Apologies for the delay. I went and left work with my copy of this book still there the other day, so it's sorta been "outta site/outta mind" for a few days.

Our Basic Goodness (pgs. 97-98)

According to the apostle Paul, we all sin (Romans 3:23) and are under the power of sin (Romans 7:14-24). And as Luther has argued, we sin all the time, blatantly disregarding God and neighbor when we are at our worst, slyly proud and clandestinely selfish in our own achievements when we are at our best, or falsely humble when we see ourselves as unworthy.

But even if all of us are sinners from head to toe, none of us is a sinner through and through, with nothing good remaining in us. As sinners, we are still God's good creatures. To illustrate the relationship between being a good creature and being a sinner, Reformation theologians used the analogy of water and ink. Water is the good creation, ink is the sin, and the sinner is the glass of water with a few drops of ink. All the water in the glass is tainted, but it's still mostly water, not ink. Analogously, all our good deeds are marred by sin, but they are still mostly good deeds, not crimes masquerading as merits. Now apply this to gifts. We give gifts. None of them are pure. yet with all their impurities, many of them are still genuine gifts, not just hidden ways of loving ourselves.

If there's any author who could get away with writing something utterly unapproachable by mass audiences, it'd be someone like Volf. But the end product he cranks out is not merely approachable reading ... it's vivid and has a way of painting a picture that lasts with an attentive reader. It's not quite the same way of drawing parallels that someone like Max Lucado uses, but it's a nice midpoint between that and a more weighty tome.