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sabbath sacrament sacrifice safety salvation sanctification Satan sceptic science Scripture Scotland secrecy secularism security self-control self denial self esteem selfishness service sex Shakespeare ships significance silence simplicity sin sincerity sixties slander slavery sleep smoking snow socialism society solitude sorrow sovereignty of God speaking specialisation speed spelling spoonerisms sport spring state statistics stewardship strangers. strength study stupidity success suffering suicide superstition swearing sympathy
The sabbath is God's special present to the working man, and one of its chief objects is to prolong his life, and preserve efficient his working tone. The savings bank of human existence is the weekly sabbath. William G. Blaikie
M. Let us now see how far this command has reference to
us.
S. In regard to the ceremony [the resting one day in
seven], I hold that it was abolished, as the reality
existed in Christ.
M. How?
S. Because, by virtue of his death, our old man is
crucified, and we are raised up to newness of life.
M. What of the commandment then remains for us?
S. Not to neglect the holy ordinances which contribute to
the spiritual polity of the Church; especially to frequent
sacred assemblies, to hear the word of God, to celebrate the
sacraments, and engage in the regular prayers, as
enjoined.
M. But does the figure give us nothing more?
S. Yes, indeed. We must give heed to the thing meant by it;
namely, that being engrafted into the body of Christ, and
made his members, we cease from our own works, and so resign
ourselves to the government of God.
Calvin's Catechism for the Church at Geneva. - on the Fourth
Commandment
Sundays, quiet islands on the tossing seas of life. - S.W. Duffield
If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake -- if anyone set up its observance on a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall remove this encroachment on Christian liberty.- Luther
Luther, in speaking of the good by itself and the good for its expediency alone, instances the observance of the Christian day of rest, -- a day of repose from manual labour, and of activity in spiritual labour, -- a day of joy and cooperation in the work of Christ's creation. "Keep it holy", says he, "for its use's sake -- both to body and soul! But if anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, -- if anywhere anyone sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it -- to do anything that shall reprove this encroachment on the Christian spirit and liberty."... Samuel Tayler Coleridge (1772-1834), Table Talk
Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that
they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their
neighbors were dead and in Hell.
H. L. Mencken
In Hebrew thought the word 'rest ' has a positive meaning
and ' stands for consummation of a work accomplished and the
joy and satisfaction attendant upon this. Such was its
prototype in God...For mankind, too, a great task awaits to
be accomplished, and at its close beckons a rest of joy and
satisfaction that shall copy the rest of God. Before all
other important things, therefore, the Sabbath is an
expression of the eschatological principle on which the life
of humanity has been constructed...It teaches its lesson
through the rhythmical succession of six days of labour and
one ensuing day of rest in each successive week. Man is
reminded in this way that life is not an aimless existence,
that a goal lies beyond.'
Geoffrey B Wilson, Hebrews, Banner of Truth, 1970, p52,
quoting, G Vos, Biblical Theology, pp156-157.
Division has always been a disease of the church... The Love Feast, which should have been the sign and symbol of perfect unity, has become a thing of divisions and class distinctions. And here there is something which only the newer translations reveal. In the older translations, it is said that to eat and drink at the sacrament without discerning the Lord's body is the way to judgment and not to salvation. But in the best Greek text, the word Lord's is not included. The sin is not to discern the body; that is to say, not to discern that the church is a body, not to be aware of the oneness of the church, not to be aware of the togetherness in which all its members should be joined.... William Barclay (1907-1978), Ethics in a Permissive Society
He was the Word, that spake it:
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.
Dr. John Donne. 1573-1631. Divine Poems. On the Sacrament
There is more in sacramental bread than in common bread. Though the nature is not changed, the use is changed. It does not only nourish the body as it did before, but also it brings a bread with which it nourishes the soul. For as sure as we receive bread, so sure we receive Christ - not only the benefits of Christ, but Christ. Henry Smith
It is in spending oneself that one becomes rich. Sara Bernhardt
To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else. Bernadette Devlin b 1947
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. Jim Elliot
Unless a life is lived for others, it is not worthwhile. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world.-- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
Out of this nettle danger we pluck this flower safety -- Shakespeare, Henry IV pt 1
A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are for. John A. Shedd
If you play it safe in life, you've decided that you don't want to grow any more. Peter Thomson (1929-____)
You have perhaps waited for years to be freed from some need. For a long, long time you have looked out from the darkness in search of the light, and have had a difficult problem in life that you have not been able to solve in spite of great efforts. And then, when the time was fulfilled and God's hour had come, did not a solution, light, and deliverance come quite unexpectedly, perhaps quite differently than you thought?- Eberhard Arnold, "When the Time Was Fulfilled"
Salvation is free, ... but discipleship will cost you your life.-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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. Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bond-servant but now I am God's freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul.-- THOMAS BROOKS
No one is safe by his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God.... Cyprian (?-258)
The emphasis to-day is being put on the fact that we have to save men; we have not. We have to exalt the Saviour Who saves men, and then make disciples in His Name.- Oswald Chambers
Not a better salvation, but salvation better - Sinclair Ferguson on the experiences of OT & NT believers.
God Himself underwrites your battle and has appointed His own Son 'the Captain of your salvation.'-- William Gurnall
Take heart therefore, O ye saints, and be strong; your cause is good, God himself espouseth your quarrel, who hath appointed you his own Son, General of the field, called 'the Captain of our salvation,' Heb 2:10. - WILLIAM GURNALL
Tis no easy matter to be saved. 'Twas difficult work to Jesus Christ to work redemption for us. 'Tis difficult work to the Spirit to work grace in us, and to carry it on against corruptions, temptations, distractions. - PHILIP HENRY
Let men count it folly or frenzy or whatsoever. We care for no knowledge, no wisdom in the world but this - that man has sinned and God has suffered, that God has been made the sin of man and man is made the righteousness of God. RICHARD HOOKER
Often people think they are lost. They think that nothing in the world can help them. And then God looks and says, "It is time." And all at once everything looks different. Everything comes into a different light, and all at once you see that all is not lost, but won. Remember this, all is not lost in His eyes. "The lowly shall be lifted up, the first shall be last." - Ger Koopman , A Different Light
It is just like someone who is sick, and who believes the doctor who promises his full recovery. In the meantime, he obeys the doctor's orders in the hope of the promised recovery, and abstains from those things which he was told to lay off, so that he may in no way hinder the promised return to health...Now is this sick man well? He is sick in reality - but he is well on account of a sure promise of the doctor, whom he trusts, and who reckons him as already being cured...So he is at one and the same time time both a sinner and righteous. He is a sinner in reality, but righteous by the sure imputation and promise of God that he will continue to deliver him from sin until he has completely cured him. So he is entirely healthy in hope, but a sinner in reality. MARTIN LUTHER, commenting on Romans
Heaven have mercy on us all- Presbyterians and Pagans alike- for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.--Herman Melville,_Moby Dick_ ch 17 "The Ramadan"
We do not keep these commands to earn our salvation. Salvation comes only on the basis of the altar, which represented Christ‚s death in space and time. We must accept salvation with the empty hands of faith. Rather, the commands are the conditional statement in the midst of the unconditional promises. For example, do you as a Christian want to be forgiven existentially by God? Then have a forgiving heart toward other men. That is what Jesus was saying. - Francis Schaeffer
Are you still thirsting? Christ gives the invitation not only to others but to you. He is the fountainhead. He has died and is risen. He offers the only way to eternal life, asking only that you admit your need, raise the empty hands of faith, and accept His gift. What is eternal life? It is meaning in life now as well as living one‚s life forever. Drink deep. Jesus offers a brimming cup.- Francis Schaeffer
To live above
With saints we love,
Yes that will be glory.
To live below
With saints we know,
Well that's a different story.
There is no cruise control on the Christian life - Heard on a NY radio station 24 Oct 04
A saint is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God. - William Barclay
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
God designs that those whom He sanctifies...shall tarry awhile in this present evil world, that their own experience of temptations may teach them how great the deliverance is, which God has wrought for them.--David Brainerd- tract, 3 Februaury 1744
It is easier going out of the way when we are in, than going in when we are out.--John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Bypath Meadow
From easy choices, weakenings,
Subtle love of softening things,
(Not thus are spirits fortified;
Not this way went the Crucified;)
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
0 Lamb of God, deliver me.Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!
Amy Carmichael (1867-1951)
It's a blessed thing to die daily. For what is there in this world to be accounted of! The best men according to the flesh, and things, are lighter than vanity. I find this only good, to love the Lord and his poor despised people, to do for them and to be ready to suffer with them....and he that is found worthy of this hath obtained great favour from the Lord; and he that is established in this shall ( being conformed to Christ and the rest of the Body) participate in the glory of a resurrection which will answer all.-- Oliver Cromwell, letter to Sir Thmas Fairfax, 7 March 1646
Indeed the saints in themselves have no excellence as they are in and of themselves.... They are in themselves filthy, vile creatures and see themselves to be so. they have an excellence and a glory in them because they have Christ dwelling in them.... Tis some. thing of God. This holy heavenly spark is put into the soul in con version, and God maintains it there. All the power of hell cannot put it out.... Though it be small ... 'tis a powerful thing. It has influence on the heart to govern that, and brings forth holy fruits in the life, and won't cease to prevail 'til it has consumed all the corruption that is left in the heart and 'til it has turned the whole soul, as it were, into a pure, holy and heavenly flame. JONATHAN EDWARDS
One does not surrender a life in an instant . That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. -- Jim Elliot
Sheep and swine can both end up in the mire. Yet the essential difference in their two natures is quie visible from the reaction each has to its fallen condition. While sheep do stray and stumble into the mire, they quickly loathe the situation and struggle to get free. They may be dirty, but they desire to be clean. They may be stuck, but they bleat for their shepard to come and save them out of the muck. But swine, in keeping with their nature, wallow in the muck, content to stay there all day. JOHN ENSOR
Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society. Francis of Assisi
No sweat, no sanctification. Russ Gaippe
Our journey is up-hill, with a dead body upon our backs, the devil doing what he can to pull us down.-- Philip Henry
Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper, and where he finds only new gradations of anguish and precipices of horror. - Samuel Johnson: Rambler #69
This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness; not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not what we shall be but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished but it is going on; this is not the end but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified. -- MARTIN LUTHER
I am tempted to think that I am now an established Christian,--that I have overcome this or that lust so long,--that I have got into the habit of the opposite grace,--so that there is no fear; I may venture very near the temptation--nearer than other men. This is a lie of Satan. One might as well speak of gunpowder getting by habit of resisting fire, so as not to catch spark. As long as powder is wet, it resists the spark; but when it becomes dry, it is ready to explode at the first touch. As long as the Spirit dwells in my heart, He deadens me to sin, so that, if lawfully called through temptation, I may reckon upon God carrying me through. But when the Spirit leaves me, I am like dry gunpowder. Oh for a sense of this! - ROBERT M M'CHEYNE
Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. -- George Orwell
How can we feel our need of His help, or our dependence on Him, or our debt to Him, or the nature of His gift to us, unless we know ourselves.... This is why many in this age (and in every age) become infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church.... They have never had experience of His power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need. John Henry Cardinal Newman
I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that he is indeed our Master. ... John Newton (1725-1807)
A soul may be in as thriving a state when thirsting, seeking and mourning after the Lord as when actually rejoicing in Him; as much in earnest when fighting in the valley as when singing upon the mount. JOHN NEWTON
I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am. John Newton (1725-1807)
Just as the sinner's despair of any hope from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer's growth in grace. A.W. PINK
Jesus, like any good fisherman, first catches the fish; then He cleans them.Mark Potter
We must remember throughout our lives that in God's sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God's place for us, at each moment. -- Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People, Ch. 1
We are set for microwave, but God prefers to marinate. Dutch Sheets, Intercessory Prayer
The life of a Christian should be a meditation how to unloose his affection from inferior things. He will easily die that is dead before in affection.- R. Sibbes--Soul's Conflict
By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. We shall find ourselves advancing in our course; we shall feel the presence of God; we shall experience His love; we shall live in the enjoyment of His favour and in the hope of His glory... You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling; but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good the Lord is, and how evil you all are, and then prayer will mount on wings of faith to heaven. The sigh, the groan of a broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven, aye, into the very bosom of God. ... Charles Simeon (1759-1836)
Lord, come away;
Why dost thou stay?
Thy road is ready and thy paths made straight
With longing expectations wait
The consecration of thy beautious feet.
Ride on triumphantly; behold! we lay
Our lusts and proud wills in thy way.
Hosannah! welcome to our hearts: Lord, here
Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear
As that of Sion; and as full of sin --
Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein;
Enter and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor,
Crucify them, that they may never more
Profane that holy place
Where thou hast chose to set thy face.
And then if our still tongues shall be
Mute in the praises of thy deity,
The stones out of the temple wall
Shall cry aloud and call
Hosannah! and thy glorious footsteps greet.
... Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)
Thoughtfulness is the beginning of great sanctity. If you learn this art of being thoughtful, you will become more and more Christ-like, for his heart was meek and he always thought of others. Our vocation, to be beautiful, must be full of thought for others. ... Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)
When I was young,
I was so gay and mean,
And I drank and chased the girls
Just like young St Augustine.
St Augustine,
He got to be a saint.
So if I get to be one also,
Please, mama, don't you faint
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr --Cat's Cradle, Books of Bokonon ,
Bokonon's 14th Calypso
Sanctification is a supernatural thing; it is divinely infused. We are naturally polluted, and to cleanse, God takes to be his prerogative...Sanctification is a flower of the Spirit's planting. Thomas Watson "The Ten Commandments":
Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.'- John Wesley letter: 27 June 1760
The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. We have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to tear down. George Whitefield
Be content with no degree of sanctification. Be always crying out, "Lord, let me know more of myself and of thee." -- George Whitefield ,letter:
Give Satan an inch and he´ll be a ruler.
Kevin Lomax: Who are you?
John Milton: Oh there are so many names.
Kevnin Lomax: Satan?
John Milton: Call me Dad.
Devil's Advocate 1997
The natural response to denials of Satan's existence is to ask, Who then runs his business.-- J.I. PACKER
Do not mock the Gospels and say there is no Satan. Evil
is too real in the world to say that. Do not say the idea of
Satan is dead and gone. Satan never gains so many cohorts,
as when, in his shrewdness, he spreads the rumor that he is
long since dead.
Do not reject the Gospel because it says the Saviour was
tempted. Satan always tempts the pure--the others are
already his. Satan stations more devils on monastery walls
than in dens of iniquity, for the latter offer no
resistance.
Do not say it was absurd that Satan should appear to Our
Lord, for Satan must always come close to the godly and the
strong--the others succumb from a distance. --Fulton John
Sheen (1895-1979) _The Eternal Galilean_ [1936]
Satan watches for those vessels that sail without convoy. -- GEORGE SWINNOCK
A skeptic is one who won't take know for an answer.
Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
Vitamin C deficiency is apauling
Di-Hydrogen Monoxide is colourless, odourless and fatal
when inhaled.
This chemical, which has a pH even higher than concentrated
sulphuric acid, is being dumped in our rivers and
oceans.
Ban it now!
Heisenberg may have slept here...
The history of science resembles a collection of ghosts remembering that once they too were gods.-- David Berlinsky, theoretical mathematician
A lot of what we call science is actually faith in disguise. I think some people were desperately searching for something other than traditional Christianity, and they have elevated to the level of hard truth some things - notably about Darwin - that have not yet been proven beyond dispute. To believe in the theory of evolution is to me as much of an act of faith as to believe in Adam and Eve. I don't think it's been proven at all. I remember Piltdown Man, and the bones of that 'prehistoric ancestor of mankind' in Africa that turned out to be the bones of a pig. There is a lot of hoax and fraud in the contentions of science. The theory of evolution contains as much hypothesis as any religion. - Patrick Buchanan, Right Now! June 202
Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ. John Calvin
Unfortunately, 19th-century scientists were just as ready
to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an
obvious fact, as were 17th-century sectarians to jump to the
conclusion that any guess about Scripture was the obvious
explanation . . . . and this clumsy collision of two very
impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of
Science and Religion.
G K Chesterton {Saint Thomas Aquinas, Garden City, NY:
Doubleday Image, 1933, p. 88
It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.-- Charles Caleb Colton
Ultimate questions will always lie beyond the scope of empirical science as it is. ~Paul Davies, The Mind of God (1992)
There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. -- Daniel C. Dennett
Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution. -- Theodosius Dobzhansky
According to classical aerodynamics, it is impossible for a bumblebee to fly. Doctor Who
Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated Tyron Edwards
Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source offeeling, however springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image:science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.--Albert Einstein,_Ideas and Opinions_, p. 46 (1954)
It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.~Loren C.Eiseley, "Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It," (1958)
Science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit. It is one of the many forms of thought that have been developed by man, and not necessarily the best. It is conspicuous, noisy, and impudent, but it is inherently superior only for those who have already decided in favour of a certain ideology, or who have accepted it without ever having examined its advantages and its limits. -- Paul Feyerabend, in "Against Method"
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. -- Richard Feynmann
Anatomy is destiny-- Sigmund Freud
The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is
comparison of prediction with experience.
Milton Friedman (1912-____) : "Essays in Positive
Economics," 1953.
The superstition of science scoffs at the superstition of
faith.
James A. Froude (1818-1894) In "Isaac Asimov's Book of
Science and Nature Quotations," ed. Jason Shulman &
Isaac Asimov, 1988.
There is one particular angle to the stem-cell debate that nobody's addressing: the total silence of the anti-biotech left. For some reason, whenever Monsanto comes out with a genetically enhanced carrot or a faster-growing soybean, some white guy with faux dreadlocks and open-toed shoes is out there screaming about the end of the world. But when the NIH wants to crack open a human embryo so it can grow a new liver or human heart or just a plain old human in a petri dish, there's total silence. -- Jonah Goldberg
Modern science kills God and takes his place on the vacant throne. Science is the sole legitimate arbiter of all relavent truth.- Vaclav Havel (1936-).
Science is the topography of ignorance.-- O. W. Holmes
Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing. Victor Hugo
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power
of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled
the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the
highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is
greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there
for centuries.
Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, page 116
...the cosmology of a given age is not the result of
unilinear, "scientific" development, but rather the most
striking, imaginative symbol of its mentality- the
projection of its conflicts, prejudice and specific ways of
double-think onto the graceful sky.
Arthur Koestler
Science is the systematic classification of experience.- George Henry Lewes (1817-1878)
Science is methodology. As a belief system it's disastrous. ~Astronaut Ed Mitchell, BBC TV 11 Oct.1981
I suppose that every age has its own particular fantasy: ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Blaise Pascal, who thought himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us, it is the other way `round.... Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered [1969]
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.-- Sir Isaac Newton
There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes...that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls....Science enhances the moral values of life...because every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being.--Max Planck, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics_Where Is Science Going?_ pp. 168-69 (1932)
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. -- Max Planck
The scientific age with its urban-industrial culture is,
for all its magnificent achievements and intoxicating
success, in a very real sense a dark age. Its complete
bondage to nature has enclosed the mind and spirit of man in
a fast prison out of which, try as he may, he can find no
way of escape. The inability to perceive any longer the
reality of things invisible and unseen is a sickness of the
soul which cries out to be cured. The only way to dispel the
darkness of the present age and liberate it from the prison
within which it has become bound is to restore the proper
relationship of nature to supernature and of time to
eternity as an essential feature of external reality. Until
this can be accomplished, there is really very little that
the Church or Christianity in general has to offer to this
age.
W. G. Pollard
Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said, 'Let Newton be!'and all was light.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) Epitaphs
I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can
accept the existence of atoms.
Ernst Mach (1838-1916), Austrian physicist after whom Mach
numbers are named. in Robert Youngson, Scientific Blunders:
A brief history of how wrong scientists can sometimes be,
Robinson,1998
Bad science and bad religion simply swap roles, the former proclaiming Truth, the latter worshiping Doubt. -- Jeffrey Satinover
Christianity believes that God has created an external world that is really there; and because He is a reasonable God, one can expect to be able to find the order of the universe by reason. Francis A. Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man, Ch. 4
See how often science has altered its very basis. Science
is notorious for being most scientific in destruction of all
the science that has gone before it. I have sometimes
indulged myself in reading ancient natural history, and
nothing can be more comic.
In twenty years' time some of us may probably find great
amusement in the serious scientific teaching of the present
hour, even as we do now in the systems of the last century.
It may happen that in a little time the doctrine of
evolution will be the standing jest of schoolboys. --Charles
Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_
Volume 37 [1891]
Science can give us power over nature, but it cannot give us power over human nature.---- Thomas S. Szasz, remarks to graduates upon his receipt of honorary Doctor of Science degree from State University of New York, May 20, 2001
Historically, religion came first and science grew out of
religion. Science has never superseded religion, and it is
my expectation that it never will.
Arnold Toynbee
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will havejoined their sidewalks and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi.
Experience does not ever err; it is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments. -- Leonardo Da Vinci, _Notebooks_
In this modern world of ours many people seem to think that science has somehow made such religious ideas as immortality untimely or old fashioned. I think science has a real surprise for the skeptics. Science, for instance, tells us that nothing in nature, not even the tiniest particle, can disappear without a trace. Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation. If God applies this fundamental principle to the most minute and insignificant parts of His universe, doesn't it make sense to assume that He applies it to the masterpiece of His creation, the human soul? -- WERNER VON BRAUN
Science is a match that man has just got alight. He
thought he was in a room -- in moments of devotion, a temple
-- and that his light would be reflected from and display
walls inscribed with wonderful secrets and pillars carved
with philosophical systems wrought into harmony. It is a
curious sensation, now that the preliminary splutter is over
and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands and just a
glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and
around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty he
anticipated -- darkness still.
H. G. Wells, "The Rediscovery of the Unique", THE
FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, N. S. 50 (July 1891).
Even if all possible scientific questions be answered,
the problems of life have still not been touched at all.
L J J Wittgenstein, 1889-1951 Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus, 6.52 (1921), translation C. K. Ogden
and Frank Ramsey (1922)
Lord grant that Marshall Wade
May by Thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King.
National Anthem, circa 1745, the verse everyone omitsLand of the hill and heather
Land of the awful weather
Land where the midges gather
Scotland the brave.The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God!" he says with solemn air.They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps "Dundee's" wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name;
Or noble "Elgin" beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame:
The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heaven's command.Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, well-pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of God;"
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd!O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blestwith health, and peace, and sweet content!
And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd isle.
Robert Burns, The Cotter's Saturday NightFrom the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides!
R Burns "My Heart's in the Highlands (1790)
These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm.Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig. --Alfred Hitchcock
Asked by a Scot what Johnson thought of Scotland: "That it is a very vile country, to be sure, Sir" "Well, Sir! (replies the Scot, somewhat mortified), God made it." Johnson: "Certainly he did; but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr. S------; but God made hell." -- Hester Thrale Piozzi: Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson
We were by no means pleased with our inn at Bristol. "Let us see now, (said I), how we should describe it." Johnson was ready with his raillery. "Describe it,sir? Why, it was so bad that Boswell wished to be in Scotland!"--Boswell, Life of Johnson, of May 1776.
Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they would choose it. Johnson: "Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren." Boswell: "Come, come, he is flattering the English. you have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." Johnson: "Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home.- James Boswell: Life of Johnson
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England! -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Golf is an exercise in Scottish pointlessness for people who are no longer able to throw telephone poles at each other. -- Florence King, 1999
The child of Mary Queen of Scots,
A shifty mother's shiftless son
Bred up among intrigues and plots,
Learnèd in all things, wise in none.
Ungainly, babbling, wasteful, weak,
Shrewd, clever, cowardly, pedantic,
The sight of steel would blanch his cheek,
The smell of baccy drive him frantic.
He was the author of his line --
He wrote that witches should be burnt;
He wrote that monarchs were divine,
And left a son who -- proved they weren't! -- Kipling
Beautiful, glorious Scotland, has spoilt me for every other country! Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882) : Letter, 21 Aug 1869; in "The Mary Lincoln Letters," 1956.
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
Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand!...
Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel 1805
The fact that I am not a haggis addict is probably due to my having read Shakespeare. It is the same with many Englishmen. There is no doubt that Shakespeare has rather put us off the stuff.... You remember the passage to which I refer? Macbeth happens upon the three witches while they are preparing the evening meal. They are dropping things into the cauldron and chanting "Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog," and so on, and he immediately recognises the recipe. "How now, you secret, black and midnight haggis," he cries shuddering. - P.G. Wodehouse
Scripture
The Holy and Inspired Scriptures are sufficient of themselves for the preaching of the Truth. -- Athanasius, Contra Gentiles, I:1
Wonderful is the depth of thy words, whose surface is before us, gently leading on the little ones: and yet a wonderful deepness, O my God, a wonderful deepness. It is awe to look into it; even an awfulness of honour, and a trembling of love.... Augustine (345-430), Confessions
Just as the Holy Spirit came upon the womb of Mary, so He came upon the brain of a Moses, a David, an Isaiah, a Paul, a John and the rest of the writers of the divine library. The power of the Highest overshadowed them, therefore that holy thing which was born of their minds is called the Holy Bible, the word of God. The writing of Luke will, of course, have the vocabulary of Luke and the work of Paul will bear the stamp of Paul s mind. However, this is only in the same manner that the Lord Jesus might have had eyes like his mother s or hair that was the same color and texture as hers. He did not inherit her sins because the Holy Spirit has come upon her. If we ask, how could this be, the answer is God says so. And the writings of men of the Book did not inherit the errors of their carnal minds because their writings were conceived by the Holy Spirit and born out of their personalities without partaking of their fallen nature. If we ask, how could this be, again the answer is God says so. DONALD GREY BARNHOUSE, The Invisible War
Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. Isa. 66:2
We are to believe and follow Christ in all things, including his words about Scripture. And this means that Scripture is to be for us what it was to him: the unique, authoritative, and inerrant Word of God, and not merely a human testimony to Christ, however carefully guided and preserved by God. If the Bible is less than this to us, we are not fully Christ's disciples.... James Montgomery Boice, "The Preacher & God's Word"
There are no provisos to be laid down in point of faith; all is truth, and we must believe all. Faith does not single out its object; it does not pick and choose, but believes all that God has spoken.-- Samuel Bolton
Whenever His Wrd is set before us, we must tremble, because nothing is hid from Him.-- John Calvin, Commentary on Heb 4:13
Scripture will ultimately suffice for a saving knowledge of God only when its certainty is founded upon the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, these human testimonies which exist to confirm it will not be vain if, as secondary aids to our feebleness, they follow that chief and highest testimony. But those who wish to prove to unbelievers that Scripture is the Word of God are acting foolishly, for only by faith can this be known. John Calvin (1509-1564)
WE AFFIRM that the term hermeneutics, which historically
signified the rules of exegesis, may properly be extended to
cover all that is involved in the process of perceiving what
the biblical revelation means and how it bears on our
lives.
WE DENY that the message of Scripture derives from, or is
dictated by, the interpreter's understanding. Thus we deny
that the "horizons" of the biblical writer and the
interpreter may rightly "fuse" in such a way that what the
text communicates to the interpreter is not ultimately
controlled by the expressed meaning of the Scripture. -The
Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics
WE AFFIRM that since God is the author of all truth, all
truths, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and
cohere, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on
matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else. We
further affirm that in some cases extrabiblical data have
value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for
prompting correction of faulty interpretations.
WE DENY that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching
of Scripture or hold priority over it. -The Chicago
Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago2.html
I exhort and entreat you all, disregard what this man and that man thinks about such things, and inquire from the Holy Scriptures all these things. - Chrysostom
In the Scriptures be the fat pastures of the soul; therein is no venomous meat, no unwholesome thing; they be the very dainty and pure feeding. He that is ignorant, shall find there what he should learn. --Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
The inspiration of Scripture is a harmony of the active mind of the writer and the sovereign direction of the Holy Spirit to produce God's inerrant and infallibile Word to mankind. -- Brian Edwards book "Nothing But the Truth"
We believe that the Word contained in these books [viz., the Bible] has proceeded from God, and receives its authority from Him alone, and not from men. And inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all that is necessary for the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for men, nor even for angels, to add to it, to take away from it, or to change it. Whence it follows that no authority, whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but on the contrary, all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them.... The French Confession of Faith [1559]
1. Scripture is to be interpreted with confidence in and
openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
2. The scripture principle: Scripture is to be interpreted
in light of scripture, comparing scripture with scripture,
with openness to hear the whole Word of God, not just
selected parts of it.
3. The Christological principle: Scripture is to be
interpreted in light of God's central self-revelation in
Jesus Christ.
4. The rule of love: Scripture is to be interpreted in light
of the one commandment of God that summarizes all other
commandments -- love for God and for all our neighbors.
5. The rule of faith: Scripture is to be interpreted with
respect for the church's past and present interpretation of
scripture.
6. Scripture is to be interpreted in light of the literary
forms and historical context in which it was written.
7. Scripture is to be interpreted seeking the word and work
of the living God in our time and place.
8. Scripture is to be interpreted with awareness of our
limitations and fallibility and with openness to change our
mind and be corrected. "Reformed" means always being
reformed afresh by the Word of God."
Shirley Guthrie, [Professor Emeritus at Columbia
Theological Seminary, U.S.A.] Rules for Biblical
Interpretation in the Reformed Tradition
To wrestle with the theme of the Scriptures is your proper preparation for the rough things of human life, as we see it, and observe it, and are immersed in it. The Truth which is being spoken to you most clearly in the Scriptures is your only protection against cynicism and skepticism, just as it is your only protection against that false romanticism which is the modern cruel substitute for faith in God. --Sir Edwyn Clement Hoskyns
The case for inerrancy rests precisely where it has always rested, namely, on the lordship of Christ and his commission to the prophets and apostles, who were his representatives. Because it rests on Christ and his authority, the question of inerrancy will therefore remain a key doctrine of the evangelical church so long as Christ is Lord. Evangelicals must remember, however, that this basis must be set forth anew for every generation. What was adequate for Gaussen, Pieper, and Warfield is still valuable, but it is not necessarily adequate to serve as the foundation for the thinking of our generation. The case for inerrancy must be made anew with each presentation of the gospel teaching.... Kenneth S. Kantzer, "Evangelicals and the Doctrine of Inerrancy"
I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of Hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt. Martin Luther
If the scriptures do thoroughly direct men to know God in Christ, and save their own souls, why should we look any further? Now, they do not only furnish every private Christian with this knowledge; but the man of God, who is to instruct others, he needeth look no further, but is furnished out of the scripture with all things necessary to discharge his office. Therefore here we fix and rest, we have a sufficient rule, and a full record of all necessary Christian doctrine. THOMAS MANTON
[If] there be any difference among professed believers as to the sense of Scripture, it is their duty to tolerate such difference in each other, until God shall have revealed the truth to all. John Milton (1608-1674)
In the divine Scriptures, there are shallows and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade, and deeps where the elephant may swim.--John Owen
When evangelicals call the Bible "inerrant", part at least of their meaning is this: that, in exegesis and exposition of Scripture and in building up our biblical theology from the fruits of our Bible study, we may not (1) deny, disregard, or arbitrarily relativize, anything that the biblical writers teach, nor (2) discount any of the practical implications for worship and service that their teaching carries, nor (3) cut the knot of any problem of Bible harmony, factual or theological, by allowing ourselves to assume that the inspired writers were not necessarily consistent either with themselves or with each other. It is because the word "inerrant" makes these methodological points about handling the Bible, ruling out in advance the use of mental procedures that can only lead to reduced and distorted versions of Christianity, that it is so valuable and, I think, so much valued by those who embrace it.... James I. Packer (1926- )
God the Father is the giver of Holy Scripture; God the Son is the theme of Holy Scripture; and God the Spirit is the author, authenticator, and interpreter of Holy Scripture.... J. I. Packer (1926- )
If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of
His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive
any truth by my ministry: for I am verily persuaded, the
Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy
Word.
John Robinson (1576?-1625) to the "Mayflower" emigrants
First of all, there was nothing autonomous in the area of final authority. For the Reformation, final and sufficient knowledge rested in the Bible ˜ that is, Scripture alone, in contrast to Scripture plus anything else parallel to the Scriptures, whether it be the Church or a natural theology. Second, there was no idea of man being autonomous in the area of salvation. In the Roman Catholic position there was a divided work of salvation ˜ Christ died for our salvation, but man had to merit the merit of Christ. Thus there was a humanistic element involved. The reformers said that there is nothing man can do; no autonomous or humanistic religious or moral effort of man can help. One is saved only on the basis of the finished work of Christ as He died in space and time in history, and the only way to be saved is to raise the empty hands of faith and, by God‚s grace, to accept God‚s free gift ˜ faith alone. It was Scripture alone and faith alone. - Francis Schaeffer
Evangelical Christians need to notice, at this point,
that the Reformation said 'Scripture Alone' and not 'the
Revelation of God in Christ Alone'. If you do not have the
view of the Scriptures that the Reformers had, you really
have no content in the word 'Christ' --and this is the
modern drift in theology. Modern theology uses the word
without content because 'Christ' is cut away from the
Scriptures. The Reformation followed the teaching of Christ
Himself in linking the revelation Christ gave of God to the
revelation of the written Scriptures.
The Scriptures give the key to two kinds of knowledge --the
knowledge of God, and knowledge of men and nature. The great
Reformation confessions emphasize that God revealed His
attributes to man in the Scriptures and that this revelation
was meaningful to God as well as to man. There could have
been no Reformation and no Reformation culture in Northern
Europe without the realization that God had spoken to man in
the Scriptures and that, therefore, we know something truly
about God, because God has revealed it to man. - F A
Schaeffer, Escape From Reason Ch. 2 A Unity of Nature and
Grace pp21
God's Word will never pass away, but looking back to the Old Testament and since the time of Christ, with tears we must say that because of lack of fortitude and faithfulness on the part of God's people, God's Word has many times been allowed to be bent, to conform to the surrounding, passing, changing culture of that moment rather than to stand as the inerrant Word of God judging the form of the world spirit and the surrounding culture of that moment. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, may our children and grandchildren not say that such can be said about us. Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, p65
Men talk of "the mistakes of Scripture." I thank God that I have never met with any. Mistakes of translation there may be, for translators are men. But mistakes of the original word there never can be, for the God who spoke it is infallible, and so is every word he speaks, and in that confidence we find delightful rest. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_, Volume 39 [1893]
Most people are bothered by those passages in scriptures which they cannot understand. But for me, I always notice that the passages in scripture which trouble me the most are those that I do understand. Mark Twain
The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH, Chapter I, Section 6
We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.... The Westminster Confession of Faith
Q. 4. How doth it appear that the Scriptures are the word
of God?
A. The Scriptures manifest themselves to be the word of God,
by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the
parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all
glory to God; by their light and power to convince and
convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto
salvation: but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with
the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able fully to
persuade it that they are the very word of God.
WESTMINSTER LARGER CATECHISM
I learned the "Clowney Triangle" when I was at
Westminster Seminary. Essentially, it's a Hermenutical grid
&endash; "How do I understand the text in front of me?"
Step one: Answer the question as best you can "What did the
text mean to it's original audience?" This gets to immediate
context and the sitz im leben issues. This first question
puts us into a place where we hear the text speaking clearly
to its readers. This is the reason for understanding orginal
languages and cultural background, not so that we can
impress others, but so we can hear.
Step two: "How is this text understood in the flow of
redemptive history?" Now we move the context question to
encompass all of scripture and redemptive history with the
eye on how this text advances the story of grace. This keeps
us from isolating a text from the whole story or from
narrowing the grand story of redemption down too
narrowly.
Step three is "How does this text tell me about Jesus
&endash; the cross and resurrection?" This is the gospel
question &endash; how is this good news? No exegesis is
complete without it being focused on the person and work of
Christ (Luke 24:13-35).
Step four is finally the "us" question "How then does this
text speak to us?" This question is often asked too early.
It needs to wait until the other three steps have been
completed.
This is the reason I call it a square is because of the 4
points that must be made to move to the application. Most
aberrant exegesis can be traced to skipping one or more of
the four steps (e.g. To move from step 1 to step 4 is
moralism &endash; just do it. To move from 1 to 3 is
mysticism &endash; Jesus without a context, etc.).- Sam
Wheatley http://www.edmundclowney.com/
Love's secret is always to be doing things for God, and not to mind because they are such very little ones. --Frederick William Faber (1814-1863)
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. Robert Heinlein
The real constitution of things is accustomed to hide itself.-- Heraclitus
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself. - Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784
The claim that secularisation has its roots in Biblical faith and that it is the fruit of the Gospel has no substance in historical fact. Secularisation has its roots not in Biblical faith, but in the interpretation of Biblical faith by Western man; it is not the fruit of the Gospel, but it is the fruit of the long history of philosophical and metaphysical conflict in the religious and purely rationalistic world view of Western man. Of all the great revealed religions, Christianity alone shifted its centre of origin, from Jerusalem to Rome, symbolising the beginning of the Westernisation of Christianity and its gradual and successive permeation by Western elements that in subsequent periods of its history produced and accelerated the momentum of secularisation. This is why, for the Muslim, there are two versions of Christianity: the original true one, and the Western version of it.-- Banu Az-Zubair
There is no longer a Christian mind ... the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion -- its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal, the view which relates all human problems social, political, cultural to the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God's supremacy and earth's transitoriness, in terms of Heaven and Hell. --HARRY BLAMIRES
..sectarian governments with coercive sword power eliminate their dissenting opposition. The sectarian world brooks no opposition; s view of justice and liberty demands purity. Thus, hard line theocrats vehemently oppose genuine pluralism; any pluralism that permits "false religions" full opponent be tolerated in "Christian America". Similarly, sectarian secularists cannot tolerate even the teeny-tiniest vestige of religious symbolism in the square. The full exercise of the state's coercive power must be used to remove every creche or menorah from the town squares of America, which are to be kept purely and nakedly secular. - John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper's American Public Theology, Eerdmans, 2001, p 379
The coalition with Roman Catholics was born out of a cultural cobelligerance against the overwhelming and growing pressures of secularism in Dutch nineteeth century education. - - John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper's American Public Theology, Eerdmans, 2001, p 394
An important point is that the correlation between the death of religious faith and the death of peoples and civilisation is absolute. I believe that the death of Christianity in the soul of Western man, and its replacement by a more materialistic, hedonistic, individualistic, la dolce vita belief, and the embrace ofthe sexual revolution combined, mean that Western man has consumed a carcinogenic that is killing him. Peoples that no longer believe in the cult out of which their culture and civilisation came will not sustain that civilisation. And as TS Eliot said: "If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes". The Christian faith and belief in which Western man was marinaded for 2,000 years was fundamentally the immune system of the West, which warded off all manner of psychic infections. But Christianity has died, and been replaced by a new faith of secular humanism, which is having an effect on the West comparable to that of the HIV virus on a person. Eventually, it will kill us. - Patrick Buchanan, Right Now! June 2022
... a widespread secularization increasingly descends into a moral, intellectual, and spiritual nihilism that denies not only the One who is the Truth but the very idea of truth itself. - Charles Colson and others, Evangelicals & Catholics Together:The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,1994
It is nor secularism per se that differs with (sic) the central thrust of Christianity. But it is this persistent aim to resolve the pain of life, either through changing the outward world or through a personal accommodation to the world, that strikes directly against the core of a Christian view of life. - A J Conyers, The Eclipse of Heaven,, Inter Varsity Press, 1992 p.70.
The replacement of Christian with secular institutions is the culminating and critical result of the Industrial Revolution. That states should attempt to dispense with theological supports is one of the many crucial experiments that bewilder our brains and unsettle our way today. Laws which were once presented as the decrees of a god-given king are now frankly the confused commands of fallible men. Education, which was the sacred province of god-inspired priests, becomes the task of men and women shorn of theological robes and awe, and relying on reason and persuasion to civilize young rebels who fear only the policeman and may never learn to reason at all. Colleges once allied to churches have been captured by businessmen and scientists. The propaganda of patriotism, capitalism, or Communism succeeds to the inculcation of a supernatural creed and moral code. Holydays give way to holidays. Theaters are full even on Sundays, and even on Sundays churches are half empty. - Durant', Lessons of History pp. 48, 49
If the decline of Christianity created the modern political zealot--and his crimes--so the evaporation of religious faith among the educated left a vacuum in the minds of Western intellectuals easily filled by secular superstition. --Paul Johnson
Once Mel Gibson revealed himself to be, like the president, a person of serious religious faith, the gloves came off. Mel Gibson has done a major favor for serious faith, both Jewish and Christian, in America. He has made it "cool" to be religious, but in so doing he has unleashed the hatred of secular America against himself personally, against his work and against his family. God bless him. ---Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "Why Jewish groups passionately hate Mel Gibson" http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37963
There are advocates of state secularism who propose a 'neutral' non-religious basis for the constitution and institutions of society. But can a non-religious worldview ever be neutral? Surely it must embrace values of some sort, otherwise our national symbols would symbolise nothing and provide no basis for unity. A truly secular constitution rests on the fundamental assumption either that there is no God, or that the concept of God is utterly irrelevant to public life. The secular worldview is therefore neither neutral nor inclusive. Like any religious view, it imposes a set of assumptions on everyone who plays a part in public life. - Oliver Letwin MP E pluribus unum - agreeing to differ http://www.conservatives.com/news/article.cfm?obj_id=58240
We start from the idea that different faiths have an equal right to co-exist. We move on to conflate this proposition with the claim that all faiths are equally valid. From this point it is argued that exclusive claims to the truth by any one faith undermine the validity of other faiths and thus their right to coexist. Finally, exclusive claims to truth are seen as a basis for intolerance, which, the power of the state should be used to counter, or at least discourage.Hence the attack on faith schools from those who speak as if Muslim schools had caused riots in places were no such schools exist; or as if Catholic schools were tearing Scotland apart; or as if parish schools could bring sectarian conflict to the English shires. That such attacks should continue in the face of all the facts, testifies to a prejudice that has no place in our constitution. - Oliver Letwin MP E pluribus unum - agreeing to differ http://www.conservatives.com/news/article.cfm?obj_id=58240
Secularism in the Christian world was an attempt to resolve the long and destructive struggle of church and state. Separation, adopted in the American and French Revolutions and elsewhere after that, was designed to prevent two things: the use of religion by the state to reinforce and extend its authority; and the use of the state power by the clergy to impose their doctrines and rules on others. This is a problem long seen as purely Christian, not relevant to Muslims or for that matter to Jews, for whom a similar problem has arisen in Israel. Looking at the contemporary Middle East, one must ask whether this is still true--or whether Muslims and Jews may perhaps have caught a Christian disease and might therefore consider a Christian remedy. --Bernard Lewis, _What Went Wrong? - Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response_, cr. 2002, Oxford University Press
I can see little consistency in a type of Christian activity which preaches the gospel on the street corners and at the ends of earth, but neglects the children of the covenant by abandoning them to a cold and unbelieving secularism.-- J. Gresham Machen
There's no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible. Sean O'Casey
Secularists...... have, argues Richard Appignanesi, author of Introducing Existentialism, "found a fundamentalism of their own - political correctness". From banning religious messages on Christmas cards through talking of partners instead of spouses and then, more recently, calling for St Mary Magdalene school in Islington to change its name, which was deemed "divisive" in a multicultural society, the "thought police" have produced what Appignanesi calls "the slamming door of the liberal mind". Secularists, he believes, show as much of an interest in indoctrination as the religious groups they hate so much. - Cristina Odone http://www.newstatesman.com/nscoverstory.htm
I am asked why, as a Jew, I have led this fight to keep
the cross on the county seal.I have three responses.
First, I fear those who rewrite history. As I noted in a
previous column on this subject, when I was a graduate
student at Columbia University's Russian Institute, I
learned that a major characteristic of totalitarian regimes
is their rewriting of history. As a famous Soviet dissident
joke put it: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it's
the past which is always changing." Given the relationship
between changing the past and totalitarianism, those who
love liberty ought to be frightened by the ACLU and the
Board of Supervisors.
Second, I fear intolerance. And the move to expunge the
singular Christian contribution to an American county and
city is intolerant to the point of bigotry. No religious
Christians, despite their deep opposition to paganism, ever
objected to the pagan goddess that is many times larger than
the cross. I have found over and over that mostChristians
who preach faith are more tolerant than most leftists who
preach tolerance.
Third, and most important, I fear the removal of the
Judeo-Christian foundation of our society. This is the
real battle of our time, indeed the civil war of our time.
The Left wants America to become secular like Western
Europe, not remain the Judeo-Christian country it has always
been. But unlike the Left, I do not admire France and
Belgium and Sweden. And that is what the battle over the
seal of America's most populous county is ultimately about.
It is not about separation of church and state. It is about
separation of a county from its history. And it is about
separation of America from its moral foundations.
In 1834, 99 years before Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to
power, the great German poet Heinrich Heine, a secular Jew,
predicted what would happen if Christianity ever weakened in
Germany:
A drama will be enacted in Germany compared to which the
French Revolution will seem like a harmless walk in the
park. Christianity restrained the marshal ardor of the
Germans for a time, but it did not destroy it; once the
restraining guard is shattered, savagery will rise again . .
. the mad fury of the berserk of which Nordic poets sing and
speak.
That is what this American, this Jew, and millions of others
believe is at stake in the Left's attempt to impose a
redesign of the Los Angeles County seal and thereby redesign
America. -Dennis Prager
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20041116.shtml
The secular world -- especially its left -- fears and
rejects the language of good and evil because it smacks of
religious values and violates their moral
relativism.......
A major reason for the left's loathing of George W. Bush is
his use of moral language -- such as in his widely condemned
description of the regimes of North Korea, Iran and Iraq as
an "axis of evil." These people reject the central
Judeo-Christian value of the existence of objective good and
evil and our obligation to make such judgments. Secularism
has led to moral confusion, which in turn has led to moral
paralysis.
If you could not call the Soviet Union an "evil empire" or
the Iranian, North Korean and Iraqi regimes an "evil axis,"
you have rendered the word "evil" useless. And indeed it is
not used in sophisticated secular company -- except in
reference to those who do use it (usually religious
Christians and Jews).
Is abortion morally wrong? To the secular world, the answer
is "It's between a woman and her physician." There is no
clearer expression of moral relativism: Every woman
determines whether abortion is moral. On the other hand, to
the individual with Judeo-Christian values, it is not
between anyone and anyone else. It is between society and
God. Even among religious people who differ in their reading
of God's will, it is still never merely "between a woman and
her physician."
And to those who counter these arguments for God-based
morality with the question, "Whose God?" the answer is the
God who revealed His moral will in the Old Testament, which
Jews and Christians -- and no other people -- regard as
divine revelation.
The best-known verse in the Bible is "Love your neighbor as
yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). It is a reflection of the
secular age in which we live that few people are aware that
the verse concludes with the words, "I am God." Though
entirely secularized in common parlance, the greatest of the
ethical principles comes from God. Otherwise it is just
another man-made suggestion, no more compelling than "Cross
at the green, not in between. - Dennis Prager, The case for
Judeo-Christian values: Part II,January 11, 2005
I believe that pluralistic secularism, in the long run,
is a more deadly poison than straightforward
persecution.
Frank Schaeffer THE IMPORTANCE OF MONASTICISM IN OUR
CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY Orthodox Life No. 3,1996
We feel that universal human rights must be indivisible... Giving religious groups the right to discriminate against others (such as non- believers, unmarried cohabitees, the divorced, "adulterers", fornicators" and homosexuals) undermines the very concept of universal human rights and the freedom of individuals to self-determination and to create their own lives in their own way."(Original unknown. Quoted by the Secular Society - 2001)
I would much prefer to hear an " extremist " evangel (sic) promote self-control than listen to a political libertine treat the law as if it were a catacomb of escape hatches. In letting people of faith speak, we do not open the door to theocracy. We give them a chance to enrich and complicate public debate. When politicians declare religious arguments out of bounds, they not only condemn discourse to a level of stunning superficiality; they wage war on all faiths. There's nothing more dangerous or extreme than a politician determined to take the place of God. -- Tony Snow
We have forgotten that evil is infectious, as infectious as small-pox; and we do not perceive that if we allow whole departments of our life to become purely secular, and to create and maintain moral or immoral standards on their own, in time the whole of life is bound to become corrupt. ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Wicket Gate [1923]
For the last 250 years or so, secularists have waited patiently for the fulfilment of their prediction that religion would die out in the next generation or two. But religious people have been singularly uncooperative, and new strategies have developed for controlling this blight on human progress. If religion won't "wither away" as philosopher Richard Rorty has wished, then perhaps it can be privatized and thereby removed from influence on public life‚ - sort of like localizing an outbreak of the plague. Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.
Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.-- Malayan proverb
Most people want security in this world, not liberty. --Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) _Minority Report_ [1956] Security is when everything is settled. When nothing can happen to you. Security is the denial of life. Germaine Greer
Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others! --William Hazlitt (1778-1830) _Table Talk_ [1821-1822], "On Living to One's Self"
Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities are worth the risks. Shirley Hufstedler (1925-____)
Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is 'prisoners'. - Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world; but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home. C S Lewis ( The Problem of Pain)
There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.... Douglas MacArthur, 1955
Our house is made of glass . . . and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves.Joyce Carol Oates (1938-____) "American Appetites," 1
When we forget ourselves, we usually do something that everyone else remembers.
Having control over myself is nearly as good as having control over others.
Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly through the air? You are no better than a gnat. Conquer your heart--then you may become somebody. -- Khwaja Abdullah Ansari of Herat, 11thC
I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself. --Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) _Letter to Agostino Ricchi_ [May 10, 1537]
Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own. ~Sir Richard Burton
Who to himself is law no law doth need,
Offends no law, and is a king indeed.
George Chapman. 1557-1634. Bussy D'Ambois. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself. Winston Churchill
The "Inside-Out" approach to personal and self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self - with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.... Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.- Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) "Living Under Tension."
All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city;
he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he
cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he
cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to
reason.
Hugo Grotius
It's not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. Edmund Hillary
I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves. -- Samuel Johnson: Letter to Baretti (June 10, 1761)
Be charitable and indulgent to every one but thyself. Joubert (1754-1824)
If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking? Thomas a Kempis
All of the significant battles are waged within the self.--Sheldon Kopp
He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king. John Milton
The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself -- the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us -- that's where it's at. - Jesse Owens (1913-1980)
I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself. Peter the Great (1672-1725) Czar of Russia
It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the management of them. -- Francois de La Rochefoucald
Better[stronger] is he who controls his urges than he who captures a city.- Talmud
He that will not command his thoughts . . . will soon lose the command of his actions. --Thomas Wilson
You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself. -- Leonardo da Vinci
If you were to rise early every morning, as an instance of self-denial, as a method of renouncing indulgence, as a means of redeeming your time and of fitting your spirit for prayer, you would find mighty advantages from it. This method, though it seem such a small circumstance of life, would in all probability be a means [toward] great piety. It would keep it constantly in your head that softness and idleness were to be avoided and that self-denial was a part of Christianity... It would teach you to exercise power over yourself, and make you able by degrees to renounce other pleasures and tempers that war against the soul. ... William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728]
Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.
I read an article that said the way to achieve inner peace is to finish things I had started. Today I finished two bags of potato chips, a chocolate pie, bottle of wine and a small box of chocolate candy. I feel better already.
The relationships we have with the world are largely determined by the relationships we have with ourselves.... Greg Anderson, The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin. Tori Amos
The bad man is continually at war with, and in opposition to, himself. -- Aristotle
Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made. --Jacques Barzun, _From Dawn to Decadence_
SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement. -- Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary
He who knows himself best esteems himself least. --Henry George Bohn (1796-1884)
Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. -- Nathaniel Branden
An individual's self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change . . . . A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life. - Joyce Brothers(1928-____)
Most people with low self-esteem have earned it. -George Carlin
"Who is the world am I?" Ah, that's the great puzzle! ~Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The one sole thing in myself in which I glory is that I see in myself nothing in which I can glory. -- Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. --Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) _Orthodoxy_ [1908], "The Logic of Elfland"
Sever me from myself
that I may be grateful to you;
may I perish to myself
that I may be safe in you;
may I die to myself
that I may live in you;
may I wither to myself
that I may blossom in you;
may I be emptied of myself
that I may abound in you;
may I be nothing to myself
that I may be all to you.
Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536) [Dutch humanist
scholar]
There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond,
and to know one's self
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) In "Webster's Electronic
Quotebase," ed. Keith Mohler, 1994.
Be yourself, who else is better qualified? -- Frank J. Giblin
You've no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself -- and how little I deserve it.-- William Gilbert (1836-1911)
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.- Abraham J. Heschel
The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own. -- Eric Hoffer
When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself. -- Eric Hoffer
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem... Samuel Johnson
He had delusions of adequacy. - Walter Kerr (1913 &endash; 1996), on an unknown actor
Whatever else you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people. -- James Russell Lowell, _My Study Windows_, 1871
Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.-- H. L. Mencken
The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.--- Napoleon
Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Gluttony, or, as we call them these days, "geetting in touch with your sexuality," "raising your self-esteem," "relaxation therapy," and "being a recovered bulimic."-- P. J. O'Rourke, _The CEO of the Sofa_, 2001
It may be called the Master Passion, the hunger for self-approval.-- Mark Twain
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself. -- Mark Twain
Sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad. And I'm tired of making other people feel good about themselves. Homer Simpson
Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves Gene Fowler, "Skyline"
O take heed of this squint eye to our profit, pleasure, honour, or anything beneath Christ and heaven; for they will take away your heart ... that is, our love, and if our love be taken away, there will be little courage left for Christ. WILLIAM GURNALL
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -- John Andrew Holmes
A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. -- Thomas Henry Huxley
He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others
shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his
grandson rich.
Samuel Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good." -- Samuel Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights. ... Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims", 1804-1815
Where no man thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead of co-operating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is superior knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his neighbour. -- Samuel Johnson: Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain
There can be no place for self entirely - Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) to his captains.
The world is living today in what might be described as an era of carnality, which glorifies sex, hates restraint, identifies purity with coldness, innocence with ignorance, and turns men and women into Buddhas with their eyes closed, hands folded across their breasts, intently looking inward, thinking only of self. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _The Cross and the Beatitudes_ [1937]
Religion should never become the subject of selfishness, yet I fear some treat it as if its chief end were personal spiritual gratification. When a man's religion totally lies in saving only himself and in enjoying holy things for himself, there is a disease within him. When his judgment of a sermon is based on the one question, "Did it feed me?" it is a swinish judgment. There is such a thing as getting a swinish religion in which you are yourself first, yourself second, yourself third, yourself to the utmost end. Did Jesus think or speak in that fashion? Contemplation of Christ Himself may be carried out so as to lead you away from Him. The recluse meditates on Jesus, but he is as unlike the busy, self-denying Jesus as any can be. Meditation, unattended by active service in the spreading of the Gospel among men, well deserves the rebuke of the angel, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?" Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)
The centre of trouble is not the turbulent appetites -- though they are troublesome enough. The centre of trouble is in the personality of man as a whole, which is self-centred and can only be wholesome and healthy if it is God-centred.--William Temple (1881-1944)
A lot of people want to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.
God likes help when helping people. -Irish Proverb
Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 B.C.
You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the
stage,
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,
You may be a business man or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
~Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody
What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other? -George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. -Albert Einstein
The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not "to have and to hold" but "to give and to serve." There can be no other meaning.--Wilfred T. Grenfell
We pause to recall what our country has done for each of us and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.- Oliver Wendell Holmes
God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him. - JOHN OWEN
As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712 - 1778)
I do not know which will be the destiny of each one of you; but one thing I know ‚ the only ones among you who will be really happy will be those who have sought and found the way to serve. -Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. -Robert Louis Stevenson
"Doesn't the futility of it all depress you,
Bernard?"
"Not really, Minister. I'm a civil servant."
Yes, Prime Minister - Jonathan Lynn & Anthony Jay
I used to kiss her on the lips, but its all over now.
Her kisses left something to be desired -- the rest of her.
Familiarity breeds children.
Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, you probably won't either.
A man who is old enough to know better is always on the look out for a girl who doesn't.
One day, shortly after having her 9th baby, the good Irish lady ran into her parish priest. He congratulated her on the new offspring, then said, "But isn't having nine babies a little much?." "Well," she said, "I don't know why I get pregnant so often, it must be something in the air." "Yes," replied the priest, "your legs."
Men won't buy the cow if they can get the milk free.
There is no wisdom below the girdle. 17th Century proverb
This I know........I have been preaching 23 years.......I have never performed a wedding where BOTH parties were virgins.-- Email from a pastor, 26 June 2000
It was the most fun I ever had without laughing. -- Woody Allen, Annie Hall
Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it;
but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
Francis Bacon Essays "Of Love" (1597)
We may all be inclined to think of man's countless foolish and selfish intentions, his twisted and mischievous words and deeds. From all these, sin can be known, as a tree can be known from its fruits. Yet these outward signs are not sin itself, the wages of which are death. Sin is not confined to the evil things we do. It is the evil within us, the evil which we are. Shall we call it our pride or our laziness, or shall we call it the deceit of our life? Let us call it for once the great defiance which turns us again and again into the enemies of God and of our fellowmen, even of our own selves. -- Karl Barth (1886-1968)
The sexual reality [after the sexual revolution] was often halfhearted and disappointing, much obsession but little passion--what D. H. Lawrence had called "sex in the head." Men and women did not benefit from the boasted "revolution" as they had expected; it did give some people the free play they wanted, but it pushed many more into courses unsuited to their nature and capacities. It did not install the Mohammedan paradise on earth, although everything in sight suggested that it had. Pornography is a form of utopian literature and, like the advertising of Desire, it set a standard that brought on paralysis. When an erectifying drug was put on the market, the millions who rushed to obtain it numbered the healthy young as well as the ailing old, and women at once demanded its feminine equivalent. It was apparently not known that desire must be dammed up to be self-renewing. -- Jacques Barzun, _From Dawn to Decadence_, 2000
Among men, sex sometimes results in intimacy; among
women, intimacy sometimes results in sex.
Barbara Cartland
The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable. Lord Chesterfield
It has been left to the last Christians, or rather to the first Christians fully committed to blaspheming and denying Christianity, to invent a new kind of worship of Sex, which is not even a worship of Life. It has been left to the very latest Modernists to proclaim an erotic religion which