The ordinary is not comfortable: Richard Stearns’ “radical” misreading

Sometimes misreadings are simply unhelpful and uninteresting, but sometimes they help us understand and clarify.  Richard Stearns’ misreading of my Christianity Today piece thankfully falls into the latter category.

“In a Christianity Today cover story, the author wrote that the Good Samaritan didn’t do any of the things we call radical today. Instead it was “as he traveled” that he did something ordinary. He helped a person out. We just need to be faithful, the author says, “in our corporate jobs, in our middle-class neighborhoods … reaching out in quiet, practical, and loving ways.” True. But that represents just the start of the all-in commitment that Christ calls us to.”