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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jamin Goggin
James tells us that the way from below is earthly, unspiritual, and, most provocatively, “demonic” (James 3:15).
is crucial that Christ’s victory over evil be realized not only by Christians in isolation, but by communities of believers.
churches took this stand, it would change the attitude of our congregations, so that rather than trying to be powerful in the world, we would be a servant in the world.
“Many evil powers are tempting the church today. Number one is the power of personality.
“A great temptation is the principality and power of Mammon. I call it Mammon, which was an ancient Hebrew name for the god of money and wealth.
Marva shared concerns about the experience-based models of worship she saw in the church, and grieved the emphasis placed on popularity.
examples of “powers” Marva had mentioned. I was struck by how normalized these have become, and how often they are viewed as necessary for success, even in ministry.
On the surface things look grand and magnificent, but the path to success and influence is often paved with dark powers. Like the progenitors of the Mission, we have allowed a beautiful end to justify our evil means.
“The fact that ‘devils’ are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights.”
we read the New Testament, we are consistently confronted with the powers and principalities.
these passages
Passages on power and demonic influences
These representative passages speak of the “powers and principalities,” highlighting some of the parallel terms used, such as authorities, rulers, thrones, and dominions.
Jesus is claiming that Peter’s thinking is fueled by the demonic, and at the same time it is from the flesh and oriented around the worldly “things of man.”
church will become its own gravedigger as it continues to uncritically incorporate the values, principles, and techniques of the world. This is the strategy of the demonic, not to attack the church directly, but to trick her into attacking herself:
First, that Christianity is now becoming captive to the very “modern world” it helped to create. Second, that our interests are best served, not by working against the church, but by working with it. The more the church becomes one with the modern world, the more it becomes compromised,
“We conquer not by the sword but by the power of the powerlessness of love.”
To return hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate in the universe.
He was following Paul’s admonition, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”
loving your enemy will “heap burning coals on his head” (Rom. 12:20).
“I couldn’t hate back. When I saw what hate had done to them, I couldn’t hate back. I could only pity them. I didn’t ever want hate to do to me what it had already done to those men.”
I think we are healed by that inner action of each other, by seeing love in that other person.
This attitude communicates that the inner-city churches don’t really know what they are doing and assumes they might not have the same resources, education, or skill sets of their white counterparts;
I quickly assume that anything standing in my way is something to be destroyed.
The first temptation is that we seek to engineer a life of love in our own power.
power to love can be a fruit of power to control.
He was disturbed by the notion that he could succeed in ministry without depending on God;
The way from below forces pastoral ministry into professional categories where the focus is on what I can get done and make happen.
success is defined by my productivity and power.
I was a competitor my whole life, and to rid myself of that competitive stuff was really hard.
through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds.
“It is easy to draw a crowd if you know how to do it. And religion and athletics are the two easiest ways to do it. But there is something addictive about that. It just really is.”
By the time I felt called into ministry, the expectations formed in those earlier years had developed into a vision of success.
the great temptation of power is control, and the great consequence of control is lack of relationship.
Amazing quote
In my experience, this seems to come up most obviously in our obsession with systems and programs as a way to achieve and quantify.”
So I think somehow we have to find ways to cultivate a sense of nobodyness.
The pastor views prayer and care as the centerpiece of their work, rather than an interruption.
reminds those of us who are pastors that the sheep are not ours. We are under-shepherds of the chief shepherd. We serve a role of stewardship, not ownership.
Stewardship not ownership is a helpful concept
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Toxic leaders wield their personalities to cement their power, relegating their followers to a position of dependence upon them rather than on Christ.
Toxic leaders create an unhealthy symbiosis between themselves and the organizations they lead, such that their absence would equal the collapse of the organization.
toxic leaders promise to “keep us safe, anoint us as special, and offer us a seat at the community table.”
in Divine Conspiracy you argue that we are always tempted by trying to do big things for God and neglecting the small things.
We should just get out of the business of seeking great things. Now, if we do that, then we will be more observant of the small things;
the call of every Christian is to mediate God’s kingdom to the world by living according to the invisible reign of God.
The goal is not generating a great and powerful ministry, but becoming weighty people who serve like Jesus.
We are tempted to tack Jesus onto things we are doing, while at the same time we are desperately afraid that he will undermine them.
Faith is the conviction of an unseen reality that we know to be true in Christ.
To lead is to do exactly what these biblical figures did, to set our eyes on the invisible country, the New Jerusalem, which is driven by an economy of love.
Leading here will mean that we will always be seen as suspicious. Leading here will entail pushing so hard against the stream that we’re seen as a nuisance at best, and incompetent or insubordinate at worst.
We too must realize that the most ardent opposition to the way from above—the way of Jesus—may come from within the church.
