Category: Quotes

Paul used the expression “our Lord” 53 times in his letters. He wrote “my Lord” only once. It’s all in the pronouns! And pronouns are a powerful teaching vehicle where worship is concerned.

God’s intention is not to become the feel-good Father of a myriad of isolated individuals who appropriate the Christian faith as yet another avenue toward personal enlightenment.  –Joseph Hellerman

If you drop and ax head in the ocean of God’s wisdom and come back in a thousand years, it will still be sinking.  – John Piper

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.  – Romans 11:33-36

Over the past year I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with 20-somethings who have walked away from their Christian faith. Among the most surprising findings was this: nearly all of these “leavers” reported having positive experiences in youth group. I recall my conversation with one young man who described his journey from evangelical to atheist. He had nothing but vitriol for the Christian beliefs of his childhood, but when I asked him about youth group, his voice lifted. “Oh, youth group was a blast! My youth pastor was a great guy.”

I was confused. I asked Josh Riebock, a former youth pastor and author of mY Generation, to solve the riddle: if these young people had such a good time in youth group, why did they ditch their faith shortly after heading to college?

His response was simple. “Let’s face it,” he said. “There are a lot more fun things to do at college than eat pizza.”

Read Drew Dyck’s full article here.

Kevin DeYoung offers some great reflections. Here is the conclusion:

We should pray for service men and women in our congregations. We should pray for the President. We should pray for the just cause to triumph over the evil one. We are not moral relativists. We do not believe just because all people are sinners and all nations are sinful that no person or no nation can be more righteous or more wicked than another. God may be on America’s side in some (not all) her endeavors.

But please think twice before putting on a Star Spangled gala in church this Sunday. I love to hear the national anthem and “God Bless America” and “My Country, Tis of Thee,” but not in church where the nations gather to worship the King of all peoples. I love to see the presentation of colors and salute our veterans, but these would be better at the Memorial Day parade or during a time of remembrance at the cemetery. Earthly worship should reflect the on-going worship in heaven. And while there are many Americans singing glorious songs to Jesus there, they are not singing songs about the glories of America. We must hold to the traditions of the Apostles in our worship, not the traditions of American history. The church should not ask of her people what is not required in Scripture. So how can we ask the Koreans and Chinese and Mexicans and South Africans in our churches to pledge allegiance to a flag that is not theirs? Are we gathered under the banner of Christ or another banner? Is the church of Jesus Christ–our Jewish Lord and Savior–for those draped in the red, white, and blue or for those washed in the blood of the Lamb?

In some parts of the church, every hint of patriotism makes you a jingoistic idolater. You are allowed to love every country except your own. But in other parts of the church, true religion blends too comfortably into civil religion. You are allowed to worship in our services as long as you love America as much as we do. I don’t claim to have arrived at the golden mean, but I imagine many churches could stand to think more carefully about their theology of God and country. Churches should be glad to have their members celebrate Memorial Day with gusto this Monday. We should be less sanguine about celebrating it with pomp and circumstance on Sunday.

Christianity is not the movement from vice to virtue but from virtue to grace.  -Gerhard Forde

Sentimentality is subtle. C. S. Lewis once told a young writer: “Instead of telling us a thing is ‘terrible,’ describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was a ‘delight,’ make us say ‘delightful’ when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (‘horrifying,’ ‘wonderful,’ ‘hideous,’ ‘exquisite’) are only saying to your readers, ‘Please, will you do my job for me.’” Lewis complains that authors of gushy and sentimental words are tyrannical because they tell the readers how they must feel rather than letting the subject work on them in the same way it did the author. Sentimental worship-leading works in exactly the same way that Lewis describes. With typical comments—“Isn’t he just wonderful?” “Isn’t it such a blessing?”—the leader tells people how they ought to feel about God instead of telling them about God.  – Tim Keller in Worship by the Book

[T]here is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship.  In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.  Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God.  As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset.  – D.A. Carson in Worship by the Book

If the dynamic concept of the Kingdom is correct, it is never to be identified with the church. The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and derivatively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced. In biblical idiom, the Kingdom is not identified with its subjects. They are people of God’s rule who enter it, live under it, and are governed by it. The church is the community of the Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself. Jesus’ disciples belong to Kingdom as the Kingdom belongs to them; but they are not the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the rule of God; the church is a society of men.

In summary, while there is an inseparable relationship between the Kingdom and the church, they are not to be identified. The Kingdom takes its point of departure from God, the church from men. The Kingdom is God’s reign and the realm in which the blessings of his reign are experienced; the church is the fellowship of those who have experienced God’s reign and entered into the enjoyment of its blessings. The Kingdom creates the church, works through the church, and is proclaimed in the world by the church. There can be no Kingdom without a church – those who have acknowledged God’s rule – and there can be no church without God’s Kingdom; but they remain two distinguishable concepts: the rule of God and the fellowship of men. – George Eldon Ladd

Here is the ad I have referenced a few times and asked for people to hunt for in magizines.  Now I at least have a digital copy thanks to Dane Ortlund for guest posting it on Justin Taylor’s blog.  I would still like a paper copy if you happen to find one.

From page 5 of September 2007 issue of Backpacker; ad referenced by John Piper in a 2008 ETS talk in Providence, Rhode Island.

When The Times invited several famous authors  to write an essay in response to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” G.K. Chesterton responded with a simple letter.

Dear Sirs,

                I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton