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“Paul’s emphasis on unity-in-diversity is grounded in the nature of the one God, who is holy Trinity. … Paul sees all persons of the Trinity as involved fully in creation, redemption, and salvation. All gifts come ultimately from God the originating and loving Father, but God gives them through Jesus Christ as Mediator, and they are appropriated by the enabling work of the Holy Spirit.”
— Anthony Thiselton
“... so much American Christianity today comes packaged as inspirational uplift—sunlit, backlit, or candlelit. Furthermore, we are so accustomed to seeing the cross functioning as decoration that we can scarcely imagine it as an object of shame and scandal unless it is burned on someone’s lawn. It requires a considerable effort of the imagination to enter into the first century world of the Roman Empire so as to understand the degree of offensiveness attached to crucifixion as a method of execution. ... There were many thousands of crucifixions in Roman times, but only the crucifixion of Jesus is remembered as having any significance at all, let alone world-transforming significance.”
— Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
“Q. 172. May one who doubts of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord’s supper?
A. One who doubts of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, may have true interest in Christ, though he be not yet assured thereof; and in God’s account has it, if he be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it, and unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity: in which case (because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed, for the relief even of weak and doubting Christians) he is to bewail his unbelief, and labor to have his doubts resolved; and, so doing, he may and ought to come to the Lord’s supper, that he may be further strengthened.”
— Westminster Larger Catechism
“The justice behind God’s creation of male and female and his arrangement of the different roles he chose for them may not always be apparent to us. Why one and not the other? But should we expect our finitude to understand the infinite, omnipotent, wise, good, lovely, gracious justice of God? Perhaps some inkling resides in the dance of the sexes, by which we reveal truth about the inner life of the triune God. The rest is clothed in mystery, to which we yield, with full confidence that it is meant for our good.”
— Kathy Keller
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
“What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. ... Anything can be an idol, and everything has been an idol.”
— Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods
“Rock of Ages, my great hope secure. Your promise holds just like an anchor to my soul. Bind your children with cords of love and grace. Rock of Ages, we give you praise.”
— Sandra McCracken, “Rock of Ages (When the Day Seems Long)”
“Jesus, my Lord, my life, my light,
Oh come with blissful ray.
Break radiant through the shades of night;
Won’t you chase my fears away?”
—Anne Steele, “Thou Lovely Source of True Delight”
“With all other teachers the world has ever known, the important thing is the teaching; but here is a case in which the Teacher is more important even than what he taught.”
— D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
“In applying [the Sermon on the Mount] to ourselves, we need to consider that the Bible is a dangerous book to read, and that the Church is a dangerous society to join. For in reading the Bible, we hear the words of Christ, and in joining the church, we say, we believe in Christ. As a result, we belong to the company described by Jesus as both hearing his teaching and calling him Lord. Our membership therefore lays upon us the serious responsibility of ensuring that what we know and what we say is translated into what we do.”
— John Stott