Quotes of Note:

For years I have had a daily reading schedule. I have a very broad or eclectic reading taste. That may explain why I am quoting such a variety below. At any rate, here are some select quotes from some recent reading material:

"The Word of God is the Word that God spoke, speaks, and will speak in the midst of all men...That man who refuses to listen and to obey the Word acts not as a free man but as a slave, for there is no freedom except through God's Word." ~Karl Barth (Evangelical Theology)

‎"...theological study and the impulse which compels it are not passing stages of life. The forms which this study assumes may and must change slightly with the times. But the theologian, if he was in fact a studiosus theologiae, remains so even to his death." ~Karl Barth (Evangelical Theology)

Prayer without study would be empty. Study without prayer would be blind. ~Karl Barth (Evangelical Theology)

I’ve often said some men say they are standing for truth when they are really standing for their interpretation of the truth. We have fought each other over dead issues while the living perish. A man’s love for God can be measured by the love he has for the man he loves the least. ~T.F. Tenney

When the author walks on the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right - something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise. It will be too late then to choose your side. ~C.S. Lewis

Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it. ~G.K. Chesterson

“I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.” ~Louis L'Amour (Education of a Wandering Man)

Quotes of Note:

‎"The church and university can kiss and make up. Not Naturalism and Theism...Genesis 1 cannot be made to teach evolution--period. We may argue how long the creative days actually were, but the language of the Bible will not allow evolution to be causal for the world in which we now live." ~David S. Norris, Big Ideas.

In the First Century a basic faith was established. lt was not to be changed but rather sought after (Jude 3). ~Thomas Weisser

The idea of a situation in which faith is possible is only a way of stating the facts of a case in which the following two propositions hold good and are equally true: only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes. ~Dieterich Bonhoeffer

I sought for the greatness of America in her harbors and rivers and fertile fields, and her mines and commerce. It was not there. Not until I went into the churches and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the greatness of her power. America is great because she is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. ~Alexis de Tocqueville

‎"we still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable explanation here is the divine Mind." There Is A God, pg. 121 Antony Flew (former Atheist now Theist)

In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians. ~Karl Barth

The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. ~C.S. Lewis

Faith is not something that goes against the evidence, it goes beyond it. The evidence is saying to us, 'There is another country. There is something beyond mere reason'. ~Alister McGrath

Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows. Where there is no spirit of worship, there God has been dethroned and displaced. ~Sinclair B. Ferguson.

The Bible, "tells how for the world's redemption God entered into history, the eternal came into time, the kingdom of heaven invaded the realm of earth, in the great events of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The first recorded words of our Lord's public preaching...'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the good news." ~F.F. Bruce

In America, from the beginning, economic liberty, political justice, and shared friendship with God have been understood as compatible, even essentially linked, human goods. ~Alan Keyes

Quotes from The Mighty God in Christ by S.G. Norris

S.G. Norris, The Mighty God in Christ

"Jesus was not just a man filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or blessed with the presence of God, like the prophets of the Old Testament. The fullnesss of that wonderful presence of the Lord's Spirit Being, not just a part of it, was incarnated in the body of Jesus Christ and flowed out from Him." (The Mighty God in Christ, pg. 21)

"In order to save man from sin, it was imperative that He manifest the fullness of His divine Being, which was Spirit, in a Body or Son ("Without shedding of blood is no remission"). This was to become His PERMANENT BODY or Tabernacle." (The Mighty God in Christ, pg. 19)

""God did not remain in heaven and send a Son, the second Person in the Godhead, to earth. He was right here HIMSELF, GOD WITH US Matthew 1:23" (The Mighty God in Christ, pg. 20)

"Jesus Christ was either God mainfested in the flesh, or an imposter. He was none other than the Lord God, here on earth in a body....If you take away the absolute DEITY and incarnation of the DIVINE BEING (God, the Spirit) from the Lord Jesus Christ, then you cause the Bible to crumble, and our HOPE OF SALVATION to perish." (The Mighty God in Christ, pg. 22, 23)

The Mighty God in Christ by Norris, S. G. Publisher: Harvestime, St. Louis, MO.

Quote Worth the Note:

C.S. Lewis

‎"For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock." ~C.S. Lewis (God in the Dock)

"Image of God"

Francis Schaeffer once remarked that if he had only an hour to spend with an unbeliever, he would spend the first fifty–five minutes talking about creation and what it means for humanity to bear the image of God—and then he would use the last five minutes to explain the way of salvation.

MacArthur, J. (2001). The battle for the beginning : The Bible on creation and the fall of Adam (43). Nashville, TN: W Pub. Group.

Quotes of Note by Winston Churchill and C.S. Lewis

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. ~Winston Churchill

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. ~Winston Churchill

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. ~Winston Churchill

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter. ~Winston Churchill

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right. ~Winston Churchill

 

 

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. ~C.S. Lewis

Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to manuever you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop. ~C.S. Lewis

The claim to equality is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. ~C.S. Lewis

Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. ~C.S. Lewis

There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. ~C.S. Lewis

Quote by Chuck Colson on Democracy

Pure democracy was what some of our Founders feared most, shocking though it might sound to some. To them, the tyranny of the masses was no less a danger than the tyranny of the monarch. They knew that people are swayed by fads and fashion, or by demagogues playing on the passions of the moment. That is why John Adams wrote that unbridled democracy would lead to "everlasting fluctuations, revolts and horrors, finally requiring police action to impose order." ~Chuck Colson

Quotes of Note

[Pentecostalism] is widely believed to have more than 500 million adherents, mostly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Its potential to transform Protestantism is undeniable. ~Alister McGrath, Christianity's Dangerous Idea

Everyone meant well but they certainly did not mean the same thing. ~Hugh Latimer

Everything science has taught me---and continues to teach me---strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace. ~Wernher Von Braun

When blessed with wealth, let them withdraw from the competition of vanity and be modest, retiring from ostentation, and not be the slaves of fashion. ~William Wilberforce

He that lives in hope dances without music. ~George Herbert

The best men know that they are very far from what they ought to be; and the very worst think that, if they were a very little better, they should be as good as they need be. ~James Anthony Froude

Generalization is the death of art. It's in the details where God resides. ~Arthur Miller, quoted in Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture

It's not better teachers, texts, or curricula that our children need most; it's better childhoods, and we will never see lasting school reform until we see parent reform. —Samuel Sava, in Leadership

He drew a circle that shut me out—Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.But love and I had the wit to win;We drew a circle that took him in. ~Edwin Markham

It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake. ~Janos Arany (1817-82), Hungarian poet

Quotes of Note

Saint Paul tells us that the church--not the university, the media, or the public schools--is the pillar and support of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). ~Excerpted from Love Your God With All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland

We are having a revival of feelings but not of the knowledge of God. The church today is more guided by feelings than by convictions. We value enthusiasm more than informed committment. ~1980 Gallup Poll on Religion

To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult. ~Plutarch

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. ~Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. ~Rene Descartes, "Discourse on Method"

What begins as something you do ends up as something you are. Habit becomes second nature. ~Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man’s physical senses cannot detect it. But there cannot be ignored the influence of conscience, the respect we feel for the Moral Law, the mystery of first life...or the marvelous order in which the universe moves about us on this earth. All these evidence the handiwork of the beneficent Deity...That Deity is the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ, His Son. ~Dwight Eisenhower

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

When people lack ownership of an idea, they usually resist it, even when it is in their best interest! ~John Maxwell

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions. ~Lillian Hellman

Nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer, except that which lies outside the will of God. ~Rev. Harry T. Smith

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of. ~Blaise Pascal

Quotes of Note

“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism, or socialism, on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project.” ~Ronald Reagan

There are no "good people," and the best of us say so the most clearly. Saints agree they are sinners; only sinners think they are saints. Only fools demand justice, for where would we be if we got it? No, mercy is our only hope from God, and our neighbors' only hope from us as well. ~Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves. ~William Ellery Channing

The Puritans were highly educated people who founded colleges, taught their children to read and write before the age of six, and studied art, science, philosophy, and other fields as a way of loving God with the mind...The minister was an intellectual, as well as spiritual authority in the community. As Puritan Cotton Mather proclaimed, "Ignorance is the Mother not of Devotion but of HERESY." Excerpted from Love Your God With All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. ~Thomas à Kempis. Imitation of Christ

Whenever God erects a house of prayer
The devil always builds a chapel there;
And ’twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.
Daniel Defoe

Quote from Alvin Plantinga

God can create free creatures, bu He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly fee after all; they do not do what is right freely. ~Alvin Plantinga. God, Freedom, and Evil pg. 30~

The End of Evil: Quote from Christopher Wright

"When the reign of God extends over every corner of the universe, when the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea, when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, when heaven and earth are renewed and united under the righteous rule of Christ, when the dwelling place of God is again with humanity, when the city of God is the center of all redeemed reality—then we will have been delivered from all evil forever...The cross and resurrection of Christ accomplished it in history and guarantee it for all eternity." Christopher Wright, The God I Don't Understand

More Quotes

I believe in the spade. It has fed the tribes of mankind. It has furnished them water, coal, iron, and gold. And now it is giving them truth -- historic truth, the mines of which have never been opened til our time. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

The real business of archaeology is to establish factual benchmarks in the world of the Bible to guide interpreters. ~Joseph Callaway

Only 2% of tels in Israel have been excavated. Only 10% of cuneiform data has been translated. ~J. Randall Price

Scholars have been looking for a Sitz im Leben, a living context, for the Biblical text. I have argued that the best you can do is to find a literary context. But archaeology could provide an independent witness. ~William Dever, Editor: Shanks, Hershel. "Face to face: Biblical minimalists meet their challengers." Biblical Archaeology Review 4 no. 23 (1997)

The purpose of diagnosis in counseling and psychohterapy is to identify disruptions in a client's present behavior and lifestyle. ~Gerald Corey (Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy)

Quote by Richard Dawkins on Bill O'Reilly Show

Bill O'Reilly talks about how humans got here and Richard Dawkins says, "We're working on it."

Quotes of Note:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
—Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

There are no atheists in the foxholes.
—William Thomas Cummings, sermon (1942)

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
~G.K. Chesterton

Quotes of Note:

‘All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today’s world are fruitless unless we redirect our consciousness, in repentance, to the Creator of all: without this, no exit will be illumined, and we shall seek it in vain.’—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism…there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm …These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao." -Vox Day

Commenting on Tertullians consternation about the Trinitarian view being a minority in his own times, "It was difficult for them to see in Trinitarian conceptions aught else but an assertion of tritheism." -Williston Walker [A History of the Christian Church, Scribners. pg. 68]

Quotes of Note:

Only the dead have seen the end of war

George Santayana (1863-1952) - 20th Century American Philosopher

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Extreme or consistent (as they like to call themselves) preterism
believes that the Second Coming, and thus the resurrection of believers,
is all past. For all practical purposes all Bible prophecy has been
fulfilled, and we are beyond the millennium and even now in the new
heaven and new earth.

A CRITIQUE OF THE PRETERIST VIEW OF THE OLIVET DISCOURSE
by Stanley D. Toussaint

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To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

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The command of God is our sole standard. Conscience itself is not a trustworthy rule. If a man's conscience be unenlightened, he may be sinning, and reaping the ill consequences of his sin, not less surely because he is not conscious that his misfortunes are due to his folly rather than his fate. His conscience cannot be the standard. The standard is the law of God. Brother, I would not have thee live in daily neglect of a divine command which I am persuaded thou wouldest obey if thou didst know it. Hide not thyself behind a pillar, but come into the light, and take the word and read it, and always ask that God would be pleased to open your eyes to anything there you have not hitherto seen.

A Clear Conscience - Psa. 119:6
A Sermon by C.H. SPURGEON at the METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON
SERMON TEXT: Ps 119:6

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from The Gates of Hell by R.A. Perry, pg. 109

"Deric, look at that statue." She pointed to a statue depicting the accomplishments of man. A naked athlete stood on the clouds thrusting a javelin to the heavens by his strength. You could tell it had reached the cosmos by the stars beneath the point of the thrust. "It's supposed to depict the accomplishing of our dreams of the supernatural, by the achievements of the physical. I've bought into that rubbish my whole life. Now I sit here totally empty."

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When we turn to the other New Testament data concerning the life of Jesus, we see that some actions are clearly those of a superhuman power, while others can be only attributed to a truly human power.

(from The Christian Life by Dallas M. Roark)

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If you want want to get "Well Done" you got to stay on the fire - Bro. Jerry Dean

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"Eternity and time differ as the sea and rivers; the sea never changes place, and is always one water; but the rivers glide along, and are swallowed up in the sea; so is time by eternity."

~ Stephen Charnock - The Existence and Attributes of God, pg. 280

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from Thomas Paine in The American Crisis:

"These are the times that try men’s souls. the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."

More Worthwhile Quotes

President Calvin Coolidge in his Innaugural Address commenting on American Government:

"No ambition, no temptation, lures her to thought of foreign dominions. The legions which she sends forth are armed, not with the sword, but with the cross. The higher state to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God."

Inaugural addresses of the Presidents of the United States : From Washington to Clinton. 1998. Oak Harbor WA: Logos Research Systems.

"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." ~ Francis Bacon ~

"...the dirty secret of Planned Parenthood is this: its founder, a one-time nurse named Margaret Sanger, believed that America needed “to cut down on the rapid multiplication of the unfit and undesirable at home” through methods of eugenics. Merriam-Webster defines eugenics this way: 'a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed.'

Much evidence points to Sanger being a racist. To stop the “multiplication” of those she saw as unfit, Sanger sought to halt “medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers,” as she wrote in her book, “The Pivot of Civilization.” (Of course, we cannot depend on our so-called mainstream media to report on Sanger’s shameful writings.)" ~Jonathan Falwell~

Some people, even a few Pentecostals, believe in a village god. A god that is created and sustained to meet their needs. It does not reach out and does not transcend their current crisis most of the time. The closer we get, as a collective, to sole human reasoning as a guide in our society the closer we return to dark ages or when men grope in darkness and not knowing.

Mark Twain, in his writings about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, alluded to a gilded era that believed they were really getting something. Ever whitewash a fence for an apple core? How much was that entry fee to Barnum Bailey back then anyways? He saw that as a picture of his times but I see it in Christianity too. Too many Christians are satisfied with thin or superficial relationships with God and His Word. When we shout it better be more about Him rather than our desperation to pay the bills or get out of "trouble" card. ~ JN Anderson~

To be ignorant and simple now - not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground - would be to throw down our weapons, and betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory p. 50

The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.? ~ John Wycliffe ~

Quotes of Note:

"I think most Reformed folk have learned habits of worship that effectively constrain the sovereignty of God by adopting highly defined and narrow expectations of the Spirit's operations. I long for a kind of "Pentecostalized" Reformed spirituality that expects the sovereign Lord to show up in ways that might surprise us."

James K. A. Smith
"Teaching A Calvinist To Dance" Christianity Today, May 2008

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

Quote from Bruce L. Shelley

In his attempts to elucidate Church History in Plain Language, Bruce Shelley says,

“The word “person,” however, did not mean to the early Christians what it means today. To us, a person means someone like Tom, Dick, or Harry. But the Latin word persona originally meant a mask worn by an actor on the stage. In Trinitarian thought the “mask” is not worn by God to hide but to reveal his true character. It is clear that when we think of the Trinity, we should not try to think of three persons in our sense of the term, but three personal disclosures of God that correspond to what he is really like.”

Shelley, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language. Updated 2nd ed. Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub., 1995.