{"id":6732,"date":"2010-03-03T00:04:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T05:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/"},"modified":"2010-03-03T00:04:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T05:04:00","slug":"eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>


<\/b>\"Peterson.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Eugene Peterson relentlessly chases an important idea in the opening part of his new book,\u00a0Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ<\/a>\"\"\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>. That idea is the need to strip ourselves of the romantic, it\u2019s-going-to-be-utopia versions of the church, and he makes it clear that you won\u2019t find that perfection in those early churches either. Not even at Ephesus.<\/p>\n

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What do you think of his forthright presentation of the church as composed of embarrassingly ordinary people? How often do you present the church this way?
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And he gets to the heart of a fundamental idea in our faith when he ties together the birth of Jesus and the birth of the Church:<\/div>\n
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\u201cGod gave us the miracle of congregation the same way he gave us the miracle of Jesus, by the Descent of the Dove.\u201d And I love his next statement:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt was a miracle that didn\u2019t look like a miracle, a miracle in the form of the powerless, the vulnerable, the unimportant \u2014 not so very different from any random congregation we might look up in the yellow pages of our telephone directories\u201d (25-26).<\/div>\n
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We see Christ as a scandal and a stumbling block; he wants to see the local church in the same way.<\/div>\n
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God could have chosen a different way: God could have chosen perfect people or made perfect people and set them down in a sinful world in a way that would show them up as so different, so perfect, and so glorious. God didn\u2019t. That\u2019s because that\u2019s the way God wants it.<\/div>\n
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He sees his task as one to tell the truth that dazzles gradually.<\/div>\n
To a congregation of \u201cembarrassingly ordinary people\u201d (28).<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eugene Peterson relentlessly chases an important idea in the opening part of his new book,\u00a0Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ\u00a0. That idea is the need to strip ourselves of the romantic, it\u2019s-going-to-be-utopia versions of the church, and he makes it clear that you won\u2019t find that perfection in those early churches either. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[484],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"yoast_head":"\nEugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 4<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Eugene Peterson relentlessly chases an important idea in the opening part of his new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 4\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eugene Peterson relentlessly chases an important idea in the opening part of his new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-03T05:04:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/Peterson-thumb-333x317-11765.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/\",\"name\":\"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 4\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-03-03T05:04:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-03-03T05:04:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Eugene Peterson relentlessly chases an important idea in the opening part of his new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/03\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-4\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 4\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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