preaching

You reproach me for my lack of style. What has style to do with it? Have something to say and say it as clearly as you can. That is the secret of preaching.

- Girolamo Savanarola

on ecclesiastical reform

“We must not pass over in silence the decay in the church. Better to provoke a scandal than to abandon the truth.”

- Bernard of Clairvaux

leading leaders

"in doing good to one scholar, you may do good to a whole parish or city."

Henry Wilkinson, Three Decades of Sermons, pt. 2, 78.

qtd. in Tyacke, The History of the University of Oxford, in reference to Oxford's nightly devotional and catechizing

Nero, sit.

T.R. Glover, the British writer reminds us, that the day would come when we would name our cats Felix, our dogs Nero, and our sons Paul!

quoted by FF Bruce

purity of heart

Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.

- Augustine

taking counsel

Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.

C.S. Lewis

Incarnation

The results of the incarnation of the Savior are such and so many, that anyone attempting to enumerate them should be compared to a person looking upon the vastness of the sea and attempting to count its waves.

Athanasius

mercy and correction

Let a man mercifully correct what he can; let him patiently bear what he
cannot correct, and groan and sorrow over it with love.

- Cyprian

the pastor's power

None of us will find this "pleasure of the Lord to prosper in our hands," except every effort is grounded upon the practical conviction, that no strength but the arm of Omnipotence is sufficient for the work.

Conscious helplessness sinks under the depressing weight of responsibility.

Thus discouragements, properly sustained and carefully improved, become our most fruitful sources of eventual encouragement...

Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry, p. 16-17

study church history

Let us not bury in forgetfulness the grace of God.

- Calvin

scotland

The most important event in the history of Scotland was when John Knox went upstairs to pray.

- Charles Spurgeon

Why we always play music

"People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people's lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence... No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet -- because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise..."

Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

The Pride of Humility

"Its easy to be humble when you're the center of attention."

- John MacArthur


"pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together."

- Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees

quit living by the polls

"I hear it said... leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture."


Winston Churchill, on leaders who are captive to public opinion

Spurgeon, the Outdoorsman

He who forgets the humming of the bees, the cooing of the pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy. A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours’ ramble in the beech woods’ umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is the next best.

- Charles Spurgeon

mature christianity

Every movement of God to redeem a culture begins with frustration and as a reaction. But those reactions and frustrations are seasons that must be quickly passed through, like puberty, so that maturity, vision, mission, and the hope of the gospel can become the primary issues for God's people on reformission.

- Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformission

serving others

There is never a wasted minute for Jesus.

- Pastor Noel, a native pastor in poverty-stricken Manila, talking about serving in ways that are foolish to the world.

don't waste your life

People often ask us why in the world we would waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they, too, are investing their lives. And when the bubble has burst they will have nothing to show for the years they have wasted.

- Nate Saint, shortly before he was killed in the jungles of Ecuador by the people group he was trying to serve

big government

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

- PJ O'Rourke

rest

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart cannot rest until it rests
in Thee.

Augustine