Quotes by Theologians - Page 24

A puddle repeats infinity, and is full of light; nevertheless, if analyzed objectively, a puddle is a piece of dirty water spread very thin on mud.
G.K. Chesterton
An eye for beauty instead of bleakness might have lightened some of his load.
John Piper
Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder.
G.K. Chesterton
The Christian catacombs represent simplicity and earthiness; the cathedrals, transcendence and wonder.
Russell Moore
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
If then we have angels, let us be sober, as though we were in the presence of tutors; for there is a demon present also.
John Chrysostom
The way to understand any enemy is to realize that, from his perspective, he is not a villain but a hero.
Desmond Tutu
Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description.
C.S. Lewis
we have quoted freely from the Scriptures and have sought to furnish proof-texts for every statement we have advanced.
Arthur W. Pink
The craving today is for something light and spicy, and few have patience, still less desire, to examine carefully that which would make a demand both upon their hearts and
Arthur W. Pink
By the term cult I mean nothing derogatory to any group so classified. A cult, as I define it, is any religious group which differs significantly in one or more respects as to belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expressions of religion in our total culture.
Walter Ralston Martin
We remember, also, how that it is becoming increasingly difficult in these strenuous days for those who are desirous of studying the deeper things of God to find the time which such study requires.
Arthur W. Pink
Within the theological structure of the cults there is considerable truth, all of which, it might be added, is drawn from biblical sources, but so diluted with human error as to be more deadly than complete falsehood.
Walter Ralston Martin
Truth by definition is exclusive. If truth were all-inclusive, nothing would be false.
Walter Ralston Martin
Lehi’s message, given some six centuries before the coming of the Messiah, seems very applicable to our day and time: “O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound. . . . Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent. . . . Arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity. . . . Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness” (2 Nephi 1:13, 14, 21, 23; emphasis...
Robert L. Millet
It was Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse who said that simply because a person is a member of a specific denomination, there is no reason to suppose that the entire denomination is represented by that person’s theology,
Walter Ralston Martin
I believe the message in the hymn “Rise Up, O Men of God” (Hymns, no. 324) is a plea, a call, a divine invitation for us to rise above the telestial tinsel of our time; to deny ourselves of ungodliness and clothe ourselves in the mantle of holiness; to reach and stretch and grasp for that spiritual direction and sacred empowerment promised to the Lord’s agents, to those charged to act in the name of our Principal, Jesus Christ; and to point the way to salvation and deliverance and peace in a world that finds itself enshrouded in darkness, a world that yearns for spiritual leadership.
Robert L. Millet
Points to Ponder 1. What does it mean to “grow up unto the Lord” (Helaman 3:21)? 2. How often do I think about what kind of man I want to be? How often do I think about what others will remember most about me? What kind of priesthood legacy am I leaving? 3. The Prophet Lehi pleaded with his sons repeatedly to “Awake! and arise from the dust” (2 Nephi 1:14). In what ways do I need to wake up? How is it that I have been called to arise from the dust? (see D&C 113:7–10). 4. Peter was counseled by the Master at the Last Supper to become converted and then to strengthen his brethren (Luke...
Robert L. Millet
I think people get excited about their perspective on sexuality because it gives them the feeling that, their failures notwithstanding, if they take a hard stand on what they consider to be godly, maybe God will be more merciful to them.
Walter Wink
The polarization is such that the conservatives on this side have their prayer meeting and their choir meeting. And the liberals on this side have their prayer meeting and their choir meeting, and the two sides never get together and talk about it. The result is the tearing apart of the fabric of the body of Christ.
Walter Wink
The practical consequence of both of the teachings noted is to encourage homosexual promiscuity. Church members can engage in many short-term liaisons without raising questions about their standing in the church. We tend not to pry into one another's private lives. But if a man brings another man to church with him regularly, if they give the same address and show signs of mutual affection, then there is likely to be a scandal. The dominant effect of church teaching is to encourage secret, temporary liaisons without commitment and to discourage long-term fidelity.
Walter Wink
The heaven-and-hell framework has four central elements: the afterlife, sin and forgiveness, Jesus’s dying for our sins, and believing.
Marcus J. Borg
This book might also be seen as “a Christian primer.” A primer teaches us how to read. Reading is not just about learning to recognize and pronounce words, but also about how to hear and understand them. This book’s purpose is to help us to read, hear, and inwardly digest Christian language without preconceived understandings getting in the way.
Marcus J. Borg
We are all powerless to heal ourselves. Research shows that self-help statements have been found to be ineffective and even harmful by making some people with low self-esteem feel even worse about themselves in the long term. As a matter of fact, positive self-statements frequently end up reinforcing and strengthening one’s original negative self-perception they were trying to change.
Justin S. Holcomb
the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.
Martin Luther
To draw close to Divinity is to come to appreciate man as a divine creation, for “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 343).
Robert L. Millet
So many people, if the truth were known, live their lives on two levels. The principles they fight about are often at odds with the complicated and often frustrated lives they live. This is why there is so much intensity.
Walter Wink
But Christian illiteracy is only the first part of the crisis. Even more seriously, even for those who think they speak “Christian” fluently, the faith itself is often misunderstood and distorted by many to whom it is seemingly very familiar. They think they are speaking the language as it has always been understood, but what they mean by the words and concepts is so different from what these things have meant historically, that they would have trouble communicating with the very authors of the past they honor.
Marcus J. Borg
More than half described Christians as literalistic, anti-intellectual, judgmental, self-righteous, and bigoted.
Marcus J. Borg
for God's sake, let's be done with the hypocrisy of claiming "I am a biblical literalist" when everyone is a selective literalist, especially those who swear by the antihomosexual laws in the Book of Leviticus and then feast on barbecued ribs and delight in Monday-night football, for it is toevali, an abomination, not only to eat pork but merely to touch the skin of a dead pig.
Walter Wink
Those who speak of man's "free will," and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam's fallen children.
Arthur W. Pink
For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity.
Augustine of Hippo
To use good things to our own ends is always a false religion
Richard J. Foster
When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off;you become lame, abandoned by a fantasy.…People fancy they are enjoying themselves,but they are really tearing out their wingsfor the sake of an illusion.
Jalaluddin Rumi
This disease of curiosity.
Augustine of Hippo
It is very rarely that a middle-aged man finds an author who gives him, what he knew so often in his teens and twenties, the sense of having opened a new door.
C.S. Lewis
If we watch the interactions between human beings, we will receive a graduate-level education.
Richard J. Foster
Important insights ought never to be limited to the group from which may arise.
Richard J. Foster
Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table.
C.S. Lewis
Theology must have the character of a living procession.
Karl Barth
Without stories we end up with stereotypes -- a flat earth with flat cardboard figures that have no texture or depth, no INTERIOR.
Eugene H. Peterson
The love of knowledge is a kind of madness.
C.S. Lewis
Infinite mercy flows continuallyBut you're asleep and can't see it.The sleeper's robe goes on drinking river waterWhile he frantically hunts mirages in dreamsAnd runs continually here and there shouting,"There'll be water further on, I know!"It's this false thinking that blocks himFrom the path that leads to himself,By always saying, "Further on!"He's become estranged from "here":Because of a false fantasyHe's driven from reality.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Revenge loses sight of the end in the means, but it's end is not wholly bad - it wants the evil of the bad man to be to him what it is to everyone else. This is proved by the fact that the avenger wants the guilty party not merely to suffer, but to suffer at his hands, and to know it, and to know why. Hence the impulse to taunt the guilty man with his crime at the moment of taking vengeance: hence, too, such natural expressions as 'I wonder how he'd like it if the same thing were done to him' or 'I'll teach him'. For the same reason when we are going to abuse a man in words we say we are going to 'let him know what we think of him'.
C.S. Lewis
He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man."Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his mouth."Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!""Every man is dangerous," said the old man, without moving, "Who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself.
G.K. Chesterton
And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes.
C.S. Lewis
Deep down in all of us there is a tendency to want to prove ourselves, to base our worth on what we do.
Tim Chester
Man is not valuable because he loves God. Man is valuable because God loves him.
Helmut Thielicke
The angel is free because of his knowledge, the beast because of his ignorance. Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.
Jalaluddin Rumi
The "war" is being fought along the line between sin and righteousness in every family. It is being fought along the line between truth and falsehood in every school... Between justice and injustice in every legislature... Between integrity and corruption in every office... Between love and hate in every ethnic group... Between pride and humility in every sport... Between the beautiful and the ugly in every art... Between right doctrine and wrong doctrine in every church... Between sloth and diligence between coffee breaks. It is not a waste to fight the battle for truth and faith and love on any of these fronts.
John Piper
Maybe it's all utterly meaningless. Maybe it's all unutterably meaningful. If you want to know which, pay attention to what it means to be truly human in a world that half the time we're in love with and half the time scares the hell out of us. Any fiction that helps us pay attention to that is religious fiction. The unexpected sound of your name on somebody's lips. The good dream. The strange coincidence. The moment that brings tears to your eyes. The person who brings life to your life. Even the smallest events hold the greatest clues.
Frederick Buechner
You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.
Eugene H. Peterson
The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them.
Frederick Buechner
Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.
C.S. Lewis
Isn't it interesting that all of the biblical prophets and psalmists were poets?
Eugene H. Peterson
...With a religious book it is less what we see in it than what we see through it that matters. J. R. R. Tolkien's fairy-tale epic the Lord of the Rings helps draw the distinction perhaps. Some of its admirers have tried to make it into a religion book by claiming, among other things, that the Ring of Power which must be destroyed is the hydrogen bomb. Tolkien, on the other hand, denied this unequivocally. But intended or otherwise, there can be little doubt that for many it has become a religious book. The "Frodo Lives" buttons are not entirely a joke, because something at least comes to life through those fifteen hundred pages, although inevitably it is hard to say just what. It seems to have something to do with the way Tolkien has of making us see the quididity of things like wood, bread, stone, milk, iron, as though we have never seen them before or not for a long time, which is probably the truth of the matter; his landscapes set deeper echoes going in us than any message could. He gives us back a sense that we have mostly lost of the things of the earth, and because we are ourselves of the earth, whatever else, we are given back too some sense of our own secret. Very possibly again he did not intend it. I may well be axiomatic that, religiously, a writer achieves most when he is least conscious of doing so. Certainly the attempt to be religious is as doomed as the attempt to be poetic is.
Frederick Buechner
It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.
Reinhold Niebuhr
No net less wide than a man's whole heart, nor less fine of mesh than love, will hold the sacred Fish.
C.S. Lewis