Why is there suffering in our world?

Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

- Joni Eareckson Tada

King of kings

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, "Mine!"

- Abraham Kuyper

Mark Twain describes the average sentence in a German newspaper

An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it –after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb — merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out — the writer shovels in “haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument is finished.

- Mark Twain

procrastination is laziness in very thin diguise

Derek Kidner on the sluggard in Proverbs:

"[The sluggard] does not commit himself to a refusal, but deceives himself by the smallness of his surrenders.  So by inches and minutes, his opportunity slips away."

love covers a multitude of sins

If I do not give a friend "the benefit of the doubt," but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I take offense easily; if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love. For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.

If I say, "Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forget," as though the God, who twice a day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

- Amy Carmichael

study and the knowledge of God

It is possible to bury your head in a lexicon and arise in the presence of God.

- Edwyn Hoskyns

there are times when a man is his own devil

The Devil is not to be blamed for everything; there are times when a man is his own devil.

- Augustine

quoted in Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 2000, p. 241

Who needs prayer?

The church’s or Christian group’s methods are as important as its message. It is to deal consciously with the reality of the supernatural. Anything that exhibits unfaith is a mistake, or may even be a corporate sin. The liberal theologians get rid of the supernatural in their teaching, but the unfaith of the evangelical can in practice get rid of the supernatural.

May I put it like this? If we woke up tomorrow morning and found that all that the Bible teaches concerning prayer and the Holy Spirit were removed (not as a liberal would remove it, by misinterpretations, but really removed) what difference would it make in practice from the way we are functioning today? The simple tragic fact is that in much of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ – the evangelical church – there would be no difference whatsoever.  We function as though the supernatural were not there.

If the Church does not show forth the supernatural in our generation, what will? The Lord’s work done in the Lord’s way does not relate only to its message; it relates also to the method. There must be something the world cannot explain away by the world’s methods, or by applied psychology.

- Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality, in Complete Works of Francis A Schaeffer, 4.363.

The English bible was made in blood

The English bible was made in blood. 

- David Daniell, speaking about Tyndale's work

Scholars differ on the issue...

... more and more evangelical churches and institutions are overthrowing their heritage, sometimes on the superficial basis that scholars are divided on the issue. The truth is that scholars are divided on most theological issues, including even the doctrines of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ that validates him as the Son of God.  In other words, giving up a doctrine on the basis that scholars differ in their opinions shows that no doctrine is secure and the more liberal perspective and practice will prevail.  This is so because, if authorities differ - so the argument goes - one does as he or she thinks best. Anthony Thiselton, citing Robert Morgan, rightly notes that "some disagreements about what the Bible means stem not from obscurities in the text, but from conflicting aims of the interpreters."  Luther once said - borrowing from a saying of Euripides - that "whom God intends to destroy, he gives them leave to play with Scripture."

- Bruce Waltke, An OT Theology, p.236.

Gratitude

If you can't be thankful for what you recieve, be thankful for what you escape.

- Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Turning desire into policy

"Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy. "

- Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, p.370

On the Kaiser's hesitance which led the German administration not to use their navy in WWI.

The human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given in this life

If a man diligently followed his desire, pursuing the false objects until their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoning them, he must come out at last into the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given — nay, cannot even be imagined as given — in our present mode of subjective and spatio-temporal existence. . . .

- CS Lewis, Surprised by Joy

Augustine on Inerrancy

If you chance upon anything in Scripture that does not seem to be true, you must not conclude that the sacred writer made a mistake; rather your attitude should be: the manuscript is faulty, or the version is not accurate, or you yourself do not understand the matter.

- St Augustine (quoted by Kevin Vanhoozer in "Well-Versed Augustinian Inerrancy")

Much "Historical Jesus scholarship" is nothing more than self-reflection

The Christ that Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of "Catholic darkness", is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.

- George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross-roads, 1913, p.44.

How strange the views of "scholars"

There is a world - I do not say a world in which all scholars live but one at any rate into which all of them sometimes stray, and which some of them seem permanently to inhabit - which is not the world in which I live. In my world, if The Times and The Telegraph both tell one story in somewhat different terms, nobody concludes that one of them must have copied the other, nor that the variations in the story have some esoteric significance. But in that world of which I am speaking this would be taken for granted. There, no story is ever derived from facts but always from somebody else's version of the same story. ... In my world, almost every book, except some of those produced by Government departments, is written by one author. In that world almost every book is produced by a committee, and some of them by a whole series of committees. In my world, if I read that Mr Churchill, in 1935, said that Europe was heading for a disastrous war, I applaud his foresight. In that world no prophecy, however vaguely worded, is ever made except after the event. In my world we say, 'The first world-war took place in 1914-1918.' In that world they say, 'The world-war narrative took shape in the third decade of the twentieth century.' In my world men and women live for a considerable time - seventy, eighty, even a hundred years - and they are equipped with a thing called memory. In that world (it would appear) they come into being, write a book, and forthwith perish, all in a flash, and it is noted of them with astonishment that they 'preserve traces of primitive tradition' about things which happened well within their own adult lifetime.

- A. H. N. Green-Armytage, John Who Saw, 1952, p. 12f (cited in JAT Robinson, Redating the NT, p.356)

Can pursuing personal satisfaction lead to human flourishing?

I would probably say that the most significant challenge that we face today—a challenge with which many other significant issues are connected, such as poverty, ecological degradation, runaway technological developments, et cetera—is the notion that human flourishing consists in experientially satisfying life. Put differently, one of our main challenges is that we live in a culture of the managed pursuit of pleasures, not of the sustained pursuit of the common good. To me, that is one of the fundamental issues of the day. My horror-image, so to speak, of where we might go as a culture is what I have called in one place, the Hiltonization of culture—Paris Hilton as a paradigm of what culture becomes.
...
More abstractly, by Hiltonization of culture I mean [that] kind of fleeting life of self-interest and the pursuit of pleasure. This seems to me to be the main malaise of contemporary society, which of course is led by very powerful cultural currents and institutional arrangements. So I think one of the key issues for us is to think anew about the nature and character of human flourishing within the context of larger creation. So the project in which I am involved right now is entitled “God and Human Flourishing.” What is the relationship between our overarching interpretation of life and our account of human flourishing? For Christians, that means what is the relationship between who God is and how God is related to creation and what it means for us to flourish?

- Miroslav Volf

Thoroughgoing materialism

"I say that inner beauty doesn't exist. That's something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves." 

- Osmel Sousa, the longtime head of the Miss Venezuela pageant on the popularity of plastic surgery in Venezuela (NY Times Quotation of the Day, 7 Nov 2013)

My thoughts:

This is materialism in its most honest and consistent form: the only things that are real are those that we can see and touch and manipulate.  Somehow I don't think this leads to human flourishing.

Christian but definitely not Republican

"Well, what is a Christian, after all? Can we say that most of us are defined by the belief that Jesus Christ made the most gracious gift of his life and death for our redemption? Then what does he deserve from us? He said we are to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek. Granted, these are difficult teachings. But does our most gracious Lord deserve to have his name associated with concealed weapons and stand-your-ground laws, things that fly in the face of his teaching and example? Does he say anywhere that we exist primarily to drive an economy and flourish in it? He says precisely the opposite. Surely we all know this. I suspect that the association of Christianity with positions that would not survive a glance at the Gospels or the Epistles is opportunistic, and that if the actual Christians raised these questions those whose real commitments are to money and hostility and potential violence would drop the pretense and walk away."

...

"Something I find regrettable in contemporary Christianity is the degree to which it has abandoned its own heritage, in thought and art and literature. It was at the center of learning in the West for centuries—because it deserved to be. Now there seems to be actual hostility on the part of many Christians to what, historically, was called Christian thought, as if the whole point were to get a few things right and then stand pat. I believe very strongly that this world, these billions of companions on earth that we know are God’s images, are to be loved, not only in their sins, but especially in all that is wonderful about them. And as God is God of the living, that means we ought to be open to the wonderful in all generations. These are my reasons for writing about Christian figures of the past. At present there is much praying on street corners. There are many loud declarations of personal piety, which my reading of the Gospels forbids me to take at face value. The media are drawn by noise, so it is difficult to get a sense of the actual state of things in American religious culture."

- Marilynne Robinson

Silence in the face of evil is evil

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

- Bonhoeffer

a culture of decadence

When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label. A decadent culture offers opportunities chiefly to the satirist...

- Barzun, Dawn to Decadence, 11

the sin of respectable people

The sin of respectable people reveals itself in flight from responsibility.

- Bethge, on Bonhoeffer's decision to be involved with the Resistance.  Life Together, intro.

Freedom and bondage

Where there are no absolutes, society is the only absolute.

- James Hitchcock, summarizing the thought of Francis Schaeffer on the loss of objective reason in Western culture and the resulting desire for "freedom."

James Hitchcock, “Taking the Disease Seriously,” in Francis Schaeffer: Portrait of the Man and His Work, ed. Lane Dennis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1986) 81.

You can be saved without knowing when you were converted

“I hope I am saved,” says one, “but I do not know the date of my conversion.” That does not matter at all. It is a pleasant thing for a person to know his birthday; but when persons are not sure of the exact date of their birth, they do not, therefore, infer that they are not alive. If a person does not know when he was converted, that is no proof that he is not converted.

- Spurgeon, From sermon #2,000, "Healing by the Stripes of Jesus"

are you willing to learn from imperfect people?

HT: VitaminZ

Save time, avoid shortcuts

The shortcut that’s sure to work, every time:

Take the long way.

Do the hard work, consistently and with generosity and transparency.

And then you won’t waste time doing it over.
- Seth Godin

The letter of the law or the spirit?

For under the smooth legal surface of our society there are already moving very lawless things. We are always near the breaking-point when we care only for what is legal and nothing for what is lawful. Unless we have a moral principle about such delicate matters as marriage and murder, the whole world will become a welter of exceptions with no rules. There will be so many hard cases that everything will go soft.

GK Chesterton

On the justice of God

Though the mills of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
-Longfellow, "Retribution"

Vision casting

When you set goals, consider what could be and what should be for the glory of God.

don't wait for change, do it now

 It is wrong to long for a daydream future while ignoring the importance of what you can do in the present.
- paraphrase of Edith Schaeffer

I'd rather be inspired by people who suffer than suffer myself

I always wanted to be inspired by parents of kids with a disease, but I never wanted to be one.
- Anonymous, mother of child with life-threatening disease.

real sin, real sinner

“Confess your faults one to another” (Jas. 5:16).  He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.  It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness.  The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.  The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.  So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship.  We dare not be sinners.  Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous.  So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.  The fact is that we are sinners!

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you.  He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. “My son, give me thine heart” (Prov. 23.26).  God has come to you to save the sinner.  Be glad!  This message is liberation through truth.  You can hide nothing from God.  The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him.  He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you.  You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner.  Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates sin…

In confession the break-through to community takes place.  Sin demands to have a man by himself.  It withdraws him from the community.  The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.  Sin wants to remain unknown.  It shuns the light.  In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person.  This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.  In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into darkness and seclusion of the heart.  The sin must be brought into the light.  The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged.  All that is secret and hidden is made manifest.  It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted.  But God breaks the gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107:16).

Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned.  The sinner surrenders; he gives up all his evil.  He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother.

The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power.

- Bonhoeffer

I have a right to entertainment

All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
- Pascal

How to affect an entire generation

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

- Frederick Douglass

The relevance of the church and the indifference of the world

The Church is puzzled by the world's indifference. She is trying to overcome it by adapting her message to the fashions of the day. But if, instead, before the conflict, she would descend into the secret place of meditation, if by the clear light of the gospel she would seek an answer not merely to the questions of the hour but, first of all, to the eternal problems of the spiritual world, then perhaps, by God's grace, through His good Spirit, in His good time, she might issue forth once more with power, and an age of doubt might be followed by the dawn of an era of faith.

- J. Gresham Machen

what is church good for?

“I don’t need a church to tell me I’m wrong where I already know I’m wrong; I need a church to tell me I’m wrong where I think I’m right.” 
- G. K. Chesteron

Sin Boldly

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly,  but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world]  we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness,  but, as Peter says,  we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.  No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.

- Martin Luther to Phillip Melanchthon, August 1, 1521

interact with liberal theology, but make no peace with heresy

Don’t be fooled by those evangelicals who today spend their time praising the insights of liberals and non-evangelicals while trashing or mocking our evangelical forefathers for their intellectual peccadilloes. Make no mistake, God will be the ultimate judge of this contemporary evangelical tendency to turn a blind eye to great blasphemies in liberal theologians who happen to say the odd useful or orthodox thing, while excoriating evangelicals of the past for their mistakes. Too many gnats are strained out, while too many huge elephants are being swallowed whole. Our forefathers were not idiots; neither were they uncouth louts who responded with knee-jerk abuse and anger to any who disagreed with them; but neither were they prepared to play happy families with those whose theology was fundamentally opposed to the gospel. The issues at stake, issues after all, of eternal consequence, were, are, and always will be just too important to be reduced to intellectual parlour games or restricted by the protocols of academic diplomacy. Yes, interact with liberals in an informed and thoughtful manner - the church needs men and women for such a task; but please do not buy into the contemporary culture of evangelical academic protocol which leads only to a useless blurring of what is good with what is bad. Making unconditional peace with heresy should never be mistaken for a proper integration of faith and learning.

- Trueman

grace under fire

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
- Mike Tyson

envy

If you have a problem with other people succeeding, you need to deal with that before the Lord.
- Aucker

books change people

When you sell a man a book you don't sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue, you sell him a whole new life.

- Christopher Morley

the necessity of the languages for ministry

“One outstanding difficulty in theological education today is that the students persist in regarding themselves not as specialists, but as laymen. Critical questions about the Bible they regard as property of men who are training themselves for theological professorships or the like, while the ordinary minister, in their judgment, may content himself with the most superficial layman’s acquaintance with the problems involved. The minister is thus no longer a specialist in the Bible, but has become merely a sort of general manager of the affairs of a congregation. … If on the other hand, the minister is a specialist – if the one thing that he owes his congregation above all others is a thorough acquaintance, scientific as well as experimental, with the Bible – then the importance of Greek requires no elaborate argument.”
- Machen

sharing the gospel out of guilt

Our evangelism is often unbelievable because we don't listen at all. All too often the gospel we share is an information download, not a loving articulation of how the good news fits into the needs, fears, hopes, and dreams of others' lives. We content ourselves with "name dropping" Jesus, which gets us a √ in performance-based Christianity---unless, of course, we mention the cross, which bumps us up to a √+. This kind of evangelism, however, is more about clearing our evangelical conscience than compassionately sharing the good news with fellow sinners. Very often our gospel is unbelievable because we are motivated by unbelief in the gospel.
- Jonathan Dodson

my safety and obedience to Jesus

Do you choose your neighborhoods to be safe?  Do you go to the suburbs to be safe?  Is your first thought in a call to ministry “will my kids be safe?”  I got so tired of hearing that question when we were looking for associates at my church.  “Is your neighborhood safe?”  NO!  And who cares!  Good grief, what does that question have to do with obedience to Jesus?!
- John Piper, “The Supremacy of God in Missions” 

unbelief and theology

When historians of religion look back at the second half of the 20th century they will marvel at how its theologians could have written so much while believing so little.
- Steven Webb, Christian Century (Dec 4-17, 2002)

never been lost

I've never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.

- Daniel Boone

Or perhaps it was:
"I've never been lost, but I was mighty bewildered once for three days."

set goals

The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.
-Bill Copeland

plan and act!

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
- General George Patton

personal development

Reading makes a full man;
conference a ready man;
writing an exact man.
- Bacon

(and the holy spirit a new man!)

Do not mistake temptation for opportunity.

Do not mistake temptation for opportunity.

- Fortune cookie

only two kinds of people in the world

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.

Pascal

don't try to get god on your side

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side.

Lincoln's call to fasting and humility

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

- Abraham Lincoln

we are too sensual and earthly... immediately terrified when hungry!

“Let the doctrine which proceeds from thy mouth be sound. For he expressly uses this word, because it is the means of upholding us in true integrity, that the word of God, which is preached to us, be our spiritual pasture. This will not be perceived at first sight, but such is the fact. And why do we not perceive it? Because we are too sensual and earthly. For when we are in want of food for our body, we are immediately terrified, we become alarmed, we have not a moment of repose, for it touches us nearly. We are sensitive as to this fading life, but we are insensible to all that affects our souls; there is such brutal stupidity that we do not know our wants, though they press heavily upon us. Yet let it be observed that there is nothing but weakness in us, if we are not fed with the doctrine of God. And that is the reason why it is called ‘sound,’ for in this consists the health of our souls. As our bodies are kept in their proper condition by well-regulated nourishment, so our souls are supported by that doctrine which serves not only for nourishment but for medicine. For we are full of vices which are worse than diseases; and therefore our soul must be purged, and we must be healed of them. The method of doing this is, that we profit by the word of God. And so it is not without good reason that Paul gives to it this designation, that it is ‘sound,’ or that it is ‘wholesome.’” — Fr. Ser.

Footnote from ET of Calvin’s commentary on Titus 2:1

“Fr. Ser.” = French Sermon?

holiness and sin

[The Christian religion] teaches men both these truths: that there is a God of whom we are capable, and that a corruption in our nature makes us unworthy of Him. It is equally important for us to know both these points; for it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can cure him of it. Knowledge of only one of these points leads either to the arrogance of the philosophers, who have known God and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of the atheists, who know their wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer.

- pascal

finding contradictions in the bible is not "bold" and "courageous" but "lazy"

Here's a methodological driving principle that I hope remains at the foundation of our education for centuries, if Jesus tarries: namely, that it is not bold and courageous to oppose sacred tradition by finding contradictions in the Bible. Sometimes people will be described: "He's a courageous scholar!" and then he says something negative about the Bible or points out a contradiction and therefore he's "courageous" and "bold."

My assessment of that is that it's not courage but laziness, and a failure to go deep for the unity that is there. It will make a superficial institution of higher learning if we opt for the cheap solution of finding contradictions, instead of saying "If I work long enough and hard enough with all my might and as much help as I can get by the Holy Spirit I can find the unity beneath this apparent problem."

- Piper

truth in language

We simply must acknowledge that even though our finite understanding of God is limited, it is no less true! We possess exhaustive knowledge of very little; all reality, including the visible and physical, remains something of a mystery to us. Our talk of spiritual matters, including those of our own souls, is necessarily metaphorical, figurative, poetic. But this does not mean that what we say is untrue and incorrect. On the contrary, real poetry is truth, for it is based on the resemblance, similarity and kinship that exist between different groups of phenomena. All language participates in this rich interpenetration of visible and invisible. If speaking figuratively were untrue, all our thought and knowledge would be an illusion and speech itself impossible.

- Bavinck

the sinfulness of man

"In the worst of times, there is still more cause to complain of an evil
heart than of an evil world."

Robert Fleming (1630-1694)

knowledge and wisdom

There are those who desire to acquire knowledge for its own value – and this is a base vanity. But there are others who desire to have it to edify others – and this is charity. And there are others who desire it so that they may be edified – and this is wisdom.
Bernard of Clairvaux, The Song of Solomon

be unconventional, don't always choose "safe"

The path to effectiveness is often unconventional. The conventional approach is often the easy, risk-free, uninspiring path of low impact. It often seems safer, but actually isn’t. Organizations that make a difference are those that “stand for a truly distinctive set of ideas about where [their] industry should be going.” (Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win)

- Matt Perman

dream big and then push hard to get to those dreams. they may fail, but you may also achieve something previously unthinkable, even in failure.

management

It’s not your role to “motivate” and closely supervise people, but to hire people who are self motivated, make sure they know the purpose of their role, make sure they have the knowledge they need, and make sure there are some helpful (but not overbearing) structures and systems that provide a context for the work. And then let them direct themselves.

matt perman

never give up

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas A. Edison

the job of ministers

Ministers are set as guides and teachers, and are represented in Scripture as lights set up in the churches; and in the present state meet their people from time to time in order to instruct and enlighten them, to correct their mistakes, and to be a voice behind them, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” [Is. 30:21]; to evince and confirm the truth by exhibiting the proper evidences of it, and to refute errors and corrupt opinions, to convince the erroneous and establish the doubting.
- Jonathan Edwards, “Farewell Sermon”

the need for preaching

It is authority that the world chiefly needs and the preaching of the hour lacks, an authoritative Gospel in a humble personality.

PT Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, (1907) p. 136, cited in Stott, Between two Worlds, p. 59

preach with your words too

Unless you preach everywhere you go, there is no use to go anywhere to preach.

- Francis of Assisi

motives

motives are a funny thing. everyone's motives are pure in their own mind.

Laura

insane sports

Mountain climbers are roped together to keep the sane ones from going home.

- quoted in Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition,

you always marry the wrong person

Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfilling prophecy that assumes marriage and family are primary institutions of personal fulfillment. The assumption today is that there is someone just right for you to marry and if you look close enough you will find that right person. This fails to appreciate a simple fact: that you always marry the wrong person. We may never know whom we marry, we just think we do. Or, if you do marry the right person, just give it time and they will change. For marriage, being the enormous thing that it is, means that we are not the same person ourselves, even after we have entered into it. That means the primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you often find yourself married.
- Stanley Hauerwas

"...scholars are divided on the issue..."

...more and more evangelical churches and institutions are overthrowing their heritage, sometimes on the superficial basis that scholars are divided on the issue. The truth is that scholars are divided on most theological issues, including even the doctrines of God's incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ that validates him as the Son of God. In other words, giving up a doctrine on the basis that scholars differ in their opinions shows that no doctrine is secure and the more liberal perspective and practice will prevail.

- Watlke, An OT Theology, p. 236

mean christians don't disprove christianity

Take the case of a sour old maid, who is a Christian, but cantankerous. On the other hand, take some pleasant and popular fellow, but who has never been to Church. Who knows how much more cantankerous the old maid might be if she were not a Christian, and how much more likeable the nice fellow might be if he were a Christian? You can't judge Christianity simply by comparing the product in these two people; you would need to know what kind of raw material Christ was working on in both cases.

CS Lewis, God in the Dock

resolving moral conflicts

Unless you have been trained in the areas where the commandments clearly apply, you are really not prepared to deal with a conflict situation. Unless you are trained in the value of truthfulness, unless you are used to telling the truth, and unless veracity is one of your personal characteristics, you will not see the dilemma when protection of innocent life is at stake. If you lie every day for convenience, then it is certainly not going to be a problem to lie for some beneficial purpose. So, it is only people who have been trained in veracity and truthfulness who, when they are faced with this dilemma in an emergency situation, recognize it is a dilemma.

- David Jones, Christian Ethics, Lecture 13

anxiety

Pray, and let God worry.

- Luther

the emperor's new clothes

"... At worst it is simply playing to a sympathetic audience who will always tend to assume that scholarly emperors would never parade naked in public."

Trueman, Wages of Spin, p. 91, criticizing Thiselton's misrepresentation of Warfield

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