gratitude & hoopla: Oden on Grace (2)

gratitude & hoopla

"Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace." G. K. Chesterton

21.1.06

Oden on Grace (2)

In his introduction to The Transforming Power of Grace, Thomas Oden says that it takes grace to study grace.
Whatever grasp one may know of God's freeing address is enabled by grace. Whatever one may do in response to it is empowered by grace. (p.21)
We who have received grace upon grace do well to enter into the study of God's grace. Oden writes:
The study of grace illumines friendships, relationships, truth-telling, and inward spirituality. Neglect of this central teaching results in forgetfulness of how God accomplishes the salvation of humanity. (p.21)
But here is my favorite quote from the introduction:
The study of grace is the study of the empowerment of freedom. The freedom to which I refer is not political or economic freedom, but the more fundamental human freedom which secondarily expresses itself in political and economic life. The freedom we are most interested in enabling is classically called freedom from bondage to sin, freedom for living a life that is blessed. (p. 21-22)