reconciliation

It is a poor reconciliation which is obtained only by agreeing never to speak of the past. (xii)

A generation that was distinguished by its wars is followed by one that is devoted to the arts of peace; and sons may be proud of the deeds of their fathers, and yet not think it a part of loyalty to keep alive their hatreds. (xiii)

- Henry M. Field, introduction to The Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson)

communion with God, Trinity

The revelation of the Trinity, as opposed to the implied unitarianism of Judaism, can be explained only by the transformation of perspective brought about by Jesus. The Trinity belongs to the inner life of God, and can be known only by those who share in that life. As long as we look at God on the outside, we shall never see beyond his unity; for, as the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine realized, the external works of the Trinity are undivided. This means that an outside observer will never detect the inner reality of God, and will never enter the communion with him which is promised to us in Christ. Jews may recognize God's existence, and know his law, but without Christ they cannot penetrate the mystery of that divine fellowship which Christians call the Holy Trinity.

- Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God, pp. 119-120

getting buzzed vs. being drunk

"It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish... all food is a matter of freedom, even a modest drink for one's pleasure. If you do not wish to conduct yourself this way, if you are going to go beyond this and be a born pig and guzzle beer and wine, then, if this cannot be stopped by the rulers, you must know that you cannot be saved. For God will not admit such piggish drinkers into the kingdom of heaven [cf. Gal. 5:19-21]... If you are tired and downhearted, take a drink; but this does not mean being a pig and doing nothing but gorging and swilling... You should be moderate and sober; this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated."

- Luther, Sermon on Soberness and Moderation, May 18, 1539

on robes

“...no creature looks more stupid than a Dissenting preacher in a gown which is of no manner of use to him. I could laugh till I held my sides when I see our doctors in gowns and bands, puffed out with their silks, and touched up with their little bibs, for they put me so much in mind of our old turkey-cock when his temper is up, and he swells to his biggest. They must be weak folks indeed who want a man to dress like a woman before they can enjoy his sermon, and he who cannot preach without such milliner’s trumpery may be a man among geese, but he is a goose among men.”

- C.H. Spurgeon, John Ploughman's Talk

preaching-only is not good preaching

If you put in too much time in your study on your sermon you put in too little time being out with people as a shepherd and a leader. Ironically, this will make you a poorer preacher. It is only through doing people-work that you become the preacher you need to be–someone who knows sin, how the heart works, what people’s struggles are, and so on. Pastoral care and leadership (along with private prayer) are to a great degree sermon preparation. More accurately, it is preparing the preacher, not just the sermon. Through pastoral care and leadership you grow from being a Bible commentator into a flesh and blood preacher.

- Keller

weakness

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

-Theodore Roosevelt

sacrifice

The English bible was made in blood.

- David Daniell, speaking about William Tyndale's work

leadership

To lead is to choose.

- JFK (probably)

death bed conversion

The thief on the cross repented at the very last, but as a wise Puritan put it, God gave us one last minute conversion in Scripture so that no one would despair, but only one so that no one would presume.

- Doug Wilson

teaching truth, confronting error

A pastor needs two voices, one for gathering the sheep and the other for
driving away wolves and thieves. The scripture supplies him with the means
for doing both.

- Calvin
from: 2 Corinthians, Titus, 1-2 Timothy, Philemon
Qtd. in Strauch, Biblical Eldership, p. 236

signed: Anonymous

Never write what you dare not sign. An anonymous letter-writer is a sort of assassin, who wears a mask, and stabs in the dark. Such a man is a fiend with a pen. If discovered, the wretch will be steeped in the blackest infamy.


- CH Spurgeon

Correction and humility

"The heart of a fool can always find an excuse for ignoring correction."

"If we wait for perfect people to show up to point out our errors and our flaws, we'll die as fools."

- Josh Harris

history

History repeats itself because nobody listens.

- Laurence Peter

redeeming suffering

It is faith that transforms suffering into a cross.

- Gene Veith, God at Work (153).

concerning gleaning laws

...the biblical laws encourage landholders to be generous, sharing harvest blessings with less fortunate members of the community through regulations for the sabbatical year, gleaning, tithing, and ’scrumping’... (i.e.) entering an orchard without permission and helping oneself to fruit.... Israelites are reminded that they do not have absolute rights over the land and its produce, but have been privileged to live there by the divine owner and are dependent on him for its fertility.

- David Baker, Tight Fists or Open Hands?: Wealth and Poverty in Old Testament Law

quoted at Leithart.com

jonah

The primary purpose of the book of Jonah is to engage readers in theological reflection on the compassionate character of God, and in self-reflection on the degree to which their own character reflects this compassion, to the end that they become vehicles of this compassion in the world that God has made and so deeply cares about.

- Mark Futato, ESV Study Bible

Christian maturity

A mature Christian is easily edified.

- Harold Best

don't try to be clever when you preach

The true teacher should not seek to soar on the gaudy wings of brilliant oratory, pouring forth sonorous polished sentences in rhythmic harmony, but should endeavor to speak pointed Truths of God—things that will strike and stick—thoughts that will be remembered and recalled, again and again, when the hearer is far away from the place of worship where he listened to the preacher’s words.

- CH Spurgeon

on "Conservatism"

This is a party which never 'conserves' anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of 'conservatism'; it is now 'conservative' only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity; and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.

American 'conservatism' is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted?

- RL Dabney

faith

In Torgau a wretched little woman once came to me and said, 'Ah, dear Doctor, I have the idea that I'm lost and can't be saved because I can't believe.' Then I replied, 'Do you believe, dear lady, that what you pray in the Creed is true?' She answered with clasped hands, 'Oh, yes, I believe it; it's most certainly true!' I replied, 'Then go in God's name, dear lady. You believe more and better than I do.' It's the devil who puts such ideas into people's heads and says, 'Ah, you must believe better. You must believe more. Your faith is not very strong and is insufficient.' In this way he drives them to despair. We are so constructed by nature that we desire to have a conscious faith. We'd like to grasp it with our hands and shove it into our bosom, but this doesn't happen in this life

-Martin Luther, Table Talk

tenacity

The word impossible is not in my dictionary.

- Napoleon Bonaparte

the love of god

God is not the kind of father who casts off sick and erring children; if he were, he would have no children.

- Martin Luther

revenge

The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.

- Napoleon Bonaparte

preach the gospel

If the pope himself would lend me his pulpit, I would gladly proclaim the righteousness of Jesus Christ therein.

- George Whitefield

accomodation

Fellowship between faith and unbelief must sooner or later be fatal to the former.

- Horatius Bonar

teaching

The whole art of teaching is only awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

--Anotole France

teaspoon battles

A civilization may be wrecked without any spectacular crimes or criminals but
by constant petty breaches of faith and minor complicities on the part of men
generally considered very nice people.

- Herbert Butterfield

preach the gospel

If the pope himself would lend me his pulpit, I would gladly proclaim the righteousness of Jesus Christ therein.

- George Whitefield

read, study, teach, live

"In truth you cannot read too much in Scriptures;
and what you read you cannot read too carefully,
and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well,
and what you understand well you cannot teach too well,
and what you teach well you cannot live too well."

--Martin Luther, WA 53, 218;

fashion

The great guide of the world is fashion and its god is respectability--two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do; you watch the general current and then float upon it; you study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask--Is it fashionable? If it be fashionable, it must be done. Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.

- CH Spurgeon

Don't try to sound profound

It is not difficult to make easy things appear hard, but to render hard things easy is the hardest part of the work of preachers.

- Archbishop James Ussher

On the Lord's Supper

I would rather drink blood with a papist than mere juice with the Zwinglians.

- Luther, after Marburg in 1530

when tradition is wrong

Custom should yield to truth.

- Zwingli

perseverance

A great tree will fall with many small chops. Pray for daily grace to keep chopping.

- Piper

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.

- Spurgeon

we preach christ crucified...

Don’t preach in a way that a Muslim would approve. Preach a divine crucified Christ.

- Piper

faith and doubting

My mother [spoke to me] in those dark hours when the lamp burned dim, when I thought that faith was gone and shipwreck had been made of my soul. "Christ," she used to say, "keeps firmer hold on us than we keep on him."

My mother's word meant...that salvation by faith does not mean that we are saved because we keep ourselves at every moment in an ideally perfect attitude of confidence in Christ. No, we are saved because having once been united to Christ by faith, we are his forever. Calvinism is a very comforting doctrine indeed. Without its comfort, I think I should have perished long ago in the castle of Giant Despair.

- J. Gresham Machen, Selected Shorter Writings, 561

comforting, theology, and thoughtfulness

There is a way of using theology and theological arguments that wounds rather than heals. This is not the fault of theology and theological arguments; it is the fault of the "miserable comforter" who fastens on an inappropriate fragment of truth, or whose timing is off, or whose attitude is condescending, or whose application is insensitive, or whose true theology is couched in such culture-laden cliches that they grate rather than comfort.
...at the very least we ought to examine ourselves, our attitudes, and our arguments very closely lest we simultaneously delude ourselves and oppress others.

- Carson, For the Love of God, February 17 (on Job 16-17)

the hard work of learning

Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles.

Mortimer Adler

waiting on the lord

Let us not think that waiting on the Lord will mean getting less done. The truth is that by doing the Lord's work in the Lord's way we will accomplish more, not less. You need not fear that if you wait for God's Spirit you will not get as much done as if you charge ahead in the flesh. After all, who can do the most, you or the God of Heaven and earth?

- Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

new persuasions/beliefs

If ever I am inclined to turn to the opinion of any other sect: Resolved beside the most deliberate consideration, earnest prayer, etc, privately to desire all the help that can possibly be afforded me from some of the most judicious men in the country, together with the prayers of wise and holy men, however strongly persuaded I may seem to be that I am in the right.

- Jonathon Edwards, diary, May 21, 1725

Luther on prayer

Always make a good and hearty ‘Amen,’ and never doubt that God hears you and says ‘Yes!’ to your prayer. Further, always bear in mind that you are not standing or kneeling alone but the whole of Christendom is standing or kneeling with you. It is the Word of God and His promise which makes good your prayer, not your own devotion.

- Luther

I defy the pope and all his laws [against the Bible in the vernacular]. If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scripture than thou dost, and than the pope does.

- William Tyndale

persecution and suffering

Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out.

- Hugh Latimer, Oxford, 1555, to Nicholas Ridley as they were both about to be burned

sovereignty and responsibility

Gentleman, trust god and keep your powder dry.

- Oliver Cromwell

cultural interaction

Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.

Karl Barth

spurgeon the pastor

I am occupied in my small way, as Mr. Great-heart was employed in Bunyan's day. I do not compare myself with that champion, but I am in the same line of business. I am engaged in personally-conducted tours to Heaven; and I have with me, at the present time, dear Old Father Honest: I am glad he is still alive and active. And there is Christiana, and there are her children. It is my business, as best I can, to kill dragons, and cut off giants' heads, and lead on the timid and trembling. I am often afraid of losing some of the weaklings. I have the heart-ache for them; but, by God's grace, and your kind and generous help in looking after one another, I hope we shall all travel safely to the river's edge. Oh, how many have I had to part with there! I have stood on the brink, and I have heard them singing in the midst of the stream, and I have almost seen the shining ones lead them up the hill, and through the gates, into the Celestial City.

- Charles Spurgeon

Languages

One of the best preparations for death is a thorough knowledge of the Greek grammar.
- Prof. Philip Lindsay, quoted by Charles Hodge

The main point is, with all and above all, study the Greek and Hebrew Bible, and the love of Christ.
–John Wesley

Feel ‘poured out’ over a great many interests with intense desire to do but so little power and time to accomplish . . . Hebrew: I can think of nothing I’d like better than to be able to pick up a page of the Hebrew Old Testament and read it at sight. Greek loses a lot of its challenge when one gets to know a little.
– Jim Elliot, College Journals

For the devil smelled a rat, and perceived that if the [biblical] languages were revived a hole would be knocked in his kingdom which he could not easily stop up again. Since he found he could not prevent their revival, he now aims to keep them on such slender rations that they will of themselves decline and pass away. They are not a welcome guest in his house, so he plans to offer them such meager entertainment that they will not prolong their stay. Very few of us, my dear sirs see through this evil design of the devil.
—Martin Luther, 1524

In all sciences, the ablest professors are they who have thoroughly mastered the texts. A man, to be a good jurisconsult, should have every text of the law at his fingers’ ends; but in our time, the attention is applied rather to glosses and commentaries. When I was young, I read the Bible over and over and over again, and was so perfectly acquainted with it, that I could, in an instant, have pointed to any verse that might have been mentioned. I then read the commentators, but I soon threw them aside, for I found therein many things my conscience could not approve, as being contrary to the sacred text. ‘Tis always better to see with one’s own eyes than with those of other people.
– Martin Luther, Table Talk 33

I now studied much, about 12 hours a day, chiefly Hebrew . . . [and] committed portions of the Hebrew Old Testament to memory; and this I did with prayer, often falling on my knees . . . I looked up to the Lord even whilst turning over the leaves of my Hebrew dictionary.
– George Mueller, 1829 (twenty-four years old)

The more a theologian detaches himself from the basic Hebrew and Greek text of Holy Scripture, the more he detaches himself from the source of real theology! And real theology is the foundation of a fruitful and blessed ministry."
– Heinrich Bitzer, Light on the Path

In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah (Hebrew), but the language of his own people. So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair . . .
—Nehemiah 13:23-25

No second hand knowledge of the revelation of God for the salvation of a ruined world can suffice the needs of a ministry whose function it is to convey this revelation to men, commend it to their acceptance and apply it in detail to their needs–to all their needs, from the moment they are called into participation in the grace of God, until the moment when they stand perfect in God’s sight, built up by his Spirit into new men. For such a ministry as this the most complete knowledge of the wisdom of the world supplies no equipment; the most fervid enthusiasm of service leaves without furnishing. Nothing will suffice for it but to know; to know the book; to know it at first hand; and to know it through and through. And what is required first of all for training men for such a ministry is that the book should be given them in its very words [Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek] as it has come from God’s hand and in the fullness of its meaning, as that meaning has been ascertained by the labors of generations of men of God who have brought to bear upon it all the resources of sanctified scholarship and consecrated thought.
—B. B. Warfield

religious freedom

I do not agree with them. I do not support their teaching. I think it is wrong and false. But to burn up with fiery flame the living bodies of men who err through blindness of judgment rather than deliberate will is a hard thing and belongs more to the spirit of Rome than to the Spirit of the Gospel.

John Foxe, in defense of condemned Anabaptists

Lord's Supper

I would rather drink blood with a papist than mere juice with the Zwinglians.

- Luther, after Marburg

customs

Custom should yield to truth.

- Zwingli

leadership

Great leaders rally people to a better future.

Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing you need to know

old and new wineskins, old and new cloth

Right now, sorrow and fasting were frankly incongruous. The promised Messiah, the heavenly Bridegroom, was among them.
The truth, Jesus says, is that with the dawning of the kingdom, the traditional structures of life and forms of piety would change. It would be inappropriate to graft the new onto the old, as if the old were the supporting structure — in precisely the same way that it is inappropriate to repair a large rent in an old garment by using new, unshrunk cloth, or use old and brittle wineskins to contain new wine still fermenting, whose gases will doubtless explode the old skin. The old does not support the new; it points to it, prepares for it, and then gives way to it. Thus Jesus prepares his disciples for the massive changes that were dawning.

- Carson, For the Love of God, Vol. 1, commenting on Mark 2:18-22

whoever wants to be great among you...

Christian leadership is profoundly self-denying for the sake of others, like Christ’s ultimate example of self-denial for the sake of others. So the church must not elevate people to places of leadership who have many of the gifts necessary to high office, but who lack this one. To lead or teach, for example, you must have the gift of leadership or teaching (Rom. 12:6-8). But you must also be profoundly committed to principled self-denial for the sake of brothers and sisters in Christ, or you are disqualified.

- DA Carson
For the Love of God
commenting on Mat 20:26-27

blame someone else

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

-Mark Twain