ.' If the whole universe were suddenly to become articulate, from north to south and from east to west it would cry out in chorus, 'We exist for the sake of Christ.' The name of Jesus would issue from the seas and mountains and valleys; it would be tapped out by the pattering rain. It would be written with lightning in the skies. The storms would roar the name 'Lord Jesus Christ God-hero,' and the mountains would echo it back. The sun on its westward march through the heavens would chant a thunderous hymn, 'The whole universe is full of Christ.'"
"If there is any priority in our personal or professional lives more important than the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we disqualify ourselves as witnesses to the gospel and from membership in the gentle revolution. Since the day when Jesus burst the bonds of death and the messianic era erupted into history, there is a new agenda, a new set of priorities, and a revolutionary hierarchy of values for the believer. The Carpenter did not simply refine Platonic or Aristotelian ethics, reorder Old Testament spirituality, or renovate the old creation. He brought a revolution. We must renounce all that we possess, not just most of it. We must give up our old way of life, not merely correct some slight aberrations in it. We are to be an altogether new creation, not simply a refurbished version of it. We are to be transformed from one glory to another, even into the very image of the Lord--transparent. Our minds are to be renewed by a spiritual revolution."
"When we are hungry for God, we move and act, become alive and responsive; when we are not, we are dilettantes playing spiritual games. 'God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance,' said Abraham Heschel. An intense inner desire to learn to think like Jesus already the sign of God's presence. The rest is the operation and activity of the Holy Spirit."
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