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calling Calvin Calvinism Canada cargo cats celebrity certainty chance change character charismatic charity chastity cheerfulness chess children China chocolate choice Christ Christianity Christmas church church and state church leaders city civilisation civil war clairvoyant class Clinton coffee colours comfort common grace communication communism compassion complaints compromise computers confession confidence conflict conformity conscience consistency conservative conspiracy contentment controversy conversation courage covenant cowardice creation creativity credulity creeds cricket criticism Cromwell cross culture curiosity customer cynicism Czechoslovakia
If God gives the call, He gives the confidence. Steve Cleary
Many are called but few get up. - Oliver Herford(1863-1935 ) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994.
The call intended is the effectual call of the Holy
Spirit, by which the soul is renewed and translated from the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. The only
evidence of election is therefore vocation, and the only
evidence of vocation, is holiness of heart and life, for we
are called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our
Lord. Compare again Romans 8:29, where believers are said to
be "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son."
To this they are effectually called. They are made like
Christ. Fellowship includes union and communion. We are
called to be partakers of Christ; partakers of his life, as
members of his body; and herefore, partakers of his
character, of his sufferings here and of his glory
hereafter.
Charles Hodge (1797-1878), An Exposition of I
Corinthians
God doesn't call people who are qualified. He calls people who are willing, and then He qualifies them. - Richard Parker
God has called me to go, and I will go. I will blaze the trail, though my grave may only become a stepping stone that younger men may follow. - C. T. Studd Leaving his wife and four daughters in England, he sailed, contrary to medical advice, for the heart of Africa in 1910, where he continued to work until his death in 1931.
We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. A.W. TOZER
When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does
not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or
a s princes, who make their subjects favourites, and
afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness
of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's
call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable.
Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's
sins, but not their names.
THOMAS WATSON
After the reading of Scripture, which I strenuously inculcate, and more than any other ... I recommend that the Commentaries of Calvin be read ...For I affirm that in the interpretation of the Scriptures Calvin is incomparable, and that his Commentaries are more to be valued than anything that is handed down to us in the writings of the Fathers -- so much that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all. -- Jacobus Arminius
He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American independence. -- George Bancroft
Calvin's Institutes, in spite of its imperfections, is, on the whole, one of the noblest edifices ever erected by the mind of man, and one of the mightiest codes of moral law which ever guided him. -- Francois Pierre Guizot
Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which have had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes ....So long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct among us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social. 1792
Nothing is more dangerous than a Calvinist just off his knees.. - James Luther Adams quoted by Max Stackhouse, in his preface to, Religion, Pluralism and Public Life, ed Luis E Lugo, Eeerdmans, 200O.
[The Confession of Faith] infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva, and made it for the modern world, the impregnable fortress of popular liberty--the fertile seed-plot of Democracy.-- George Bancroft
There is no system which equals Calvinism in intensifying, to the last degree, ideas of moral excellence and purity of character. It has always worked for liberty. There never was a system since the world began, which puts upon man such motives to holiness, or builds batteries which sweep the whole ground of sin with such horrible artillery. -- Henry Ward Beecher
I come now to our doctrine. Many people condemn it out of prejudice, without hearing or exploring it. They are to occupied with some opinion or other that totally dulls the sharp edge of their minds. I am not going to mention the insults and even criminal acts that are imputed to us in an effort to keep everyone from tasting our doctrine. Only one thing can be charged against us, that we strive to call back to their own banner (namely, the Word of God) all those who are counted as belonging to Christ but have been wandering about wretchedly. We are also bringing it about that all controversy over the worship of God is settled on the basis of his Word, so that each person may believe what is established as being from God. What of our adversaries? They are making a counterfeit church, a short shield of Ajax, so that they may hide behind its empty facade. The prophets and apostles faced the same situation when they had to deal with men who were usurping, by their wicked beliefs, the very name of the church and its highest authority. John Calvin
That God works half and man the other half is false; that God works all and man does all is true. -- John Duncan
The promulgation of Calvin's theology was one of the longest steps that mankind has taken toward personal liberty. -- John Fiske
To the Calvinists, more than to any other class of men, the political liberties of Holland, England, and America are due. -- John L. Motley
I am a five point Calvinist and all the points are sharp! -- Ian Paisley
The strength of that heretic (John Calvin) consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea. -- Pope Pius IV (1559-1565)
The Calvinist has said, and said right bravely, that salvation is of grace alone; and the Arminian has said, and said most truthfully, that damnation is of man's will alone, and as the result of man's sin, and of that only. Then they have fallen out with one another. The fact is, they had each one laid hold of a truth, and if they could have put their heads together, and accepted both truths, it might have been greatly for the advantage of the Church of Christ. These two doctrines are like tram lines that you can travel on with safety and comfort, these parallel lines-ruin, of man; restoration, of God: sin, of man's will; salvation, of God's will: reprobation, of man's demerit; election, of God's free and sovereign grace: the sinner lost in hell through himself alone, the saint lifted up to heaven wholly and alone by the power and grace of God. Get those two truths thoroughly engraven upon your heart, and you will then hold comprehensively the great truths of Scripture. You will not need to crowd them into one narrow system of theology, but you will have a sort of duplicate system - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
When my spirit gets depressed, nothing will sustainit but the good old-fashioned Calvinistic doctrine. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_ Vol. 58 [1912]
I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the Gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the Gospel...unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah. Nor do I think we can preach the Gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of his elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend the Gospel which allows saints to fall away after they are called. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
I must confess I never would have been saved if I could
have helped it. As long as I could, I rebelled and revolted
and struggled against God. When he would have me pray, I
would not pray. When he would have me listen to the sound of
the ministry, I would not. And when I heard, and the tear
rolled down my cheek, I wiped it away and defied him to melt
my heart. Then he gave me the effectual blow of grace, and
there was no resisting that irresistible effort. It
conquered my depraved will and made me bow myself before the
scepter of his grace.
And so it is in every case. Man revolts against his Savior,
but where God determines to save, save he will. God never
was thwarted yet in any one of his purposes. Man does resist
with all his might, but all the might of man, tremendous
though it be for sin, is not equal to the majestic might of
the Most High.--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)_New Park
Street Pulpit_ Vol. 4 [1858]
In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations --it's cold, half French, and difficult to stir. -Stuart Keate
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedar wood, and sweet white wine.Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, ironware, and cheap tin trays.
John Masefield, Cargoes
If you throw a cat out a car window, does it become kitty litter?
I love cats ... they taste like chicken
A Good Cat Is A Flat Cat-- Australian feline control agency bumper sticke
So Many Cats So Few Recipes-- bumper sticker
I can make ANY cat go "woof". All you need is some gasoline and a match! -- Russell W. Laughlin
Ahh, the soothing o' the Pipes... Whenever I find myself missing its melodious sounds, I just toss the cat in the dryer on low heat... Jordan Montgomery
It is easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. Peole like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponisible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.--P.J. O'Rourke
Cats are a waste of fur.-- Rita Rudner
I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance -- a sharp, vindictive glance. -- James Thurber
You can judge a society by the kind of people it celebrates. - Woody Allen
I don't feel good about taking the platform, merely on
account of my celebrity. I believe that the people I support
are in a position to make a better argument for the cause,
based on facts and their expertise, than I am on the
authority of my celebrity.
Harrison Ford (1942-____) "Bad Grades Lead to Acting Career
for Harrison Ford," by Bob Thomas, Associated Press Writer,
Aug. 1993.
A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he doesn't know.-- H. L. Mencken
One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like. George Carlin
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything
appears to promise that it will last; but in this world
nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin. 1706-1790. Letter to M. Leroy,
1789.
Nothing in life is certain except Negative Patient Care Outcome and Revenue Enhancement.-- William Lutz, "DoubleSpeak"
It's not the bullet with my name on it that worries me. It's the one that says "To whom it may concern." - Anonymous
In order for [a] monkey to type the thirteen
letters opening Hamlet's soliloquy [-- To be or not to
be --] by chance, it would take 26 to the power of 13
trials for success. This is sixteen times as great as the
total number of seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of
our solar system.
Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things Pseudo
science, Superstition, and Other Confusions of our Time,
1997
Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
Most people are willing to change not because they see the light, but because they feel the heat.
Take change by the hand, or it will take you by the throat.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Change is good. You go first.~Scott Adams
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. -- Francis Bacon
Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix. - Christina Baldwin
The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.- William Blake, (1757-1827)
With whom would the just man not sit
To help justice?
What medicine is too bitter
For the man who's dying?
What vileness should you not suffer to
Annihilate vileness?
If at last you could change the world, what
Could make you too good to do so?
Who are you?
Sink in filth
Embrace the butcher but
Change the world: it needs it!
Bertolt Brecht
Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by those involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.~ Gerald Brenan
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. - Jimmy Carter (1924-____) Speech, 20 Jan 1977; quoting his teacher, Julia Coleman.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. --G.K. Chesterton: _Orthodoxy_
Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant. Anthony J. D'Angelo
Most women set out to change a man, and when they have
changed him they do not like him.
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) In "The Last Word - A Treasury
of Women's Quotes," by Carolyn Warner,1992.
Change is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant. -- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Change is an easy panacea. It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there. --Elizabeth Clarke Dunn
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. -- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
Be the change you want to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing endures but change. -- Heraclitus
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.... Aldous Huxley
Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it the next wish is to change again... Samuel Johnson
We may dig in our heels and dare life never to change, but, all the same, it changes under our feet like sand under the feet of a sea gazer as the tide runs out. Life is forever undermining us. Life is forever washing away our castles, reminding us that they were, after all, only sand and sea water.- Erica Jong: Parachutes and Kisses
Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. -- Joseph Joubert
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. --John F. Kennedy
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. - Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa (1896 -1957)
The only thing constant in life is change. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. -- C.S. Lewis
Whoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times. --Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) _Discourses_ [1517]
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. -- Karl Marx Theses on Feuerbach
We know that violent measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as socialism grows, religion will disappear. Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a part. -- Chicago Tribune Interview with Karl Marx
In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. -- John Henry Newman
To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. ---John Henry Newman, _The Development of Christian Doctrine_, 1834
There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature;the ages themselves glide by in constant movement. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
Through no amount of effort can a naturally wicked man
Be turned into an honest one.
However long you boil water,
It is impossible to make it burn like fire.
Saskya Pandita (1182-1251)Continuity does not rule out fresh approaches to fresh situations. - Dean Rusk (1909-____)
Change almost always represents improvement of the human condition.Constancy almost always represents stagnation. In any event, change is certain. There's no point in complaining about it. Natural history teaches that survival in a changing world does not depend on physical strength or on high intelligence. Survival depends on the ability to change. --Alex Sanders
Lucy: Do you think anybody ever really changes?
Linus: I've changed a lot in the last year.
Lucy:I mean for the better.--Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)
("Peanuts" comic strip)
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)_King Lear_ [1605], Act I, Scene iv, Line 371
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning. As Dostoevsky put it, 'Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.' The real fear should be of the opposite course." - Gail Sheehy
It is better to be old-fashioned and right than to be up-to-date and wrong.--- Tiorio
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ~ Voltaire
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.-- WARD, ARTHUR
So, when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns;
And 't is a poor relief we gain
To change the place but keep the pain.
Isaac Watts, _Hymns and Spiritual Songs_, 1707
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.--Harold Wilson
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.-- Woodrow Wilson
The only time a woman can really succeed in changing a man is when he is a baby. - Natalie Wood (1938 &endash; 1981)
Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.
A person's character and their garden both reflect the amount of weeding that was done in the growing season.
Character is not made in a crisis, it is only exhibited
Change is an easy panacea. It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there. --Elizabeth Clarke Dunn
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it. -- The Colloquies of Erasmus
Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.-- Ava Gardner , Quoted in: Roland Flamini, Ava, ch. 8 (1983)
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ~Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Anthony Gross, Lincoln's Own Stories (1912)
Small kindnesses, small courtesies, small considerations, habitually practiced in our social intercourse, give a greater charm to the character than the display of great talents and accomplishments.-- Mary Ann Kelty
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real
thing.
Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) in Gross _Lincoln's Own
Stories_ (1912) p. 109
Character is what you are in the dark.--Moody, Dwight L. (1827-1899 Attributed in William R. Moody _D. L. Moody_ (1930) ch. 66
Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.- Brooke Foss Westcott
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.-- John Wooden
A friend of mine is into Charismatic Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just fall down and......ooooooooo.., that's much better...
Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For that brief while they had no need of faith. The vision vanished, and the memory of it did not prevent them from all forsaking Him when He was arrested, or Peter from denying that he had ever known Him.-- W. H. Auden, A Certain World [1971]
The Fanaticism which discards the Scripture,under the pretence of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods. John Calvin
The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity. -- Benjamin Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield). 1805-1881. Speech, Nov. 25, 1864.
An erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved
more mischievous to the present glorious work of God, is a
notion that it is God's manner in these days to guide His
saints by inspiration, or immediate revelation.... As long
as a person has a notion that he is guided by immediate
direction from heaven, it makes him incorrigible and
impregnable in all his misconduct.
Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present
Revival of Religion in New England, p.1:404
The goal of revival is conformity to the image of Christ, not imitation of animals.-- Richard F. Lovelace
Charismania is pietism gone to seed. -- Dick Lucas
He who is not a charismatic when he is young has no heart. He who is still a charismatic when he is old has no brain. --Chris Stamper
One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. -- Andrew Carnegie
No, Sir; to act from pure benevolence is not possible for
finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity,
interest, or some other motive.
Boswell: Life of Johnson
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle. I own, indeed, there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity, than in spending it in luxury; though there may be a pride in that too. -- Boswell: Life of Johnson
The truth is, that luxury produces much good. Take the luxury of building in London. Does it not produce real advantage in the conveniency and elegance of accommodation, and this all from the exertion of industry? People will tell you, with a melancholy face, how many builders are in goal, not for building; for rents are not fallen. -- A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? how many labourers must the competition to have such things early in the market, keep in employment? You will hear it said, very gravely, 'Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal?' Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the idle poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labour, than when you give money merely in charity. -- Boswell: Life of Johnson
Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it. - John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1839 &endash; 1937)
Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. -- Augustine of Hippo
Serve God with gladness and cheerfulness of heart, as one that hath found the way of life, and never had cause of gladness until now. If you see your servant do all his work with groans, and tears, and lamentations, you will not think that he is well pleased with his master and his work.- Richard Baxter
The most certain sign of Wisdom is a constant cheerfulness. -- Montaigne
Any alleged Christianity which fails to express itself in cheerfulness, at some point, is clearly spurious. The Christian is cheerful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate. ... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Humor of Christ [1965]
Cheerfulness -- A state of mind free from gloom or dejection. It is the duty of every Christian, by faith in the goodness, power, and love of God, to cultivate a cheerful frame of mind, even though this may be difficult by reason of afflictions. -- J.G. Vos
As elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.--Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) on Chess
The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There's never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I'll buy some of the feminism. ~Pat Robertson
[Chess is] a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. G. B. Shaw
The best way to keep your kids out of hot water is to put some dishes in it.
Children brighten up a home: They always forget to turn out the lights!
Your child has started growing up when he stops asking you where he came from and starts refusing to tell you where he's going.
Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
A modest pat on the back develops character in children - if given young enough, often enough, and low enough.
Isn't it wonderful the way youngsters always brighten up the home? They never turn out the light!
Life's golden age is when the kids are too old to need baby-sitters and too young to borrow the family car.
Grandchildren are our reward for not strangling our children
In raising your children spend half as much money and twice as much time.
If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of the brush and the other end if the child.
Babies are such a nice way to start people.
Shouting at your children to get cooperation is about the same as steering your car using the horn... same results.
True genetics have nothing to do with hair and eye color. It's the occurrence of such things as "Who said life was FAIR?", and "Because I SAID so!" when you promised you'd never use those words on your kids.
When wings are grown, birds and children fly away.--Chinese Proverb
Under great oaks, only mushrooms grow.-- Russian proverb
It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children.--Kingsley Amis
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. James Baldwin
Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. --John Betjeman _Summoned by Bells_
Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. Prov. 17:6
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Prov. 22:6
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3John 4
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots ... the other, wings. --Henry Ward Beecher
I stopped believing in Santa Claus at age six when my mo ther took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph. -- Shirley Temple Black
If your baby is "beautiful and perfect, never cries or
fusses, sleeps on schedule and burps on demand, an angel all
the time," you're the grandma.
Theresa Bloomingdale
I have never understood, for example, how come a child can climb up on the roof, scale the TV antenna and rescue the cat--yet cannot walk down the hallway without grabbing both walls with his grubby hands for balance. Or how come a child can eat yellow snow, kiss the dog on the lips, chew gum that he found in the ashtray, put his mouth over a muddy garden house . . . and refuse to drink from a glass his brother has just used. ~ Erma Bombeck 1927-1996 , If Life is a Bowl of Cherries--What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978)
People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one" (Leo J.Burke)
There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.--- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, employ someone to do it, or forbid your children from doing it. --Monta Crane
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children. -- Clarence Darrow
Poverty is hereditary - you get it from your children" (Phyllis Diller)
Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. -- W. C. Fields
Your children need your presence more than your presents.--Jesse Jackson (1941- )
Kids today learn a lot about getting to the moon, but very little about getting to heaven. --David Jeremiah
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. -Franklin P. Jones
I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and
duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and
challenging as any honourable profession in the world and
one that demanded the best I could bring to it.
Rose Kennedy (1890-1995) "Words of Women Quotations for
Success," by Power Dynamics Publishing, 1997.
I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts -- spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. .. . There was only one gift he held back -- length of life.Rose Kennedy (1890-1995)
Babies:A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. Ronald Knox
Everyone who ever walked barefoot into his child's room late at night hates Legos. -- Tony Kornheiser
Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn't poor. -- Sam Levenson
The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.--Sam Levenson (1911 - 1980)
Remember, your basic assignment as a parent is to work yourself out of a job. --Paul Lewis
Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he is buying.-Fran Lebowitz
There are many things you can learn from children, like how many patience you have for instance (Fran Lebowitz)
A child of five would understand this. Send somebody to fetch a child of five. --Groucho Marx
If I'd realised how much fun grandchildren were, I'd have had them first!-- Faith Myers
I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.--Robert Orben
Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them. --P.J. O'Rourke
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. --Thomas Paine
If you treat children like grown-ups, they'll probably behave just as badly as the rest of us. Beryl Pfizer
One half of the children born die before their eighth
year. This is nature's law; why try to contradict it?
Jean Jacques Rousseau, "mile, ou de l'education", 1762
There is nothynge that more dyspleaseth God,
Than from their children to spare the rod.
John Skelton. Circa 1460-1529. Magnyfycence. Line 1954.
...each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late. -- Thomas Sowell
Children are a wonderful gift . . . They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.Desmond Tutu (1931-____)"The Words of Desmond Tutu," 1984.
Kids go where there is excitement. They stay where there is love. -- Zig Ziglar
The Japanese are only lice on the body of China, but Communism is a disease of the heart. Chinese saying, c. 1940
The Chinese are only too often ready to sweep the dust of reality under the carpet of appearance." --Dennis Bloodworth, _Chinese Looking Glass_, (1967)
The people there gave us a certaine Drinke called Chaa, which is only water with akind of herbe boyled in itt. It must bee Drancke warme and is accompted wholesome.-- Peter Mundy, _Travels in Europe and Asia_, 1637
And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food? -Bill Bryson_Notes from a Small Island_, 1996:
There are four basic food groups, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.
In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and He saw that it was good. Then He separated the light from the dark, and it was better.
It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man. --Miranda Ingram
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! --Lucy Van Pelt (in Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz)
God offers to everyone the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please--you can never have both. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our example can be our most persuasive influence for Christ. Do others imitate us because we model Him?
The closer we walk to the Shepherd, the farther we are from the wolf.
Our mind is where our pleasure is, our heart is where our treasure is, our love is where our life is, but all these, our pleasure, treasure, and life, are reposed in Jesus Christ. -- Thomas Adams
If He did not rise, but is still dead, how is it that He
routs and persecutes and overthrows the false gods, whom
unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits whom
they worship? For where Christ is named, idolatry is
destroyed and the fraud of evil spirits is exposed; indeed,
no such spirit can endure that Name, but takes to flight on
sound of it. This is the work of One Who lives, not of one
dead; and, more than that, it is the work of God.
Athanasius, On the Incarnation
Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.-- Augustine
Love always involves responsibility, and love always involves sacrifice. And we do not really love Christ unless we are prepared to face His task and to take up His Cross.... William Barclay (1907-1978)
Thank God, our Christian chance is not permanently gone from us [in world affiars]. Ecclesiastics seems for the most part to have failed, failed both man and God; but God has not failed, Jesus has not failed. The God-man still remains the only leader into cooperation whose wisdom is sufficient for a permanent, competent, and free Society. The dictators and would-be dictators will not do. They overreach themselves. Eventually they will destroy one another, and kill off most of us. But even that disaster will not eradicate the desire of men and women to lay down lives for that which is more than themselves. Men will continue to demand not the freedom from that degree of unity for which the dictatorships stand, but rather a finer, more noble, more perceptive kind of unity: a human solidarity which is not nationalistic but world-embracing, a human integration which in aim and purpose is not secularist but spiritual. What the world unwittingly is groping after is allegiance to the eternal, the compassionate, the completely integrating Christ.... Bernard Iddings Bell, Still Shine the Stars [1945]
The king is enthralled by your beauty; honour him, for he is your lord. --Ps. 45:11
Christ is the sun, and all the watches of our lives should be set by the dial of his motion.- Thomas Brooks
God has nowhere in the Scripture required any worthiness in the creature before believing in Christ.- Thomas Brooks
I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. - Thomas Brooks
Every thing that a man leans upon but God, will be a dart that will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ, lives the highest, choicest, safest, and sweetest life.- Thomas Brooks
The person of Christ is the object of faith. It is Christ in the promises that faith deals with. The promise is but the shell, Christ is the kernel; the promise is but the casket, Christ is the jewel in it; the promise is but the field, Christ is the treasure that is hid in that field; the promise is a ring of gold, Christ is the pearl in that ring; and upon this sparkling, shining pearl, faith delights most to look. Faith hath two hands, and with both she lays earnest and fast hold on King Jesus. Christ's beauty and glory is very taking and drawing; faith cannot see it, but it will lay hold on it. Christ is the principle object about which faith is exercised, for the obtaining of righteousness and everlasting happiness.- Thomas Brooks
The rattle without the breast will not satisfy the child; the house without the husband will not satisfy the wife; the cabinet without the jewel will not satisfy the virgin; the world without Christ will not satisfy the soul. -- Thomas Brooks
Christ is a most precious commodity, he is better than rubies or the most costly pearls; and we must part with our old gold, with our shining gold, our old sins, our most shining sins, or we must perish forever. Christ is to be sought and bought with any pains, at any price; we can not buy this gold too dear. He is a jewel more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have him. Get him, and get all; miss him and miss all. --THOMAS BROOKS
Christ never undertakes to heal any but he makes a certain cure, 'Those whom thou givest me I have kept, and none of them is lost' (John 17:12). Other physicians can only cure them that are sick, but Christ cures them that are dead, 'And you hat he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins' (Eph. 2:1). THOMAS BROOKS
I say, who can hear Jesus Christ speaking thus, and his heart not fall in love and league with Christ, and his soul not unite to Christ and resign to Christ, and cleave to Christ, and for ever be one with Christ, except it be such that are for ever left by Christ? Well, remember this, the more vile Christ made himself for us, the more dear he ought to be unto us. - THOMAS BROOKS
If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is 'of him' [1 Corinthians 1:30]. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects [Hebrews 2:17] that he might learn to feel our pain [cf. Hebrews 5:2]. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross [Galatians 3:13]; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.--John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia, 1960) II, xvi, 19, p. 297
... when Christ is included in the law, the sun shines forth through the midst of the clouds, so that men have light enough for their use; but when Christ is disjoined from it, there is nothing left but darkness, or a false appearance of light, that dazzles men's eyes instead of assisting them.- Calvin, commenting on 2 Corinthians 4:3
Having ingrafted us into his body, [Christ] makes us partakers, not only of all his benefits, but also himself. [Christ is not] received merely in the understanding and imagination. For the promises offer him, not so that we end up with the mere sight and knowledge of him, but that we enjoy a true communication of him. JOHN CALVIN
Shall we seek for the root of our comforts within us; what God hath done, what he is to us in Christ, is the root of our comfort. In this is stability; in us is weakness. Acts of obedience are not perfect, and therefore yield not perfect peace. Faith, as an act, yields it not, but as it carries us into him, who is our perfect rest and peace; in whom we are accounted of, and received by, the Father, even as Christ himself. This is our high calling. Rest we here, and here only.- Oliver Cromwell, Letter to Charles Fleetwood, 1652.
Out of the light that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be,
For Christ, the conqueror of my soul.
Since His the sway of circumstance,
I would not wince nor cry aloud.
Under that rule which men call 'chance,'
My head with joy is humbly bowed.
Beyond this place of sin and tears
That life with Him! And His the aid
Despite the menace of the years,
Keeps, and shall keep me, unafraid.
I have no fear, though strait the gate.
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate.
Christ is the Captain of my soul.
Dorothea Day
[Christ] feeds and gathers at once, and this gathering of souls is as sweetly refreshing and delightsome to our blessed Lord Jesus , as the plucking of the sweetest flower is to a man walking in a garden. And there is nothing more acceptable and welcome to him, than a seeking sinner....So long as our Lord Jesus has a church and ordinances in it, so he will continue to gather [his people], and he is not idle, but is still gathering; though at some times, and in some places, this may be more sensible and abundant than ordinary. - JAMES DURHAM
That peace, which has been described, and which believers enjoy, is a participation of the peace which their glorious Lord and Master himself enjoys, by virtue of the same blood by which Christ himself has entered into rest. It is in a participation of this same justification; for believers are justified with Christ. As he was justified when he rose from the dead, and as he was made free from our guilt, which had had as our surety, so believers are justified in him and through him; as being accepted of God in the same righteousness. It is the favour of the same God and heavenly Father that they enjoy peace. 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." It is in a participation of the same Spirit; for believers have the Spirit of Christ. He had the Spirit given him beyond measure, and of his fullness do they all receive, and grace for grace.-- Jonathan Edwards
Christ is like a river in another respect. A river is continually flowing, there are fresh supplies of water coming from the fountain-head continually, so that a man may live by it, and be supplied with water all his life. So Christ is an ever-flowing fountain; he is continually supplying his people, and the fountain is not spent. They who live upon Christ, may have fresh supplies from him to all eternity; they may have an increase of blessedness that is new, and new still, and which never will come to an end. JONATHAN EDWARDS
Christ is not only a remedy for your weariness and
trouble, but he will give you an abundance of the contrary,
joy and delight. They who come to Christ, do no only come to
a resting-place after they have been wandering in a
wilderness, but they come to a banqueting-house where they
may rest, and where they may feast. They may cease from
their former troubles and toils, and they may enter upon a
course of delights and spiritual joys.
JONATHAN EDWARDS
But Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when they come to see it they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in him; it sees that till now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance; that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean. The excellency of Christ is an object adequate to the natural cravings of the soul, and is sufficient to fill the capacity. It is an infinite excellency, such an one as the mind desires, in which it can find no bounds; and the more the mind is used to it, the more excellent it appears. Every new discovery makes this beauty appear more ravishing, and the mind sees no end; here is room enough for the mind to go deeper and deeper, and never come to the bottom. The soul is exceedingly ravished when it first looks on this beauty, and it is never weary of it. The mind never has any satiety, but Christ's excellency is always fresh and new, and tends as much to delight, after it has been seen a thousand or ten thousand years, as when it was seen the first moment. --JONATHAN EDWARDS
Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing
God on Earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for
Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He
shall give me a host of children that I may lead them
through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose
finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may
see Him, touch His garments, smile into His eyes -- ah then,
not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.
Jim Elliot (1927-1956)
There is nothing in history to parallel the influence of Jesus Christ.--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) _Journal_ [August 25, 1843]
To interpret Christ it needs Christ in the heart. The teachings of the Spirit can be apprehended only by the same spirit that gave them forth. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Fugitive Slave Law", speech at the Tabernacle, New York City, March 4, 1854
O come! And kiss the Son, by believing in Him, and applying the benefits of this glorious transaction to yourself; and be who you will, if you kiss and embrace the Son, you shall find the glorious attributes of God kissing and embracing you, and hugging you in their arms, as a darling of heaven and a favourite in the house of God. - RALPH ERSKINE
The determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ's past.-- Sinclair Ferguson
Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. -JOHN FLAVEL, Christ Altogether Lovely
Love Him in all His offices. See the goodness of God in providing such a sacrifice for thee. Meat, drink, and air are not more necessary to maintain thy natural life than the death of Christ is to give and maintain thy spiritual life. Oh, then, with a deep sense of gratitude in thy heart, let thy lips say, 'Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.' John Flavel
'He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how shall he not with him freely give us all things?' (Rom. 8:32). How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this, spirituals or temporals, from his people? How shall he not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally? How shall he not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them? Surely if he would not spare his own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.-- John Flavel
Do our desires after Christ lead us to effort, to use all the means of grace to accomplish His will? He is revealed in His Word; do we read it? He is preached in the gospel; do we hear it? He will be found of those who seek Him: do we seek Him? Are our desires atter Christ permanent or only a sudden fit of emotion, fear and impulse? If our hearts and our longing for union with Him are a work of grace, we will only be satisfied when we awake with His likeness. Nothing that this world affords can possibly take us from this goal. Do our desires after Christ spring from a deep sense of our need of Christ? Has conviction opened our eyes to see our misery, to feel our burden of sin, to understand our inability and to make us sensible that the remedy lies only in the Lord Jesus Christ? Bread and wine are made necessary by hunger and thirst. Christ becomes precious to those who need Him.--John Flavel
If the perfect Son of God is unattractive to you, then obviously you are an unattractive person. --John H. Gerstner, "A Primer on Free Will"
The Godhead of Christ is that which stamps value upon His sufferings and renders the whole of His obedience, in life and in death, infinitely meritorious and effectual. JOHN GILL
Your soul needs a Lover more than your floor needs carpet. --Brian Gordon
Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand. -- S. D. Gordon
No doubt the gospel is quite free, as free as the Victoria Cross, which anyone can have who is prepared to face the risks; but it means time, and pains, and concentrating all one's energies upon a mighty project. You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for oneís leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting... It takes all one's strength, and all oneís heart, and all oneís mind, and all oneís soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint. This is a business for adventurous spirits; others would shrink out of it. And so Christ had a way of pulling up would-be recruits with sobering and disconcerting questions, of meeting applicants ó- breathless and panting in their eagerness -- by asking them if they really thought they had the grit, the stamina, the gallantry, required. For many, He explained, begin, but quickly become cowed, and slink away, leaving a thing unfinished as a pathetic monument of their own lack of courage and of staying power. ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd [1924]
When Christ reveals Himself there is satisfaction in the
slenderest portion, and without Christ there is emptiness in
the greatest fulness.
ALEXANDER GROSSE
It is true, Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money, but, for thy comfort, here Christ is thy paymaster.-- William Gurnall
Can Christ be in thy heart, and thou not know it? Can one king be dethroned and another crowned in thy soul, and thou hear no scuffle?-- William Gurnall
The attributes of God were visible in their fullness on the day Jesus died. God's nature poured out on Golgotha in a cosmic flood of revelation, and the world quaked. Justice was done, mercy was granted, redemption was accomplished, power was displayed, holiness was vindicated, community was reestablished, perfect wisdom was demonstrated, and love ran wild. God ripped the veil of the invisible and sang through the life, death and resurrection of his son, "Here I am. This is what I look like. Worship!"...When the world asks, "What is God like?" we should be able to say, "Look at the church." As the body of Christ, we are to be like Jesus so that we too reveal God to the world. We are called to fully manifest in our communities and lives the core competencies of God as displayed by Christ. That means we strive to do justice, show mercy, pursue holiness, speak truth, enjoy beauty, create community, maintain unity, practice wisdom, and show love. That's what Jesus did. When he left, God did not leave the world without a witness. He left us. Our purpose is to be Christ in the world and display God in his fullness through our witness as individuals and communities. As we do that we join God's unrelenting quest to be known in all of his fullness, in the glory of his complete revelation. WILLIAM R. L. HALEY
My spirit has become dry because it forgets to feed on you. -- John of the Cross (1542-1591)
God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters. --John Henry Jowett (1841-1923)
Invisible in His own nature [God] became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, He chose to come within our grasp.... Leo the Great (390?-461)
Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.-- C. S. LEWIS
Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He as God...Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was part of God, or one with God:Therewould be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outsidethe world Who made it and was infinitely different from anything else. Andwhen you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips. C. S. Lewis
God could, had He pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape him. Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane. Otherwise, we should have missed the great lesson that it is by his will alone that a man is good or bad, and that feelings are not, in themselves, of any importance. We should also have missed the all important help of knowing that He has faced all that the weakest of us face, has shared not only the strength of our nature but every weakness of it except sin. --Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) _Letters of C.S. Lewis_ [1966], "23 February 1947"
First, draw off your hearts, because Jesus Christ, the Head, is risen and ascended upon high, and there sits at the right hand of His Father; and if the Head is in heaven, where should the members be but where the Head is? Shall Christ our Head be in heaven, and shall our hearts, which are His members, lie groveling on the ground and panting after the dust of the earth, making all our inquiry and labor after these? 'If Christ our Head be risen, seek those things that are above, where Christ sits at God's right hand. CHRISTOPHER LOVE
Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon Yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I am not. MARTIN LUTHER
Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be saved. Now choose what you want. --Martin Luther
Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry. --Martin Luther
It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. MARTIN LUTHER
In this life, Christ is an example, showing us how to live; in his death, he is a sacrifice, satisfying for our sins; in his resurrection, a conqueror; in his ascentions, a king; in his intercession, a high priest. - Martin Luther, 1483 - 1546
This is our great need, to be more like Christ, that His likeness may be seen in our lives; and this is just what is promised to us as we yield ourselves in full surrender to the working of His Spirit. Then, as we draw nearer to Christ, we shall be drawn nearer to His people; and in our search for unity with the members we shall be drawn closer to the Head.--G. T. Manley, Christian Unity 91;1945]
In the Scriptures there is a portrait of God, but in Christ there is God himself. A coin bears the image of Caesar, but Caesar's son is his own lively resemblance. Christ is the living Bible.-- THOMAS MANTON
I am born for God only. Christ is nearer to me than father, or mother, or sister -- a near relation, a more affectionate Friend; and I rejoice to follow Him, and to love Him. Blessed Jesus! Thou art all I want -- a forerunner to me in all I ever shall go through as a Christian, a minister, or a missionary. ... Henry Martyn (1781-1812)
For every look at self take ten looks at Christ. -- ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE
Our soul should be a mirror of Christ; we should reflect
every feature: for every grace in Christ there should be a
counterpart in us.
Robert Murray McCheyne, letter: 26 Feb 1840
In spiritual things, this world is all wintertime so long as the Saviour is away. - Robert Murray McCheyne letter FEBRUARY 9, 1839
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,
Anointed universal King; all power
I give thee, reign forever, and assume
Thy merits; under thee as Head Supreme
Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions I reduce:
All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide
In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.
John Milton, Paradise Lost [3.315-22]Effulgence of my Glory, Son belov'd,
Son in whose face invisible is beheld
Visibly, what by Deity I am.
John Milton, Paradise Lost BookoBook VI, 680 - 82
Philosophers try to solve the mysteries of the universe by their empty theories. Fools! They are like children who demand the moon for a toy. Christ never hesitates. He speaks with authority. His religion is a mystery, but it subsists by its own power. He seeks, and absolutely requires, the love of men, the most difficult thing in the world to get. Alexander, Caesar and Hannibal conquered the world, but had no friends. I am perhaps the only person today who loves them. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded empires, but upon what? Force! Jesus founded His empire on love, and at this hour millions would die for Him. I myself have inspired many people such that they would die for me. But my presence was needed. Now that I am in St Helena, where are my friends? I am forgotten, soon to return to the earth, and become food for worms. But Christ is proclaimed, loved and adored, and His eternal kingdom is extending over all the earth. Is this death? I tell you, the death of Christ is the death of a God. I tell you, Jesus Christ is God. --Napoleon I
The love I bear Christ is but a faint and feeble spark, but it is an emanation from himself: He kindled it and he keeps it alive; and because it is his work, I trust many waters shall not quench it.... John Newton (1725-1807)
We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.... John Owen (1616-1683)
Beholding of the glory of Christ...Herein would I live;--herein would I die;--herein would I dwell in my thoughts and affections, to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces. John Owen , (1616 - 1683) Complete Works I:291
Let us inquire whether we have found, or do find, this joy in our own hearts. Is the remembrance of the closing of our hearts with Christ a a song of loves unto us? Truly, if our loves be earnest and intent upon other things, we find joy and refreshment in them; but are we not dead and cold to the thoughts of this great and excellent advantage, of being espoused to Christ, as all believers are? If so, it is but a sad evidence we are truly so espoused. Alas! if a poor beggar, a deformed creature, should be taken into the espousals of a great prince, would she not be sensible of it? We are poor, deformed, woeful, sinful, polluted creatures; and for us to be taken into this relation with Jesus Christ!--where are our hearts? -- John Owen IX:467
The hearts of believers are like the needle touched by the loadstone, which cannot rest until it comes to the point whereunto, by the secret virtue of it, it is directed. For being once touched by the love of Christ, receiving therein an impression of secret ineffable virtue, they will ever be in motion, and restless, until they come unto him, and behold his glory.---J Owen, Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ
No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who does not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight.---J Owen, Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ
Herein, then, our present edification is principally concerned; for in this present beholding of the glory of Christ, the life and power of faith are most eminently acted. And from this exercise of faith does love unto Christ principally, if not solely, arise and spring. If, therefore, we desire to have faith in its vigor or love in its power, giving rest, complacency, and satisfaction unto our own souls, we are to seek for them in the diligent discharge of this duty; -- elsewhere they will not be found. Herein would I live; -- herein would I die; -- hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections, to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces.--J Owen, Meditations and discourses on the glory of Christ
Jesus Christ is the center of everything, and the object of everything, and he that does not know Him knows nothing of nature and nothing of himself. BLAISE PASCAL
Not only do we not know God, except through Jesus Christ, we do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ. --Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
When this divine Redeemer appears in His garments stained with blood, the sinking soul hails His approach, the fowls of the mountains take flight, the beasts of the earth slink off to their dens, the dreary stump pushes forth its shoots, and the voice sounds forth from the inmost depths of the soul, 'This is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.' -- J.C. Philpot
The early church fought the christological battle because
it believed that the gospel itself was at stake. I fully
agree. The divinity of Jesus is not a dispensable extra that
has no significance for our salvation. On the contrary, our
salvation depends on it. We can be saved only by God
Himself.
K Runia. Christianity Today 4.1.74
I know, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moon-light and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping, it seeth not what." --Samuel Rutherford (in a letter of Sept 7, 1637)
Alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits, for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me seen within this short time, is worth a world of worlds. - Samuel Rutherford letter FEBRUARY 9, 1637
Since He looked upon me my heart is not my own. He hath run away to heaven with it. Samuel Rutherford.
Brother, I may, from new experience, speak of Christ to you. Oh, if ye saw in Him what I see! A river of God's unseen joys has flowed from bank to brae over my soul since I parted with you. I wish that I wanted part, so being ye might have; that your soul might be sick of world, would seem to you then not worth a fig; time will eat you out of possession of it. - Samuel Rutherford, Letter XXVI. To JOHN GORDON OF RUSSO ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637
Setting aside the scandal caused by His Messianic claims and His reputation as a political firebrand, only two accusations of personal depravity seem to have been brought against Jesus of Nazareth. First, that He was a Sabbath-breaker. Secondly, that He was "a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners" -- or (to draw aside the veil of Elizabethan English that makes it sound so much more respectable) that He ate too heartily, drank too freely, and kept very disreputable company, including grafters of the lowest type and ladies who were no better than they should be. For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian Churches have laboured, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the Communion-table, founded Total Abstinence Societies in the name of Him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatre-going. They have transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and, feeling that the original commandment "Thou shalt not work" was rather half-hearted, have added to it the new commandment, "Thou shalt not play." ...Dorothy L. Sayers
It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all. -- Dorothy Sayers
Not Herod, not Caiaphas, not Pilate, not Judas ever contrived to fasten upon Jesus Christ the reproach of insipidity; that final indignity was left for pious hands to inflict. To make of His story something that could neither startle, nor shock, nor terrify, nor excite, nor inspire a living soul is to crucify the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.--Dorothy Sayers
For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is - limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death - he had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game, he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience from trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile. --DOROTHY SAYERS
Of late years, the Church has not succeeded very well in preaching Christ; she has preached Jesus, which is not quite the same thing. -- Dorothy Sayers
Loyalty to organizations and movements has always tended
over time to take the place of loyalty to the person of
Christ.'
Francis Schaeffer, letter 12 Nov 1954
The primary emphasis of biblical Christianity is the teaching that the infinite-personal God is the final reality, the Creator of all else, and that an individual can come openly to the holy God upon the basis of the finished work of Christ and that alone. Nothing needs to be added to Christ's finished work, and nothing *can* be added to Christ's finished work. -- Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ -- RICHARD SIBBES
Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear, but it does not cease to exist. We can be sure of its presence by tasting the water. Likewise, the indwelling Christ, though unseen, will be made evident to others from the love which he imparts to us." --Sadhu Sundar Singh
If Christ is an example, nobody needs him; but if he is a sacrifice, everyone does.--Fred Smith
Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus? Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should have your eye steadily fixed upon the cross. It is the incessant round of world, world, world; the constant din of earth, earth, earth, that takes away the soul from Christ. Oh! my friends, is it not too sadly true that we can recollect anything but Christ, and forget nothing so easy as him whom we ought to remember? While memory will preserve a poisoned weed, it suffereth the Rose of Sharon to wither. - C.H. Spurgeon
I am persuaded that all of your problems are conceived and born in the sinful belief that something or someone other than Jesus Christ can quench the thirst of our souls."--C. Samuel Storms
Grace will teach a Christian contentedly to take those potions that are wholesome, though they are not toothsome.-- GEORGE SWINNOCK
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat - and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet -
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
The Hound of Heaven -- by Francis Thompson (1859 &endash;
1907)
Behold, what manner of love is this, that Christ should be arraigned and we adorned, that the curse should be laid on His head and the crown set on ours.-THOMAS WATSON
Though we as Christians are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike Him, having the remainders of the flesh. THOMAS WATSON
Christ is the most cheap physician, he takes no fee. He desires us to bring nothing to him but broken hearts; and when he has cured us he desires us to bestow nothing on him but our love. THOMAS WATSON
Christ heals with more ease than any other. Christ makes the devil go out with a word (Mark 9:25). Nay, he can cure with a look: Christ's look melted Peter into repentance; it was a healing look. If Christ doth but cast a look upon the soul he can recover it. Therefore David prays to have a look from God, 'Look Thou upon me, and be merciful unto me' (Psalm 119:132). THOMAS WATSON
Christ is the most tender-hearted physician. He hath ended his passion but not his compassion. He is not more full of skill than sympathy, 'He healed the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds' (Psalm 147:3). Every groan of the patient goes to the heart of the physician. THOMAS WATSON
Christ never fails of success. Christ never undertakes to heal any but he makes a certain cure, 'Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost,' (John 17:12). Other physicians can only cure them that are sick, but Christ cures them that are dead, 'And you hat he quickened who were dead' (Eph 2:1). Christ is a physician for the dead, of every one whom Christ cures, it may be said, 'He was dead, and is alive again' (Luke 15:32). - THOMAS WATSON
Christ is the most bountiful physician. Other patients do enrich their physicians, but here the physician doth enrich the patient. Christ elevates all his patients: he doth not only cure them but crown them (Rev. 2:10). Christ doth not only raise them from the bed, but to the throne; he gives the sick man not only health but also heaven. THOMAS WATSON
Oh, beware! Do not seek to be something! Let me be nothing, and Christ be all in all.- John Wesley
Christ is God clothed with human nature. -- Benjamin Whichcote
Recognise that peace and forgiveness do not depend on feelings of piety but on Christ and on what He has done. John White
Jesus was God and man in one person, that God and man might be happy together again. -- George Whitefield
Thomas a Kempis speaks for all the ages when he
represents Jesus as saying to him, "A wise lover regards not
so much the gift of him who loves, as the love of him who
gives. He esteems affection rather than valuables, and sets
all gifts below the Beloved. A noble-minded lover rests not
in the gift, but in Me above every gift." The sustaining
power of the Beloved Presence has through the ages made the
sickbed sweet and the graveside triumphant; transformed
broken hearts and relations; brought glory to drudgery,
poverty and old age; and turned the martyr's stake or noose
into a place of coronation.
Dallas Willard, Hearing God [1999], p.45
He clothed himself with our lowliness in order to invest us with his grandeur.--Richardson Wright
I have but one passion -- it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ. ... Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
I don't understand Christianity, nor do I understand electricity, but I don't intend to sit in the dark until I do!
When we look at other Christians, let's not dwell on the burned-out stumps of their former life. Instead, let's celebrate and affirm the exciting new growth in their lives.
The Christian is not one who has gone all the way with Christ. None of us has. The Christian is one who has found the right road. --Charles L. Allen (1913- )
The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men. THOMAS ARNOLD
The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.... John Baillie (1886-1960)
We may not understand how the spirit works; but the
effect of the spirit on the lives of men is there for all to
see; and the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is
a Christian life. No man can disregard a religion and a
faith and a power which is able to make bad men good...
William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John (Vol.1)
Casual Christians Become Christian Casulties.--. K. A. Barden
The essence of the Christian religion consists therein: that the creation of the Father, destroyed by sin, is again restored in the death of the Son of God and recreated by the grace of the Holy Spirit to a Kingdom of God.--Herman Bavinck
See that your chief study be about heart, that there God's image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart. - RICHARD BAXTER
Christianity works while infidelity talks. She feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers the sick, and seeks the lost, while infidelity abuses her and babbles nonsense and profanity. "By their fruits ye shall know them."-- Henry Ward Beecher
No civilization other than that which is Christian, is worth seeking or possessing.-- Otto von Bismarck
Furthermore, [the unchristian environment] is the
place where we find out whether the Christian's meditation
has led him into the unreal, from which he awakens in terror
when he returns to the workaday world, or whether it has led
him into a real contact with God, from which he emerges
strengthened and purified. Has it transported him for a
moment into a spiritual ecstasy that vanishes when everyday
life returns, or has it lodged the Word of God so securely
and deeply in his heart that it holds and fortifies him,
impelling him to active love, toobedience, to good works?
Only the day can decide.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together
Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune. --Phillips Brooks
No true Christian is his own man. JOHN CALVIN
The Christian must be consumed with the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.... Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Christians neutralized into inactivity will be spectators of their country's free fall to collapse. -- John W. Chalfant, _Abandonment Theology_, 1996
My worth to God in public is what I am in private.--Oswald Chambers
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World, pt. 1, ch. 5,
1910
Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it has a God who knew his way out of the grave. G. K. Chesterton
At least five times, . . . with the Arian and the Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.--G K Chesterton{The Everlasting Man, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1925, p. 254}
There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions. - G.K. Chesterton ILN, 1/13/06
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.- G.K. Chesterton - ILN 8-11-28
As Christian feel the changing winds of political climate, the blasts against their values in the media, the exclusion of the Christian faith from educational institutions, they begin to sense the dangers of complacency and of pietistical world flight. -- Edmund P. Clowney, _The Christian and American Law_. 1998
Let any of those who renounce Christianity write fairly down in a book all the absurdities they believe instead of it, and they will find it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it.~ Charles Caleb Colton
Christophobia: the irrational fear of Christianity, and the moral system that it promotes. Usage: "You can't be serious! Anyone that thinks that way is just a 'Christophobe!' There's no point in considering what they say!"--Clayton Cramer
This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see--brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians -- and I am one of them. - Cyprian (?-258), a letter
There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table-land of a true character andof undying hope both for this world and the next.-- Jonathan Edwards
It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it. ... The Colloquies of Erasmus (1466?-1536)
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens... Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity.- James A. Garfield, preaching before he becamr president of the USA.
What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ - can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning. ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity [1952]
Jill transported to the land of Aslan is stranded in a strange forest because of pride and foolishness. She becomes extremely thirsty, finds a stream but a lion is there. The Lion bids her to come and drink. The voice was not like a man's but "deeper, wilder, and stronger" - a "sort of heavy golden voice". "May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?", said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its mountainous bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. "Will you promise not to - do anything to me if you do come?", said Jill. "I make no promise, " said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. "Do you eat girls?", she said. "I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms", said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. it just said it. 'I daren't come and drink", said Jill. "Then you will die of thirst", said the Lion. "Oh dear!", said Jill coming a step nearer. "I supposed I must go and look for another stream then." "There is no other stream", said the Lion. C. S. LEWIS, Silver Chair
The whole being of any Christian is Faith and Love...Faith brings the man to God, love brings him to men. ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)
The Christian should be a conscience in his group. His presence must never be used to provide a Christian justification for evil. To stand as a co-belligerent and not an ally will be to rally the middle ground for a genuine Third Way without mediocre compromise. The Third Way will not be easy. It will be lonely. Sometimes the Christian must have the courage to stand with the establishment, speaking boldly to the radicals and pointing out the destructive and counter-productive nature of their violence. At other times, he will stand as a co-belligerent with the radicals in their outrage and just demands for redress. The Christian is a co-belligerent with either or both when either or both are right, but... fearless in his opposition to either or both when they are wrong. ... Os Guinness, The Dust of Death [1973]
The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print. - WILLIAM GURNALL
The only reason reason any one should believe Christianity is that it is true. Its truth rests on historical facts which do not change, truths which are open to tests norammly applied to other events or claims. It is not a matter of whether it sells or whether it works or whether it feels good or provides meaningful experiences. What Christianity teaches is the correct explanation of reality.--DICK HALVERSON
That many Roman Catholics, past and present, are true Christians, is a palpable fact. It is a fact which no man can deny without committing a great sin. It is a sin against Christ not to acknowledge as true Christians those who bear his image, and whom He recognizes as his brethren. It is a sin also against ourselves. We are not born of God unless we love the children of God. If we hate and denounce those whom Christ loves as members of his own body, what are we? It is best to be found on the side of Christ, let what will happen. It is perfectly consistent, then, for a man to denounce the papacy as the man of sin, and yet rejoice in believing, and in openly acknowledging, that there are, and ever have been, many Romanists who are the true children of God.-Charles Hodge , Systematic Theology:
To the frivolous Christianity is certainly not glad tidings, for it wishes first of all to make them serious. --Kierkegaard, _Journal_, 1847
We are living "between the times" -- the time of Christ's
resurrection and the new age of the Spirit, and the time of
fulfillment in Christ. Life in the Spirit is a pledge, a
"down-payment", on the final kingdom of shalom. In the
meantime, we are to be signs of the kingdom which is, and
which is coming.
David Kirk (1935- )
Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed. -- C.S. Lewis--The Case for Christianity
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has
risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see
everything else.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), "Is Theology Poetry?"
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. CS Lewis
I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity. -- C. S. Lewis
It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. MARTIN LUTHER
The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations but also all of human thought. J. Gresham Machen
Jesus promised His disciples three things: that they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy, and that they would get into trouble. --W. Russell Maltby
Likewise, it's easy to see why the left fears Christians. People who worship political power, who want government to direct (and thus control) all things, who have effectively deified the state, cannot imagine anyone feeling otherwise. Like Tolkein's Sauron, the thought that anyone would choose to destroy the ring of power is beyond them. And because that power is today so pervasive, they not only covet it, but cannot permit it's falling into the hands of men with whom they disagree. - Rod D. Martin,TOWARD A CHRISTIAN CULTURE July 2002
We who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicated ourselves to the good and unbegotten God, who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different tribe, now since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly, to the end that they may become partakers of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all. --Justin Martyr
Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularised versions of Christianity which are being urged upon us for our acceptance today rest not upon a serious application of the methods of scientific scholarship nor upon a serious intuitive appreciation of the Gospels as a whole in their natural context, but upon a radical distaste for the supernatural. E. L. Mascall, The Secularisation of Christianity [1965]
The only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep it always under the tap.--Dwight L. Moody
There is one single fact, which we may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity, namely that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his deathbed. ~ Hannah More (1745-1833)
Marx and Freud are the two great destroyers of Christian civilization, the first replacing the gospel of love by the gospel of hate, the other undermining the essential concept of human responsibility.--Malcom Muggeridge, My Life in Pictures, NY: William Morrow & Co., 1987, p. 94
One can find innumerable dumb things said and done by Christians in the name of Christianity, both in the past and at present&emdash;perhaps especially at present. The propensity to say and do dumb things, and even wicked things, is simply part of human nature. One can blame the Church or Christianity for such things only on the thoroughly unwarranted assumption that Christianity claims to have abolished human nature.-- Richard John Neuhaus
The greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until
quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian
centuries, . . . have all assumed that the New Testament
promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama
of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the
master-drama of our existence. To suppose that these
distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly
and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally
exposed, would seem to me untenable; and anyway I'd rather
be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with
Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr Johnson,
Blake and Dostoevsky than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, the
Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.
Malcom Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge, ed. Geoffrey Barlow,
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985, pp. 32-33
I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether. --Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
Few things are more striking than the change which has taken place during my own lifetime in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the spokesmen of Christian opinion. When I was a child, bishops expressed doubts about the Resurrection, and were called courageous. When I was a girl, G. K. Chesterton professed belief in the Resurrection, and was called whimsical. When I was at college, thoughtful people expressed belief in the Resurrection "in a spiritual sense", and were called advanced; (any other kind of belief was called obsolete, and its professors were held to be simpleminded). When I was middle-aged, a number of lay persons, including some poets and writers of popular fiction, put forward rational arguments for the Resurrection, and were called courageous. Today, any lay apologist for Christianity... whose works are sold and read, is liable to be abused in no uncertain terms as a mountebank, a reactionary, a tool of the Inquisition, a spiritual snob, an intellectual bully, an escapist, an obstructionist, a psychopathic introvert, an insensitive extrovert, and an enemy of society. The charges are not always mutually compatible, but the common animus behind them is unmistakable, and its name is fear. Writers who attack these domineering Christians are called courageous.--Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957)
Evangelism is a calling, but not the first calling. Building congregations is a calling, but not the first calling. A Christian's first call is to step from the line of Cain into the line of Abel, upon the basis of the shed blood of the Lamb of God &emdash; to return to the first commandment to love God, to love the brotherhood, and then to love one's neighbor as himself.-Schaeffer, Francis A., Genesis in Time and Space_, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books) 1985.
The primary emphasis of biblical Christianity is the teaching that the infinite-personal God is the final reality, the Creator of all else, and that an individual can come openly to the holy God upon the basis of the finished work of Christ and that alone. Nothing needs to be added to Christ's finished work, and nothing *can* be added to Christ's finished work. -- Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster
Christianity is the easiest religion in the world, because it is the only religion in which God does everything; it is the hardest religion because it robs us completely of being autonomous. - Francis Shaeffer--The God Who is There
The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever. Massey H. Shepherd, Jnr., Far and Near
Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.-- George Bernard Shaw
Modernized, the Easter message means that God recycles human garbage. He can turn prostitutes like Magdalene into disciples, broken reeds like Simon Peter into rocks, and political-minded Simon Zealots into martyrs for the faith. God is the God of the second chance.-Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)_Those Mysterious Priests_ [1974]
While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism. --Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)
Obedience to Christ includes obedience to his commission
to go into the world, to preach the good news, and to make
disciples. But we cannot do this without taking account of
the context in which people live their lives, or of the
alter-natives to the gospel which they find attractive. Some
of our evangelism has been very superficial on this account.
We need to develop new strategies of evangelistic
penetration that will take seriously the cultural bondage in
which people are held and the need to soak ourselves in
their culture in order to interpret the gospel to them from
inside.
John R. W. Stott (1921- ), "Obeying Christ in a Changing
World"
Christianity is not a system of philosophy, nor a ritual, nor a code of laws; it is the impartation of a divine vitality. Without the way there is not going, without the truth there is no knowing, without life there is no living. MERRILL TENNEY on Jn 14:6
I think back to many discussions in my early life when we all agreed that if you try to take the fruits of Christianity without its roots, the fruits will wither. And they will not come again unless you nurture the roots. But we must not profess the Christian faith and go to church simply because we want social reforms and benefits or a better standard of behaviour - but because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous Cross/ on which the Prince of Glory died/ My richest gain I count but loss/ and pour contempt on all my pride.'--Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Church of Scotland General Assembly, 21.5.88
The true ground of most men's prejudice against the Christian doctrine is because they have no mind to obey it.--John Tillotson (1630-1694)
A Christian is one who has bet his life that Christ was right.-- David Elton Trueblood (1900-1994)
The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians -- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. --Sheldon Vanauken
If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed.--Voltaire
Oh, Christians, look to your steps! When you have prayed against sin, then watch against temptation. Such as are more excellent than others, God expects some singular thing from them. They should bring more glory to God and, by their exemplary piety, make proselytes to religion. Better fruit is expected from a vineyard than from a wild forest. - THOMAS WATSON
Though we as Christians are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike Him, having the remainders of the flesh. THOMAS WATSON
If the marks of discipleship were merely an orthodox creed‚ excited feeling‚ denominational zeal‚ flaming partisanship, then there are many that "find the way." But if the true travellers are men of broken heart‚ poor in spirit‚ who mourn for sin‚ who know the music of the Shepherd's voice‚ who follow the Lamb‚ who delight in the throne of grace‚ and who love the place of the cross, then there are but ‚ few