'We Lost a Holy Hero, a Prophet': 6 Christian Pastors, Authors React to Eugene Peterson's Death
6. Russell Moore
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote on The Gospel Coalition that Peterson had many things to say to pastors and to Christians.
"But, really, he was just pointing our imaginations away from ourselves and toward awe and wonder — in the Bible, in the universe, in the local congregation, but all of it really pointed to awe in the presence of the One who holds it all together, a Jesus who loves us and is, in ways we can't adequately piece together now, calling us homeward," he wrote.
"Christ plays in ten thousand places, so Peterson tried to preach and write in ten thousand ways. He played as he worked, with the joy of a Christ-soaked imagination," he added.
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Moore, an author himself, suggested that one sermon could be used to illustrate Peterson's work, namely:
"'Here he is! God's Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I've been talking about' (John 1:29, The Message)."
"The exclamation points weren't in the original Greek, of course. That was Peterson's imagination at work and at play. The punctuation was there to point us to what was there in the words of John: awe in the presence of Jesus," he continued.
"Eugene Peterson can see Jesus now. And he no doubt realizes how temporal and fragmentary his awe was in light of what he experiences now. He leaves behind the people to whom he preached and taught and loved. And he leaves to those of us who never knew him personally the example of a long obedience in the same direction and a pile of books. But with all of that he left us one sermon. How we needed it, and how we need it still."
