Quotes by Theologians - Page 45

Torah is not merely a collection of prohibitions, rigid strictures and boring observances. Rather, it is a narrative of the blessings and promises of God initially offered to one person and family, but through which the whole world will ultimately be blessed.
Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
Prophets often foretold destruction and sometimes the destruction did not come, yet this did not disprove their divine mission, as in the case of Jonah. For God is gracious, and ready to turn away his wrath from those who turn away from their sins. But the prophet who prophesied peace and prosperity absolutely and unconditionally without adding the necessary proviso, that they do not by willful sin put a bar in their own door and stop the coming of God's favors, will be proved a true prophet only by the accomplishment of his prediction.
Matthew Henry
The concern of the scholar is primarily with what the text meant; the concern of the layperson is usually with what it means. The believing scholar insists that we must have both. Reading the Bible with an eye only to its meaning for us can lead to a great deal of nonsense as well as to every imaginable kind of error—because it lacks controls. Fortunately, most believers are blessed with at least a measure of that most important of all hermeneutical skills—common sense.
Gordon D. Fee
Saturday, May 22d.---It is now Saturday night, and I must prepare for the holy Sabbath. My Bible and Confession of Faith are my traveling companions, and precious friends have they been to me. I bless God for that glorious summary of Christian doctrine contained in our noble standards. It has cheered my soul in many a dark hour, and sustained me in many a desponding moment. I love to read it, and ponder carefully each proof text as I pass along.
James Henley Thornwell
If the Bible were the most boring book in the world--dull, uninteresting and seemingly irrelevant--it would still be our duty to study it. If its literary style were awkward and confusing, the duty would remain. We live as human beings under an obligation by divine mandate to study diligently God's Word. He is our Sovereign, it is his Word, and he commands that we study it. A duty is not an option. If you have not yet begun to respond to that duty, then you need to ask God to forgive you and to resolve to do your duty from this day forth.
R.C. Sproul
Whether one likes it or not, every reader is at the same time an interpreter. That is, most of us assume as we read that we also understand what we read. We also tend to think that our understanding is the same thing as the Holy Spirit’s or human author’s intent. However, we invariably bring to the text all that we are, with all of our experiences, culture, and prior understandings of words and ideas. Sometimes what we bring to the text, unintentionally to be sure, leads us astray, or else causes us to read all kinds of foreign ideas into the text.
Gordon D. Fee
Because the Bible is God’s Word, it has eternal relevance; it speaks to all humankind, in every age and in every culture.
Gordon D. Fee
The problem with a “free” translation, on the other hand, especially for study purposes, is that the translator updates the original author too much…On the one hand, these renditions often have especially fresh and vivid ways of expressing some old truths and have thus each served to stimulate contemporary Christians to take a fresh look at their Bibles. On the other hand, such a “translation” often comes very close to being a commentary, but without other options made available to the reader. Therefore, as stimulating as these can sometimes be, they are never intended to be a person’s only Bible; and the reader needs constantly to check particularly eye-catching moments against a true translation or a commentary to make sure that not too much freedom has been taken.
Gordon D. Fee
One crucial thing to keep in mind as you read any Hebrew narrative is the presence of God in the narrative. In any biblical narrative, God is the ultimate character, the supreme hero of the story.
Gordon D. Fee
But while the story [of the Bible] is simple, it is also deep. There is always more to learn, to discover, and to enrich our understanding of who God is and what he is doing in the world. We study the Bible in depth in order to teach its story in all its richness. Greek is one tool of many that give us access to the richness of the Bible. Without it, our teaching may be sound, but it may also lack depth. In other words: Keep your Greek for the sake of others.
Constantine R. Campbell
The Spirit inspired the Word and therefore He goes where the Word goes. The more of God's Word you know and love, the more of God's Spirit you will experience.
John Piper
The testimony of scripture is so plain that to add anything were superfluous, were it not that the world is almost now come to that blindness, that whatsoever pleases not the princes and the multitude, the same is rejected as doctrine newly forged, and is condemned for heresy.
John Knox
The preaching of God's word is hateful and contrary unto them. Why? For it is impossible to preach Christ, except thou preach against antichrist; that is to say, them which with their false doctrine and violence of sword enforce to quench the true doctrine of Christ.
William Tyndale
The fanaticism which discards the Scripture, under the pretense of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods.
John Calvin
Beneath all the rhetoric about relevance lies a profoundly disturbing possibility - that people may base their lives upon an illusion, upon a blatant lie. The attractiveness of a belief is all too often inversely proportional to its truth... To allow "relevance" to be given greater weight than truth is a mark of intellectual shallowness and moral irresponsibility.
Alister E. McGrath
If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.
Thomas Aquinas
Did you wake up feeling fragile? Read the bible till you find a promise strong enough to carry you through the day.
John Piper
The only sure rule is to remember that the Bible is indeed God's gift to the church, to equip that church for its work in the world, and that serious study of it can and should become one of the places where, and the means by which, heaven and earth interlock and God's future purposes arrive in the present.
N.T. Wright
The business of reading and interpreting the Bible in South Afria is a tricky one! The Bible is everywhere and in the hands of many, including the pain inflictors. ~ Mogomme Alpheus Masoga
Gerald O. West
In itself this Christian education is partly the product of the retreat of biblical scholarship from the faith community to the academy. In removing themselves to the academy biblical scholars have ceased to engage with the people of the issues of the contemporary faith context. ~ Janet Lees (p. 84). In Reading Other-Wise
Gerald O. West
The Bible is authoritative on everything of which it speaks.Moreover, it speaks of everything.
Cornelius Van Til
the whole Bible is itself a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God's mission through God's people in their engagement with God's world for the sake of the whole of God's creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, "life, the universe and everything," and with its centre, focus, climax, and completion in Jesus Christ. Mission is not just one of a list of things that the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in that much-abused phrase, "what it's all about.
Christopher J.H. Wright
One proof of the inspiration of the Bible is that it has withstood so much poor preaching.
A.T. Robertson
The Bible is useful because it opens our eyes, and because it’s highly impractical to walk through life with our eyes closed.
Peter J. Leithart
The soul can do without everything except the word of God, without which none at all of its wants are provided for.
Martin Luther
We are dealing with God's thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.
D A Carson
It is fashionable in some academic circles to exercise scholarly criticism of the Bible. In so doing, scholars place themselves above the Bible and seek to correct it. If indeed the Bible is the Word of God, nothing could be more arrogant. It is God who corrects us; we don’t correct Him. We do not stand over God but under Him.
R.C. Sproul
The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.
Augustine of Hippo
The real problem is that our values are changing and the new ones are wearing us out. But they're also keeping us from forming genuine, long-term, and meaningful commitments that actually contribute to the lives of others. Over time, the hype of living a new life, taking up a radical calling, and changing the world can creep into every area of our life. And it can make us tired, depressed, and mean. Michael Horton, Ordinary, 13-14
Michael S. Horton
We want big results-sooner rather than later. And we've forgotten that God showers his extraordinary gifts through ordinary means of grace, loves us through ordinary fellow image bearers, and sends us into the world to love and serve others in ordinary callings. Michael Horton, Ordinary, 14
Michael S. Horton
The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.
Augustine of Hippo
The Christian life is participation in the encounter of Christ with the world.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christ want to point this out and to warn His followers that in the world everyone should live as though he were alone and should consider His Word and preaching as the very greatest thing on earth, thinking this way to himself: “I see my neighbor and the whole city, and yes the whole world, living differently. All those who are great or noble or rich, the princes and the lords, are allied with it. Nevertheless I have an ally who is greater than all of them, namely, Christ and His Word. When I am all alone, therefore, I am still not alone. Because I have the Word of God, I have Christ with me, together with all the dear angels and all the saints since the beginning of the world. Actually there is a bigger crowd and a more glorious procession surrounding me than there could be in the whole world now. Only I cannot see it with my eyes, and I have to watch and bear the offense of having so many people forsake me or live and act in opposition to me.
Martin Luther
American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for the Next Big Thing. We're growing bored with the ordinary means of God's grace, attending church week in and week out. Doctrines and disciplines that have shaped faithful Christian witness in the past are often marginalized or substituted with newer fashions or methods. The new and improved may dazzle us for a moment, but soon they have become "so last year". Michael Horton, Ordinary, 16
Michael S. Horton
As we grow in the Christian life we face increasing danger of spiritual pride. We know the correct doctrines, the right methods, and the proper do's and don'ts. But we may not see the poverty of our own spiritual character. We may not see our critical and unforgiving spirit, our habit of backbiting, or our tendency to judge others. We may become like the Laodiceans of whom our Lord said, 'You say, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing." But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked' (Revelation 3:17).
Jerry Bridges
It is God's jealous love that both unnerves us and draws us to Him. His relentless pursuit, His fierce hatred of any rival, and His incomprehensible willingness to anguish on our behalf captures our heart for His love. His jealousy is our shield; it is our promise of eternal protection and passionate exclusivity. it is our confidence that the divine Lover will win His bride.
Tremper Longman III
The Sermon on the Mount seems dangerous. It challenges the whole underlying conception on which modern society is built. It would replace it by a new conception, animate it with a new motive, and turn it toward a new goal.
E. Stanley Jones
In the New Testament, God's steadfast love and faithfulness are seen, not in an act of deliverance from foreign enemies, but in sending the Son and raising Him from the dead to enact a global rescue mission (Romans 8:3.) Jesus is God's supreme, grand, climactic act of faithfulness. Not only that, but "faithful" also describes Jesus. Paul writes, "We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but in faith in Jesus Christ" (Galations 2:16...). A better reading is "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" -- which is found in footnotes of many Bibles -- and the two readings couldn't be more different... Paul isn't saying, "You are not justified by your efforts but by your faith." The contrast he's making isn't between two options we have; the contrast is between your efforts and Jesus' faithfulness to you, shown in His obedient death on a Roman cross. Paul is interested in telling readers what Jesus did, Jesus' faithfulness, not what we do. God's grand act of faithfulness is giving His son for our sake. God is all in. Jesus' grand act of faithfulness is going through with it for our sake. Jesus is all in. Now it's our move, which really is the point of all this. Like God the Father and God the Son, we are also called to be faithful. On one level, we are faithful to God when we trust God, but faith (pistis) doesn't stop there. It extends, as we've seen, in faithfulness toward each other, in humility and self-sacrificial love. And here is the real kick in the pants: When we are faithful to each other like this, we are more than simply being nice and kind -- though there's that. Far more important, when we are faithful to each other, we are, at that moment, acting like the faithful God and the faithful Son. Being like God. That's the goal. And we are most like God, not when we are certain we are right about God, or when we tell others how right we are, but when we are acting toward one another like the faithful Father and Son. Humility, love, and kindness are our grand acts of faithfulness and how we show that we are all in.
Peter Enns
I sat in the darkness, where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. And when I met you in the daylight I denied it myself.… But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew how near you were to hell. I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with King Satan, and how you, Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope.
G.K. Chesterton
The dead are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me.
Karl Rahner
Silence promotes the presence of God, prevents many harsh and proud words, and suppresses many dangers in the way of ridiculing or harshly judging our neighbors ... If you are faithful in keeping silence when it is not necessary to speak, God will preserve you from evil when it is right for you to talk.
François Fénelon
The constant talker will never, or a least rarely, grasp truth. Of course even he must experience some truths, otherwise he could not exist. He does notice certain facts, observe certain relations, draw conclusions and make plans. But he does not yet possess genuine truth, which comes into being only when the essence of an object, the significance of a relaton, and what is valid and eternal in this world reveal themselves. This requires the spacousness, freedom, and pure receptiveness of that inner “clean-swept room” whilch silence alone can create
Romano Guardini
You whispered softly in the ear of my joyous heart.You know what's on my mind, you've heard my thoughts.I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I want that love that moved the mountains. I want that love that split the ocean. I want that love that made the winds tremble. I want that love that roared like thunder. I want that love that will raise the dead. I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy. I want that love that is the silence of eternity
Jalaluddin Rumi
I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest has failed.
G.K. Chesterton
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
[W]e are none of us very good at silence. It says too much.
Frederick Buechner
In the seventh century, Isaac the Syrian wrote about 'stillness,' which in his writings has been summarized as 'a deliberate denial of the gift of words for the sake of achieving inner silence, in the midst of which a person can hear the presence of God. It is standing unceasingly, silent, and prayerfully before God.
Kenneth Bailey
Let silence take you to the core of life.
Jalaluddin Rumi
In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.
Jalaluddin Rumi
I would like to coin the phrase alimentary theology, a theology that is more attentive to and welcoming of the multiple layers contained and implied in the making of theology. This is a theology that not only pays closer attention to matters related to food and nourishment, and the many ways they can relate, inspire, and inform theological reflection. Most importantly, it is an envisioning of theology as nourishment: food as theology and theology as food. Alimentary theology is envisioned as food for thought; it addresses some of the spiritual and physical hungers of the world, and seeks ways of bringing about nourishment.
Angel F. Mendez Montoya
The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.
C.S. Lewis
The trend in modern American culture is toward ever more individualized eating... and with every food added to the list of things one does not eat, the shorter becomes the list of people with whom one can enjoy table fellowship... for those of us whose health permits, partaking readily of whatever is offered can be a way of affirming that eating together is at least as important as whatever it is that is eaten.
Margaret Kim Peterson
[The] dinner party is a true proclamation of the abundance of being -- a rebuke to the thrifty little idolatries by which we lose sight of the lavish hand that made us. It is precisely because no one needs soup fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time to time. It was largesse that made us all; we were not created to fast forever. The unnecessary is the taproot of our being and the last key to the door of delight. Enter here, therefore, as a sovereign remedy for the narrowness of our minds and the stinginess of our souls, the formal dinner...the true convivium -- the long Session that brings us nearly home.
Robert Farrar Capon
May your table be graced with lovely women and good men. May you drink well enough to drown the envy of youth in the satisfactions of maturity. May your men wear their weight with pride, secure in the knowledge that they have become considerable.
R.F. Capon
And not wretched sausages half full of bread and soya bean either, but real meaty, spicy ones, fat and piping hot and burst and just the tiniest bit burnt.
C.S. Lewis
It was a rich place: as rich as plumcake.
C.S. Lewis
Your people eat dry and tasteless flesh but it is off plates as smooth as ivory and as round as the sun.
C.S. Lewis
Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.
Alexander Schmemann