StephenBarkley.com

  Chapter 4: God Will Fight for Us Summary 1972: Here Yoder surveys key moments in Israel’s life where God fights so they don’t have to. This motif is grounded in the Exodus where Israel did nothing to destroy the Egyptians (Exodus 14:13). It continues on, being especially prevalent in 2 Chronicles. Even after the [...]

The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Stories © 1980 Eerdmans x+172 pages What comes to mind when you think of fairy tales? Children’s stories? One-dimensional fables? Moralistic illustrations? George MacDonald mastered and elevated the genre of “fairy tale” to something greater. The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Stories is one of four books published by [...]

Agape is related to Eros, as Mozart to Beethoven. How could they possibly be confused? —Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology, 201.

  Chapter 3: The Implications of the Jubilee Summary 1972: The thesis of this chapter is simple: Yoder believes that Jesus proclaimed a Jubilee year in his Nazareth sermon. (The entire chapter is an adaptation of André Trocmé’s work, Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution.) Yoder sets out to discover allusions throughout Jesus’ ministry to the [...]

Turn Left at Thursday © 1961 Ballantine 159 pages Turn Left At Thursday is a collection of three novelettes and three stories, although I’d call the “novelettes” short stories as well. The longest clocked in at 43 pages. These stories go beyond the usual golden age sci-fi fare. Rather than just setting adventure stories in [...]

One must learn not only to recite the words of Holy Scripture by rote but also to believe them with one’s heart and to remain steadfast in times of peril and in the hour of death. —Martin Luther, Luther’s Works Vol. 22: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 1-4, 258.

  Chapter 2: The Kingdom Coming Summary 1972: This second chapter is a tour through the Gospel of Luke designed to demonstrate that Jesus’ message was political and non-violent. Using one chapter to summarize an entire Gospel’s worth of evidence is difficult and Yoder strains at the task. He uses broad categories to plot the [...]

Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide: Advice, Plans, and Programs for Half and Full Marathons, Third Edition © 2005 Rodale 369 pages Higdon’s the man. He’s run 111 marathons, including seven in seven months to celebrate his seventieth birthday! In addition to this near superhuman record, he’s set up a online training program that’s helped thousands [...]

God’s grace is powerful enough to give even a man’s impure heart, hesitant will, weak head, and bad conscience the capacity to ask and answer meaningfully with respect to God and his work and word. —Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology, 168.

Evangelical Theology: An Introduction © 1963 Eerdmans 206 pages Here’s my first encounter with Karl Barth: I was asked to present a three minute profile of the man to my class in Bible College. I went to the library’s theological dictionary, thinking to find a one or two column profile I could regurgitate in class. [...]