The other day one of my students asked me, “In one sentence, why do you like Karl Barth?” There are probably many answers to that question but what came out of my mouth was, “When I read Barth, I find the gospel comes alive for me.”

And just now, I read this at Out of Bounds:

The other day I ‘caught’ a student in our library ‘just’ reading the Bible and when I jokingly questioned her she said ‘reading Barth makes me read the Bible.’ 

When a theologian has that effect on a student—as Barth did on me—the theologian is worth reading.