Notes

Ten thousand talents is approximately six hundred thousand times more: R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 707.

“Woe unto you if you try to stand on your rights”: Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 213.

“The pattern of our forgiven-ness”: L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 166.

“Paul here makes two points”: N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), p. 147.

“Christ forgives through us”: Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), p. 200.

“Christ’s sacrifice relocates our lives as forgiven betrayers”: Jones, Embodying Forgiveness, p. 176.

information about Claypot: The story can be found at www.claypot.co.za.

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!”: Fanny J. Crosby, “Blessed Assurance” (1873).

“The Christian needs another Christian”: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), p. 23.

“I was more convinced than ever”: John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, vol. 21, Journal and Diaries IV, ed. Reginald Ward and Richard Heitzenrater (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992), p. 424 .

“Generosity is ‘other-centered,’ whereas greed is self-centered”: Matt Johnson, personal communication with the author, fall 2009. Matt is a pastor in Wichita, Kansas, who works with me in the Apprentice ministry.

The idealization of poverty is one of the most dangerous illusions”: Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 194, 199.

“We need a third way”: Shane Claiborne, quoted in School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, ed. the Rutba House (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2005), p. 32.

on living well: see David Wann, Simple Prosperity (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007), p. 61.

“the service of being served”: Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 119.

“Practicing frugality means we stay within the bounds”: Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 168.

our time to be generous is limited: I believe we will be able to be generous in heaven. I do not believe there will be money in heaven, for example, but we will have time, and I suspect we will be our unique selves, which can be a blessing to others. The point is that the way we give of our resources on earth will come to an end, thus making it more important to give while we can.

“Through Christ in the Spirit we respond”: J. D. Crichton, “A Theology of Worship,” in The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones et al. (London: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 11.

“When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago”: C. S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis, ed. W. H. Lewis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovan-ovich, 1966), p. 224.

not about “individual fulfillment” but the “constitution of a people”: James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), p. 153.

“One day when I went up there”: Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow (New York: Counterpoint, 2000), pp. 164-65.

“holy expectancy”: Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 140.

“Enter the service ten minutes early”: Ibid., p. 142.

“Just as worship begins in holy expectancy”: Ibid., p. 148.