c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
But what we did yesterday isn't ever really the point or the question.The question is, are you open, by virtue of your relationship with this new Lover of yours, to being challenged in new ways, invited in new ways, to participate in what God is doing? The overwhelming testimony of the Bible is that too many finish growing long before they have finished living, and so they complete their days sitting on their assets. That's hardly the abundant life that Jesus came to give.
— Richard Dahlstrom, O2: Breathing New Life Into Faith
Just because you don't believe in something does not mean that it's not true.
— John Garner
You can take course after course of so-called theology and never hear the message at the heart of Christianity—the message of Jesus, which is indiscriminate love.
— Eileen Egan
Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open.
— Mark A. Noll
One thing is needful
—  to know and abide in the Lord Jesus Christ.
A moderately bad man knows he is not very good
—  a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.
The commandment to imitate Jesus does not appear suddenly in a world exempt from imitation; rather it is addressed to everyone that mimetic rivalry has affected. Non-Christians imagine that to be converted they must renounce an autonomy that all people possess naturally, a freedom and independence that Jesus would like to take away from them. In reality, once we imitate Jesus, we discover that our aspiration to autonomy has always made us bow down before individuals who may not be worse than we are but who are nonetheless bad models because we cannot imitate them without falling with them into the trap of rivalries in which we are ensnarled more and more.
— René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.But the Gospels actually taught this:Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes.The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:Oh, boy–they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch _that_ time!And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes.The visitor from outer space made a gift to the Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
No one can violently attack something without taking it seriously in some way. No one attacks belief in Zeus anymore. No one gets emotional over the Flat Earth Society. Yet Christianity calls forth the deepest emotions -- even and especially in the ones who most reject it.
— Gene Edward Veith Jr., Loving God with All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in a Postmodern World
Those who reject Christianity will not be moved by Christ’s statement that poverty is blessed. But here a rather remarkable fact comes to my aid. Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere ‘opiate of the people’ have a contempt for the rich, that is, for all mankind except the poor. They regard the poor as the only people worth preserving from ‘liquidation’, and place in them the only hope for the human race. But this is not compatible with a belief that the effects of poverty on those who suffer it are wholly evil; it even implies that they are good. The Marxist thus finds himself in real agreement with the Christian in those two beliefs which Christianity paradoxically demands – that poverty is blessed and yet ought to be removed.
— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
It should not be possible for Christians to be disillusioned. We should have no illusions in the first place. Our faith is in Jesus Christ alone.
— Gene Edward Veith Jr., Loving God with All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in a Postmodern World
That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence.
— Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood
God remains the same—faithful, loving and powerful—through changes big and small.
— Janet P. Eckles, Hola Happiness
Grace works ahead of us to draw us toward faith, to begin its work in us. Even the first fragile intuition of conviction of sin, the first intimation of our need of God, is the work of preparing, prevening grace, which draws us gradually toward wishing to please God. Grace is working quietly at the point of our desiring, bringing us in time to despair over our own unrighteousness, challenging our perverse dispositions, so that our distorted wills cease gradually to resist the gift of God.
— Thomas C. Oden, John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity: A Plain Exposition of His Teaching on Christian Doctrine
According to Benedict's scheme, the community reads through... the entire book of Psalms every week. The monks are therefore exposed... to all the despairing, doubtful, bitter, vindictive, jingoistic, nationalistic, and seemingly racist passages in the Psalter. It is not that every sentiment expressed by a psalmist is admirable, but that in praying the Psalms, we confront ourselves as we really are. The Psalms are a reality check to keep prayer from becoming sentimental, superficial, or detached from the real world.
— Richard H. Schmidt, Glorious Companions: Five Centuries of Anglican Spirituality
A sophiological Christianity focuses on the path.
— Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind
In the afternoon the digestion of the meal deprives me of the incomparable lightness which characterizes the fast days.
— Adalbert de Vogüé, Aimer Le Jeune: L'Experience Monastique
God hasn't called us to be successful, just faithful.
— Mother Teresa
When I walk in the forest just before the meal, while reciting the scriptural phrase that I "meditate" for that day, spiritual joy comes over me as if by appointment.
— Adalbert de Vogüé, Aimer Le Jeune: L'Experience Monastique
When a person eats shortly before going to bed, digestion accompanies sleep. The two great physiological functions are completed together, leaving the maximum of freedom to the mind during the day.
— Adalbert de Vogüé, Aimer Le Jeune: L'Experience Monastique
The discrepancy between the modern observance and the prescriptions of the Rule had struck me ever since the novitiate, and no satisfactory explanation had ever been given to me. People said that man had changed: the weakness of people's health no longer allows us to fast. Was it true?
— Adalbert de Vogüé, Aimer Le Jeune: L'Experience Monastique
God loves us mucho, so much that He desires more, much more for us.
— Janet P. Eckles, Hola Happiness
And who did she have? The thought caught her up short, but then she smiled, remembering the preacher's words. She had the Lord. He was her foundation, and that was enough.
— Carol Cox, Trouble in Store
…when we really connect with who God is… we will find He is better than anything we could ever imagine…
— Shelley Hitz, 21 Teen Devotionals...For Girls!
It doesn’t matter who we are or where we’ve been, God sent His Son for us – that’s the beauty of the Gospel.
— Heather Hart, 21 Teen Devotionals...For Girls!
When exactly did this all change, and what were the social and theological factors that led to the change? The answer seems to be in the second century and: (1) because of the consolidation of ecclesial power in the hands of monarchial bishops and others; (2) in response to the rise of heretical movements such as the Gnostics; (3) in regard to the social context of the Lord’s Supper, namely, the agape, or thanksgiving, meal, due to the rise to prominence of asceticism in the church; and (4) because the increasingly Gentile majority in the church was to change how second-century Christian thinkers would reflect on the meal. Thus, issues of power and purity and even ethnicity were to change the views of the Lord’s Supper and the way it would be practiced.
— Ben Witherington III, Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the Theology of the Lord's Supper
Jesus is God is the unified field theory of Christianity".
— R. Alan Woods
He is no fool who believes the man who knows everything.
— Jared C. Wilson, The Storytelling God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Parables
Joy is a deeply felt contentment that transcends difficult circumstances and derives maximum enjoyment from every good experience.
— Charles R. Swindoll
Peter must have thought, "Who am I compared to Mr. Faithfulness (John)?" But Jesus clarified the issue. John was responsible for John. Peter was responsible for Peter. And each had only one command to heed: "Follow Me." (John 21:20-22)
— Charles R. Swindoll
Good intentions and earnest effort are not enough. Only Jesus can make an otherwise futile life productive.
— Charles R. Swindoll
Whatever we do, we must not treat the Great Commission like it's the Great Suggestion.
— Charles R. Swindoll
Let your passion become a passionate pursuit of Me. And as you follow, the sheep will follow.' (John 21:20-22)
— Charles R. Swindoll
In order to cease our striving, we must transfer our trust away from our own abilities, our own accomplishments, our own strength, and place it on His provision.
— Charles R. Swindoll
The abundance Jesus offers is a spiritual abundance that transcends circumstances, like income, health, living conditions, and even death. The abundant life is eternal.
— Charles R. Swindoll
Experiencing grief and pain is like falling off a cliff. Everything has been turned upside down, and we are no longer in control. As we fall, we see one and only one tree that is growing out from the rock face. So we grab hold of it and cling to it with all our might. This tree is our holy God. He alone can keep us from falling headfirst to our doom. There simply aren’t any other trees to grab. So we cling to this tree (the holy God) with all our might.But what we didn’t realize is that when we fell and grabbed the tree our arm actually became entangled in the branches, so that in reality, the tree is holding us. We hold on to keep from falling, but what we don’t realize is that we can’t fall because the tree has us. We are safe. God, in his holiness, is keeping us and showing mercy to us. We may not be aware of it, but it is true. He is with us even in the deepest and darkest pit.
— Dustin Shramek, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
I woke up to singing and found myself singing too
— Don Piper, 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life
The Holiness of God is something more and other than moral perfection: His claim upon us is something more and other than the claim of moral duty.
— C.S. Lewis
Since I am I, I must make an act of self-surrender, however small or however easy, in living to God rather than to my self.
— C.S. Lewis
Among the tastemakers and power brokers and intellectual agenda setters of late-twentieth-century America, orthodox Christianity was completely déclassé.
— Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics
Evil is powerful, but good is more powerful. In fact, evil is so powerful that only good has the power to overcome evil. Darkness can be driven away only by light.
— Jay E. Adams, How to Overcome Evil
It must be conceded by those who admit the authority of Scripture (such only he is addressing) that from the decision of the word of God there can be no appeal.
— William Wilberforce, Real Christianity
I don't care what problem you face
—  it has no power to defeat the cross of Christ.
In the specially Christian case we have to react against the heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible to make the facts vivid, because the facts are familiar; and for fallen men it is often true that familiarity is fatigue. I am convinced that if we could tell the supernatural story of Christ word for word as of a Chinese hero, call him the Son of Heaven instead of the Son of God, and trace his rayed nimbus in the gold thread of Chinese embroideries or the gold lacquer of Chinese pottery, instead of in the gold leaf of our own old Catholic paintings, there would be a unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity of the story. We should hear nothing then of the injustice of substitution or the illogicality of atonement, of the superstitious exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible insolence of an invasion of the laws of nature. We should admire the chivalry of the Chinese conception of a god who fell from the sky to fight the dragons and save the wicked from being devoured by their own fault and folly. We should admire the subtlety of the Chinese view of life, which perceives that all human imperfection is in very truth a crying imperfection. We should admire the Chinese esoteric and superior wisdom, which said there are higher cosmic laws than the laws we know.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
To be a follower of Christ and not just a fan means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
— Shannon L. Alder
Love is not first a feeling. Though the feelings come later and grow thick in the basic loam of love, they don't constitute the sum and substance of love. Love is doing whatever good God says you must do for another, to please God, whether (at first) it pleases you or not. You must do so because He says so; and you don't wait until you feel like doing so. Love begins with obedience toward God in which one gives to another whatever the other needs. Love is not a gooey, sticky sentimental thing; it is hard to love. Often it hurts to love. Love meant going to the cross through the garden of Gethsemane. Christ did not feel like dying for your sins, Christian, but He did so nonetheless. The Scriptures teach that he endured the cross while focusing on the subsequent joy that it would bring.
— Jay E. Adams, How to Overcome Evil
There are many churches in my name and in the name of my apostles. The greatest and holiest is named after Peter
—  it is a place of great splendor in Rome. Nowhere can be found more gold.
Many today insist that music is amoral, that there is nothing innately good or bad about music itself. They say it is neutral, and only its use determines whether it is good or evil. To a degree this is true, but in a very real way music ceases to be neutral the moment those little black-and-white notes begin to be woven together to produce a certain combinations of sounds that result in the message or world-view that the composer of the music wants to get across. The music itself becomes a statement, even when words are not attached to its message.
— Ron Owens, Return to Worship: A God-Centered Approach
Hundreds of young barefoot, long-haired, newly converted believers flocked to the church, and they brought their guitars with them.
— Robert J. Morgan, The Story of Our Songs: Drawing Strength from the Great Hymns of Our Faith
But its exclusive character and irreconcileable hostility to the religious cults and ceremonies with which the whole social life of the city-state and the empire were inseparably connected at every turn, brought the Christians into inevitable conflict with the government and with public opinion. To the man in the street, the Christian was an anti-social atheist who would take no part in the public feasts and the games, which played such a large part in city life. To the authorities he was a passive rebel, who would neither take his share of municipal offices nor pay loyal homage to the Emperor. Hence the rise of persecution, and the driving of the Christians into an underground existence, as a proscribed sect. The Church grew under the shadow of the executioner's rods and axes, and every Christian lived in the peril of physical torture and death. The thought of martyrdom coloured the whole outlook of early Christianity. But it was not only a fear, it was also an ideal and a hope. For the martyr was the complete Christian, he was the champion and hero of the new society and its conflict with the old, and even the Christians who failed in the moment of the trial - the lapsi - looked on the martyrs as their saviours and protectors
— Christopher Henry Dawson, Religion and World History: A Selection from the Works of Christopher Dawson
All during that prison time I really lived by prayer. Be in prayer always, we're told, and back then I was.
— Diet Eman, Things We Couldn't Say
You cannot be kind unless you have all the other virtues.
— C.S. Lewis
Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.
— Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer.
— Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.
— Oswald Chambers
Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God in the here and now.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life
It became obvious why Catholics had built such beautiful cathedrals and churches throughout the world. Not as gathering or meeting places for Christians. But as a home for Jesus Himself in the Blessed Sacrament. Cathedrals house Jesus. Christians merely come and visit Him. The cathedrals and churches architecturally prepare our souls for the beauty of the Eucharist.
— Allen R. Hunt, Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor: How I Discovered the Hidden Treasures of the Catholic Church
Make no mistake,' He says, 'if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.
— C.S. Lewis
Christians, indeed, have a special obligation not to forget how great and how inextinguishable the human proclivity for violence is, or how many victims it has claimed, for they worship a God who does not merely take the part of those victims, but who was himself one of them, murdered by the combined authority and moral prudence of the political, religious, and legal powers of human society.
— David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
There's a place for doctrine and dogma, and science and history and apologetics, but, these things are not Jesus - they are humanly manufactured attempts to make people think that having the right ideas is the same thing as loving and following Jesus.
— Carl Medearis, Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism
On the conversion of the European tribes to Christianity the ancient pagan worship was by no means incontinently abandoned. So wholesale had been the conversion of many peoples, whose chiefs or rulers had accepted the new faith on their behalf in a summary manner, that it would be absurd to suppose that any, general acquiescence in the new gospel immediately took place. Indeed, the old beliefs lurked in many neighbourhoods, and even a renaissance of some of them occurred in more than one area. Little by little, however, the Church succeeded in rooting out the public worship of the old pagan deities, but it found it quite impossible to effect an entire reversion of pagan ways, and in the end compromised by exalting the ancient deities to the position of saints in its calendar, either officially, or by usage. In the popular mind, however, these remained as the fairies of woodland and stream, whose worship in a broken-down form still flourished at wayside wells and forest shrines. The Matres, or Mother gods, particularly those of Celtic France and Ireland, the former of which had come to be Romanized, became the bonnes dames of folklore, while the dusii and pilosi, or hairy house-sprites, were so commonly paid tribute that the Church introduced a special question concerning them into its catechism of persons suspected of pagan practice. Nevertheless, the Roman Church, at a somewhat later era, reversed its older and more catholic policy, and sternly set its face against the cultus of paganism in Europe, stigmatizing the several kinds of spirits and derelict gods who were the objects of its worship as demons and devils, whom mankind must eschew with the most pious care if it were to avoid damnation.
— Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins
Julian recognized that the strength of the orthodox Church rested to a great extent on the imperial discrimination in its favour. According to Ammianus, he tried to atomize the Church by ending the system:
— Paul  Johnson, A History of Christianity
On the contrary, Christian Hedonists are persuaded with Edwards that the only affections that magnify God's value are those that come from true apprehensions of His glory. If the feast of worship is rare in the land, it is because there is a famine of the Word of God (Amos 8:11-12).
— John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
How could the Christian Church, apparently quite willingly, accommodate this weird megalomaniac [Constantine] in it's theocratic system? Was there a conscious bargain? Which side benefited most form this unseemly marriage between church and state? Or, to put it another way, did the empire surrender to Christianity, or did Christianity prostitute itself to the empire? It is characteristic of the complexities of early Christian history that we cannot give a definite answer to this question.
— Paul  Johnson, A History of Christianity
This was all very well: Columbanus's success indicates the appeal of his mission. But his activities, for the first time, brought the nature of Celtic monasticism firmly to the attention of the Church authorities -- to western bishops in general, and to the Bishop of Rome in particular. The Irish monks were not heretical. But they were plainly unorthodox. They did not look right, to begin with. They had the wrong tonsure. Rome, as was natural, had 'the tonsure of St Peter', that is, a shaven crown. Easterners had the tonsure of St Paul, totally shaven; and if they wished to take up an appointment in the West they had to wait until their rim grew before being invested. But the Celts looked like nothing on earth: they had their hair long at the back and, on the shaven front part, a half-circle of hair from one ear to the other, leaving a band across the forehead.
— Paul  Johnson, A History of Christianity
Ask and you shall receive; everyone that asks receives.  This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom:  If you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer. Hold on; let the Word and Spirit teach you to prat aright, but do not let go the confidence he seeks to waken:  Everyone who asks receives....Let every learner in the school of Christ therefore take the Master's word in all simplicity....Let us beware of weakening the word with our human wisdom.
— Andrew Murray
Hospitality is the practice of God's welcome by reaching across difference to participate in God's actions bringing justice and healing to our world in crisis.
— Letty M. Russell
There were two worlds, two lives, for each person: this one--brief, narrow, finite; and the hereafter-- eternal, limitless, infinite. Fame, to mean anything, should go with one into the next world, where one could enjoy it perpetually.
— Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson
What again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
In these remote corners, I have discovered a center point, where East met West, and although there has been a collision of cultures, there is now a new Christian identity that is distinctly Chinese. The circuitous mountain path in Yunnan province is red because over many years it has been soaked with blood.
— Liao Yiwu, God is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China
Only hinted at in some of these tales, and clearly stated in others, it is apparent that there was a long and continuing conflict between paganism and Christianity in the early centuries A.D. This may also be the explanation behind other well creation tales, such as the slaying by St Barry of a 'great serpent' in County Roscommon. The saint thrust his crozier at it before it disappeared into Lough Lagan, and where his knee touched the ground, a holy well, Tobar Barry, sprang up. Although the serpent may represent paganism, and the saint's victory is therefore the victory of Christianity over paganism, we cannot entirely ignore the possibility that some of the serpents in similar Irish tales may have been real water monsters, which are still seen from time to time in the lakes of Ireland and Scotland. These eerie, ugly monsters, with their aura of primeval mystery, appropriately symbolize the uncouth savagery which the Christians attributed to all non-Christian beliefs; but that is not to say that the monsters were totally symbolic and did not have a reality of their own.
— Colin Bord, Sacred Waters
From matters as crucial as the death of Jesus, to those as mundane as eating and drinking, the Bible presents the glo ry of God as the ultimate priority and the definitive criterion by which we should evaluate everything.
— Donald S. Whitney, Simplify Your Spiritual Life: Spiritual Disciplines for the Overwhelmed
Under the leadership of religious professionals, modern worship has become passive—listening to a message and singing some songs. Seldom is there a call to service or an invitation to trust Christ. Baptisms take place inside the church where it is safe and comfortable rather than in public where there is opportunity to give witness to the saving grace of Christ. The great needs of society are left to para-church groups, government agencies, and other social service organizations. All the while the church is losing its muscle tone, its biceps are becoming loose and flabby and its belly is becoming round and soft. Not a pretty picture for one who once was toned and buff—a lean, mean fighting machine.
— Craig Olson
I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.
— Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means
For this reason, the question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we have settled, as well as we can, the philosophical question.
— C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Do you see this lantern? cried Syme in a terrible voice.'Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails of iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats. You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You will destroy mankind, you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire of apes will never have the wit to find it.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
All individuals have moral deficiencies, and when introducing these to reality one not only strengthens himself but also the confidence of others in the human exigency for Christ due to a reflection throughout the body of Christ.
— Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile
The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to scue me from myself. 
— Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change
Worldliness proposes objectives which demand no radical breach with man's fallen nature
—  it judges the importance of things by the present and material results
An instrument s a tool that is actively used to change something, and God has called all of his people to be instruments of change in his redemptive hands
— Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change
Life in Christ is like traveling on a metro link train, with a predetermined destination. You are not the driver, Jesus is, and God provided the route on this one time trip. He plotted everything, the date and the time of your travel and arrival. There will be stops and delays along the way, but remember this, at the bottom of a traffic light is always a green light.
— Rolly Lavapie
How shall polluted mortals dare To sing Thy glory or Thy grace  Beneath Thy feet we lie afar  And see but shadows of Thy face.
— Isaac Watts
The point of Christian scholarship is not recognition by standards established in the wider culture. The point is to praise God with the mind. Such efforts will lead to the kind of intellectual integrity that sometimes receives recognition. But for the Christian that recognition is only a fairly inconsequential by-product. The real point is valuing what God has made, believing that the creation is as "good" as he said it was, and exploring the fullest dimensions of what it meant for the Son of God to "become flesh and dwell among us." Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open.
— Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
In any theological struggle, the first thousand years are always the bitterest.
— Philip Jenkins, Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 years
I think this is a very important thing to understand about Christianity. It was from its very beginnings, it seems, a religion of great quarrels and wars, and it wooed the power of temporal authorities, and made them part of itself in the hope of resolving through sheer force its many arguments.
— Anne Rice, Blood And Gold
One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.
— Robert McAfee Brown
As it is the sister of reading, so it is the mother of prayer. Though a man's heart be much indisposed to prayer, yet, if he can but fall into a meditation of God, and the things of God, his heart will soon come off to prayer....Begin with reading or hearing. Go on with meditation; end in prayer....Reading without meditation is unfruitful; meditation without reading is hurtful; to meditate and to read without prayer upon both, is without blessing.
— William Bridge
Long before there was ever a King James Version of our Bible, there was a gospel truth...and long before doctrines and denominations, the preeminence of the gospel was already ripe to harvest. Before man had ever thought about creating symbols to represent spiritual things...there was a gospel.
— Chandel L. White, Romans to Jude - Precise Christian Scripture Revealed
What is the Christian's responsibility to this world? Is the Christian's responsibility simply, as the "Great Commission" suggests, to share the Good News of God's Kingdom to others, with the goal of making disciples of all nations and perhaps also, along the way, through acts of charity to help meet the material needs of human beings? In other words, is this the only justification for Christian engagement of the larger world?
— Dean C.Curry
When I speak in Christian terms or Buddhist terms I'm simply selecting for the moment a dialect. Christian words for me represent the comforting vocabulary of the place I came from hometown voices saying more than the language itself can convey about how welcome and safe I am what the expectations are and where to find food. Buddhist words come from another dialect from the people over the mountain. I've become pretty fluent in Buddhist it helps me to see my home country differently but it will never be speech I can feel completely at home in.
— Mary Rose O'Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd
He bolted right through the wooden cross arm at the parking garage exit and power-slid into traffic. A torrent of car horns and skids enveloped his vehicle, but the tears in Danny's eyes created the inability to differentiate one vehicle from another. The colors of the automobiles bled into each other like melting rainbow sherbet.
— Rick Mayhew, Donovan's Law
The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God… then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) - the standard of self-law or autonomy. And when autonomous laws come to govern a commonwealth, the sword is certainly wielded in vain, for it represents simply the brute force of some men’s will against the will of other men.
— Greg L. Bahnsen
We should get into the way of appearing lively in religion, more by being lively in the service of God and our generation than by the liveliness and forwardness of our tongues, and making a business of proclaiming on the house tops with our mouths the holy and eminent acts and exercises of our own hearts. Christians that are intimate friends would talk together of their experiences and comforts in a manner better becoming Christian humility and modesty, and more to each other's profit: their tongues not running before, but rather going behind their hands and feet, after the prudent example of the blessed apostle, 2 Cor. xii. 6. Many occasions of spiritual pride would thus be cut off, and so a great door shut against the devil. A great many of the main stumbling-blocks against experimental and powerful religion would be removed, and religion would be declared and manifested in such a way that, instead of hardening spectators, and exceedingly promoting infidelity and atheism, it would, above all things, tend to convince men that there is a reality in religion, and greatly awaken them, and win them, by convincing their consciences of the importance and excellency of religion. Thus the light of professors would so shine before men, that others, seeing their good works, would glorify their Father which is in heaven.
— Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections
The negative penalties of the Old Testament case laws were not harsh but just, not a threat to society but rather the necessary judicial foundation of civic freedom… the Old Testament was harsh on criminals because it was soft on victims.
— Gary North, Victim's Rights: The Biblical View of Civil Justice
I turned and beheld seven rows of plasma screens, each bearing seven vivid scenes, each flickering, each pulsing with a light revealing distant terrors, conflagrations, sufferings - and all thereby brought so close, and all thereby kept far away.
— Scott Cairns, Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected
How, then,' I hear you ask, 'shall I attain my end, whether it be Christian love, socialism, or American democracy?' Your Christian love and your socialism and your American democracy are what you do each day, your manner of thinking each hour, of embracing your life companion and loving your child; they are your attitude of social responsibility towards your work, and your determination not to become like the crushers of life you so hate.
— Wilhelm Reich, Listen, Little Man!
Theology is just not important in Judaism, or in any other religion, really. There's no orthodoxy, as you have it in the Catholic Church. No complicated creeds to which everybody must subscribe. No infallible pronouncements by a pope. Nobody can tell Jews what to believe. Within reason, you can believe what you like... We have orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy. Right practice rather then right belief. That's all. You Christians make such a fuss about theology, but it's not important in the way you think. It's just poetry, really, ways of talking about the inexpressible.
— Hyam Maccoby
I myself have read the writings and teachings of the heretics, polluting my soul for a while with their abominable notions, though deriving this benefit: I was able to refute them for myself and loathe them even more.
— Eusebius, The Church History
Anything that dims my vision of Christ, or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps my prayer life, or makes Christian work difficult, is wrong for me, and I must, as a Christian, turn away from it.
— J. Wilbur Chapman
The more familiar acquaintance we have with God the more do we partake of him. He that passes by the fire may have some gleams of heat, but he that stands by it has his colour changed. It is not possible that a man should have any long conference with God and be no whit affected. If we are strangers to God it is no wonder that our faces become earthy.
— William Bramwell
You are free to go, Father," she whispered. "We are all of us free." Olivia finally understood what Mr Tugwell had tried to tell her. This was how it was for every fallen crteature. Christ bore the penalty we each deserve, to purchase our freedom.
— Julie Klassen
It must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom's specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery.
— C.S. Lewis
Christian love is not a wave of emotion, but a deliberate conviction of the mind that issues in a biblical way of life. (p. 36)
— P.G. Mathew, The Normal Church Life
For if indeed God became a man, then Truth condescended to became a truth, from whose historical contingency one cannot simply pass to categories of universal rationality; and this means that whatever Christians mean when they speak of truth, it cannot involve simply the dialectical wrestling of abstract principles from intractable facts. (5)
— David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and all things have been put under his feet. There are no exceptions. (p. 70)
— P.G. Mathew, The Normal Church Life
If we are called to attention by God’s Life and Holy Spirit, then the ‘spiritual life’ is not a pleasant option we might like to pursue when we have space and time; it is that which is now creating its own space and time within us, and to neglect it is to lose ourselves.
— Luke Timothy Johnson, The Living Gospel
if God spared not His own Son, how much less will He spare you!
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Thus, we must realize that October 21, 2011 will be the final day of this earth’s existence.
— Harold Camping
Christianity . . . sees the necessity for man to have spiritual values and it shows him how to get at those through physical sacraments.
— Malcolm Muggeridge
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of meeAll he could have; I made him just and right,Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.Such I created all th’ Ethereal PowersAnd Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail’d;Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.Not free, what proof could they have giv’n sincereOf true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,Where only what they needs must do, appear’d,Not what they would? what praise could they receive?What pleasure I from such obedience paid,When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil’d,Made passive both, had served necessity,Not mee. They therefore as to right belong’d,So were created, nor can justly accuseThir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;As if Predestination over-rul’dThir will, dispos’d by absolute DecreeOr high foreknowledge; they themselves decreedThir own revolt, not I; if I foreknewForeknowledge had no influence on their fault,Which had no less prov’d certain unforeknown.So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,Or aught by me immutable foreseen,They trespass, Authors to themselves in allBoth what they judge and what they choose; for soI form’d them free, and free they must remain,Till they enthrall themselves: I else must changeThir nature, and revoke the high DecreeUnchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’dThir freedom: they themselves ordain’d thir fall.
— John Milton, The Complete Poems and Major Prose
. . . I realized with a growing and startling sense of clarity that the seminary was educating and training me for a world that no longer existed. Moreover, the posture of this particular brand of Christianity toward the surrounding culture was one of enormous suspicion and at times hostility. It seemed that part of this evolving designation involved a posture of entrenchment and argument toward culture. But I loved culture. I loved the freedom to engage with people for the purpose of friendship and dialogue, not simply evangelism.
— Tim Keel, Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos
In fact, when we listen to the church today, at least in the West, we are often left with impression that Christianity actually has very little to do with truth. Christianity is only about feeling better about ourselves, about leaping over our difficulties, about being more satisfied, about have better relationships, about getting on with our mothers-in-law, about understanding teenage rebellion, about coping with our unreasonable bosses, about finding greater sexual satisfaction, about getting rich, about receiving our own private miracles, and much else besides. It is about everything except truth. And yet this truth, personally embodied in Christ, gives us a place to stand in order to deal with the complexities of life, such as broken relations, teenage rebellion, and job insecurities. 
— David F. Wells
For is it not the common experience of all of us - you and I - that we do no incorporate the truth of these propositions in our lives? We say we know, but we do not do as we know. We say we believe, but we do not act like it.
— James W. Sire, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual life as a Christian calling
That new technologies and techniques would be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. Hence, no bishops or theologians denounced clocks or sailing ships--although both were condemned on religious grounds in various non-Western societies. 
— Rodney Stark
Christianity without mission is like ice cream without frozenness.
— Gary Stubblefield
No man can be a Christian and a soldier at the same time, for the two ideas are wholly incompatible.
— W.E. Woodward
If we look into the matter of how Christian theology rose in the beginning, the Christian Church was always already earlier, and thus even now for each individual the Christian Church is earlier than theology.
— Friedrich Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study
After Hatuey, a fifteenth-century Indian insurrectionist, had been fixed to the stake, his Spanish captors extended him the choice of converting to Christianity and ascending to Heaven of going unrepentantly to Hell. Gathering that his executioners expected to go to heaven, Hatuey chose the other
— Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology
Christianity would be helpless without the idea of free will and the idea offree will would be helpless without incongruity.
— Kedar Joshi
Jan van Leyden announced that a new world order [anabaptism] had been revealed to him and promptly began to implement it. Money was abolished
—  polygamy was legalized
Let thy body be thy holy temple.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Believers should be open to and encourage the Spirit's moving within each one, including the spontaneity from individual initiatives when gathered together. Believers need to be vigilant to prevent formality of liturgy where the Spirit is stifled, and individual initiatives are not allowed.
— Henry Hon, ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose from House to House
We are often more a piece of work than a work of art.
— R.J. Grunewald, The Art of Law and Gospel
Knowing Jesus Christ is one thing! Jesus Christ, knowing you is also another thing! Be identified by Jesus Christ as His own, then you know you know Him, and He also knows you! When you know him and He knows you, you know!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Believers can search the Scriptures on their own, and allow the Word of God, coinciding with the Holy Spirit, to enlighten their understanding, and open their spiritual eyes.
— Henry Hon, ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose from House to House
All believers need to become teachers, shepherds, ministers, and good-news-bearers.
— Henry Hon, ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose from House to House
The power of prayer is beyond description.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
When we repent by grace, we shall receive times of refreshing from God.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Muslim store clerks should sell alcohol and pork. Christian bakers should bake gay wedding cakes. Everyone should do their fucking job.
— T.J. Kirk
And how can evil be the mere absence of good? Is genocide the absence of something, of what? Of kindness? Were there no kind Nazis? Of love? Were there no Maoist revolutionaries who loved their families? Evil is an act, we commit evil proactively, it doesn't simply emerge in the absence of good. When you don't put a dollar in the donation tin in the front of the convenience store it doesn't mean that an ax murderer was created. We human beings have one set of actions described as "good" and another set described as "evil.
— T.J. Kirk