Quotations for May, 2018

 Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Feast of Philip & James, Apostles

For God to explain a trial would be to destroy its purpose, calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience.

... Alfred Edersheim (1825-1889), Elisha the Prophet: the lessons of his history and times, Religious Tract Society, 1882, p. 156 (see the book; see also Rom. 8:35-37; John 15:10; Eph. 6:6-8; Jas. 1:22-25; more at Affliction, Faith, God, Obedience, Purpose, Simplicity, Trial, Weakness)

 Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373

Both from the confession of the evil spirits and from the daily witness of His works, it is manifest, then, and let none presume to doubt it, that the Savior has raised His own body, and that He is very Son of God, having His being from God as from a Father, Whose Word and Wisdom and Whose Power He is. He it is Who in these latter days assumed a body for the salvation of us all, and taught the world concerning the Father. He it is Who has destroyed death and freely graced us all with incorruption through the promise of the resurrection, having raised His own body as its first-fruits, and displayed it by the sign of the cross as the monument to His victory over death and its corruption.

... St. Athanasius (293?-373), The Incarnation of the Word of God [4th century], St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996, XXXII, p. 63 (see the book; see also John 10:17-18; Ps. 16:10; Isa. 25:7-8; John 2:19-21 ;Acts 2:31-32; 13:34-35; 1 Cor. 15:20-26,54-55; Heb. 2:14-15; more at Cross, Death, God, Jesus, Salvation, Son, Victory, Witness, World)

 Thursday, May 3, 2018

We must sometimes get away from the Authorized Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity, the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed, and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame or struck dumb with terror or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations.

... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), included in Letters to young churches, J. B. Phillips, Macmillan, 1960, preface, p. vii (see the book; see also Isa. 55:10-11; Deut. 32:2; Matt. 24:35; John 6:63; Rom. 10:17; 1 Thess. 2:13; 5:19; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; more at Beauty, Bible, Confusion, Devotion, Dumbness, Hope, Shame, Terror, Tranquility)

 Friday, May 4, 2018
Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation

The true way to be humble is not to stoop till thou art smaller than thyself, but to stand at thy real height against some higher nature that will show thee what the real smallness of thy greatness is.

... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Sermons, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1878, Sermon XIX, p. 341 (see the book; see also 2 Cor. 3:3-4; Matt. 20:25-28; Mark 9:35; 10:42-45; 12:41-44; Luke 13:30; 14:10-11; 18:14; Jas. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5; more at Greatness, Humility, Weakness)

 Saturday, May 5, 2018

I have no rest, but in a nook, with the Book.

... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), quoted in The Treasury of David, v. I, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1883, p. 7 (see the book; see also Ps. 1:1-2; 119:11,15,97-99; Josh. 1:8; Rom. 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:14-17; more at Bible, Rest)

 Sunday, May 6, 2018

As they that know any thing in this world know that, as the first great opposition of hell, the world, and corrupt nature, is against faith to God by Christ; so the next great opposition made against us, is against our love.

... John Owen (1616-1683), Works of John Owen, v. IX, New York: R. Carter, 1851, Sermon XXI, p. 261 (see the book; see also Rom. 8:31; Matt. 24:22; John 13:34; 15:12; Rom. 12:10; 1 Pet. 1:22; Rev. 2;4; more at Christ, Corruption, Faith, Hell, Knowledge, Love, Weakness, World)

 Monday, May 7, 2018

I know the road to Jericho,

It’s in a part of town

That’s full of factories and filth.

I’ve seen the folks go down.

 

Small folk with roses in their cheeks

And starlight in their eyes;

And seen them fall among the thieves,

And heard their helpless cries.

 

The priests and Levites speeding by

Read of the latest crimes

In headlines spread in black and red

Across The Evening Times.

 

How hard for those in limousines

To heal the heart of man!

It was a slow-paced ass that bore

The Good Samaritan.

... Edwin McNeill Poteat (1892-1955), in The Questing Spirit, Halford E. Luccock & Frances Brentano, New York: Coward-McCann, 1947, p. 427-428 (see the book; see also Luke 10:26-37; 16:15; 18:9-14; more at Crime, Goodness, Heart, Helplessness, Jesus)

 Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Feast of Juliana of Norwich, Mystic, Teacher, c.1417
Commemoration of Dallas Willard, Teacher, Spiritual Writer, 2013

If afore us were laid together all the pains in Hell... and in Earth—death and the rest—and by itself, sin, we would rather choose all that pain than sin. For sin is so vile and so greatly to be hated that it may be likened to no pain that is not sin. To me was shown no harder hell than sin.

... Juliana of Norwich (1342?-1417), Revelations of Divine Love, Grace Harriet Warrack, ed., Methuen, 1901, ch. XL (see the book; see also Matt. 18:8-9; 5:29-30; Mark 9:43-48; Rom. 4:8; 6:2; more at Choices, Death, Earth, Hell, Pain, Sin)

 Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Ultimate confidence in the goodness of life cannot rest upon confidence in the goodness of man. If that is where it rests, it is an optimism which will suffer ultimate disillusionment. Romanticism will be transmuted into cynicism, as it has always been in the world’s history. The faith of a Christian is something quite different from this optimism. It is trust in God, in a good God who created a good world, though the world is not now good; in a good God, powerful and good enough finally to destroy the evil that men do and redeem them of their sins. This kind of faith is not optimism. It does not, in fact, arise until optimism breaks down and men cease to trust in themselves that they are righteous.

... Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), Beyond Tragedy, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1937, p. 131 (see the book; see also Pr. 3:5; Gen. 1:31; 3:17; Ps. 118:9; Luke 18:9-14; John 15:18-19; Rom. 10:3; Col. 1:13-15; more at Evil, Faith, Goodness, Optimism, Redemption, Righteousness, Sin, Suffer, Trust)

 Thursday, May 10, 2018
Ascension

I come in the little things,

Saith the Lord:

Not borne on morning wings

Of majesty, but I have set My Feet

Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat

That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod.

There do I dwell, in weakness and in power;

Not broken or divided, saith our God!

In your strait garden plot I come to flower:

About your porch My Vine

Meek, fruitful, doth entwine;

Waits, at the threshold, Love’s appointed hour.

 

I come in the little things,

Saith the Lord:

Yea! on the glancing wings

Of eager birds, the softly pattering feet

Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet

Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes

That peep from out the brake, I stand confest.

On every nest

Where feathery patience is content to brood

And leaves her pleasure for the high emprise

Of motherhood—

There doth My Godhead rest.

 

I come in the little things,

Saith the Lord:

My starry wings

I do forsake,

Love’s highway of humility to take:

Meekly I fit My Stature to your need.

In beggar’s part

About your gates I shall not cease to plead—

As man, to speak with man—

Till by such art

I shall achieve My Immemorial Plan,

Pass the low lintel of the human heart.

... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), included in The Questing Spirit, Halford E. Luccock & Frances Brentano, New York: Coward-McCann, 1947, p. 294 (see the book; see also Matt. 10:29-31; 1 Kings 19:11-12; Ezek. 36:26; John 15:5; 2 Cor. 12:9; more at Attitudes, Gentleness, God, Heart, Humility, Love, Meekness, Morning, Power, Weakness)

 Friday, May 11, 2018

There are no crown wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.

... Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), Gleanings Among the Sheaves, New York: Sheldon, 1869, p. 57 (see the book; see also Luke 9:23-24; Matt. 10:38; 16:24-25; 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 4:8; Rev. 4:9-11; more at Bearing, Coronation, Cross, Heaven, Obedience)

 Saturday, May 12, 2018
Commemoration of Aiden Wilson Tozer, Spiritual Writer, 1963

The Lord of all being is far more than the Lord of all beings. He is the Lord of all actual existence. He is the Lord of all kinds of beings—spiritual being, natural being, physical being. Therefore, when we rightly worship Him we encompass all being.

... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Whatever Happened to Worship?, Christian Publications, 1985, p. 106 (see the book; see also John 4:23-24; Ex. 3:14; Ps. 51:17; John 8:58; more at God, Spiritual life, Worship)

 Sunday, May 13, 2018

God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions, not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer.

... Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), Prayer and Modern Man, New York: The Seabury Press, 1973, p. 17 (see the book; see also Ps. 65:2; 46:1; 91:1-2; Rom. 8:26-27; more at Authenticity, God, Omnipresence, Prayer)

 Monday, May 14, 2018
Feast of Matthias the Apostle

O Christ, my life, possess me utterly.

Take me and make a little Christ of me.

If I am anything but thy father’s son,

’Tis something not yet from the darkness won.

Oh, give me light to live with open eyes.

Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.

Give me thy spirit to haunt the Father with my cries.

... George MacDonald (1824-1905), Diary of an Old Soul, London: by the author, 1880, p. 103 (see the book; see also 1 John 3:2; Ps. 88:1; John 1:4; Rom. 8:26; Col. 3:4; more at Christ, Christlikeness, Father, Hope, Jesus, Light, Possession)

 Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945

The attitude of Jesus to the Jewish law was singularly free and unembarrassed. He made full use of it as an impressive statement of high ethical ideals. Even its ritual practices He treated with perfect tolerance where they did not conflict with fundamental moral obligations. From Pharisaic formalism He appealed to the relative simplicity of the venerable written Law. But again from the written Law itself He appealed to the basic rights and duties of humanity: the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; the Law might permit the dissolution of marriage, but there was something more deeply rooted in the nature of things which forbade it; the [law of retaliation], the central principle of legal justice, must go overboard in the interests of the holy impulse to love your neighbor, not merely as yourself, but as God has loved you. Such freehanded dealing meant that the whole notion of morality as a code of rules, with sanctions of reward and punishment, was abandoned. But the average Christian was slow to see this implication. For instance, Jesus had taken fasting out of the class of meritorious acts, and given it a place only as the fitting and spontaneous expression of certain spiritual states. This is what an early authoritative catechism of the Church made of His teaching: “Let not your fast be made with the hypocrites, for they fast on Monday and Thursday; ye therefore shall fast on Wednesday and Friday.” It sounds ludicrous, but we may ask, Was it not on some very similar principle that the Church did actually carry through its reconstruction of “religious observance?” And a Church which so perverted Christ’s treatment of the ritual law proved itself almost equally incapable of understanding His drastic revision of the moral law.

... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 68-69 (see the book; see also Matt. 9:14-15; Hos. 6:6; Matt. 5:38-39,43-45; 6:16-18; more at Church, Fasting, Holiness, Jesus, Law, Legalism, Marriage, Morality, Perfection, Pharisaism, Sabbath, Simplicity, Tolerance)

 Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877

To believe Christ’s cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith.

... Samuel Rutherford (1600-1664), Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Edinburgh: William Whyte & Co., 1848, letter, Feb 13, 1640, p. 611 (see the book; see also 1 Cor. 1:18; Rom. 6:4-6; 1 Cor. 1:22-23; Gal. 2:20; 5:24; 6:14; more at Attitudes, Belief, Christ, Cross, Faith, Friend)

 Thursday, May 17, 2018

Rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him. In Hebrew, “Be silent in God, and let Him mould thee.” Keep still, and He will mould thee to the right shape.

... Martin Luther (1483-1546), Watchwords for the Warfare of Life, Elizabeth Rundle Charles, ed., New York: M. W. Dodd, 1869, p. 249 (see the book; see also Ps. 37:7; Ps. 46:10; Isa. 64:8; Hab. 2:20; Rom. 9:21; more at Bible, God, Patience, Rest, Silence)

 Friday, May 18, 2018

I suppose every age has its own particular fantasy: ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like [Blaise] Pascal, though himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us, it is the other way ’round.

... Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), Jesus Rediscovered, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969, p. 95 (see the book; see also Eccl. 1:10-11; Ps. 14:1-3; Pr. 1:7,22; Rom. 1:18-21; 2 Tim. 4:3-4; more at Historical, Reason, Science, Scripture)

 Saturday, May 19, 2018
Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988

In coming to know Jesus, you have come to know yourself, too: naturally, this is more pleasant for some than for others, but to see yourself as you really are can never be entirely pleasant. And when a Christian fails at something he ought to have done, it isn’t just the failure that hurts—there is also the knowledge that he has let Jesus down. And those little shortcomings of ours, that used to matter so little, compared with the glaring faults of others: we know now that our temper, or our gloom, or our selfishness, reflects on Jesus; and knowing that people are judging your Lord by you is not always a joyous thought to live with. Even the growing up to His measure is hard on a man: we have so little aptitude for such a transformation that it always means conflict, and often rebellion. And temptations hurt as they never did before: not just in the conscience, but in the heart. The assaults of temptation are not on our prudence now, or even on our morals, but on the love for Jesus. His love for us has made Him quite defenseless against our hurting Him, and so temptation is no longer an urge to do a bad thing but an urge to hurt a loving Person.

... Robert MacColl Adams (1913-1985), “Of Rice and Men” (see the book; see also Luke 13:34-35; Neh. 9:30; Ps. 81:11-14; Jer. 7:23-24; Hos. 11:7-9; Matt. 22:1-14; more at Failure, Growth, Jesus, Knowing God, Knowledge, Love, Morality, Selfish, Temptation)

 Sunday, May 20, 2018
Pentecost

Obedience to Christ includes obedience to his commission to go into the world, to preach the good news, and to make disciples. But we cannot do this without taking account of the context in which people live their lives or of the alternatives to the gospel which they find attractive. Some of our evangelism has been very superficial on this account. We need to develop new strategies of evangelistic penetration that will take seriously the cultural bondage in which people are held and the need to soak ourselves in their culture in order to interpret the gospel to them from inside.

... John R. W. Stott (1921-2011), “Obeying Christ in a Changing World”, in The Lord Christ [1980], John Stott, ed., vol. 1 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 14 (see the book; see also Matt. 28:18-20; Ps. 22:27-28; 98:2-3; Isa. 49:6; 66:18-19; Luke 24:46-48; Acts 1:8; 13:47; Rom. 10:18-20; more at Bondage, Christ, Culture, Disciple, Evangelization, Gospel, Mission, Obedience, Preach)

 Monday, May 21, 2018
Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330

Zinzendorf and the Moravians proved that an entire communion of believers (call it a church or a denomination, if you will) can find reason for being solely on the basis of missions to the lost and unreached multitudes of the world. Their fellowship existed solely to send out laborers into the harvest. Everyone and everything pointed to that missionary purpose. For them, missions was not an adjunct to church life, it was church life.

... James Reapsome (see also Acts 13:46-48; Isa. 2:3-4; Mic. 4:2-3; Zech. 2:11; 8:20-23; Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 2:30-32; Acts 26:22-23; Rom. 15:8-9; more at Church, Fellowship, Harvest, Life, Mission, Missionary, Purpose)

 Tuesday, May 22, 2018

To perpetuate the clerical role of answer man, the layman when inside the church building must act as if he has only half a brain, while outside in the world he is expected to be an ambassador for Christ, a lay transmitter of faith. Outside, he is to be informed and vocal; inside, he must appear ignorant and mute as a sheep. Christians have within them many questions—questions that are at once elementary and profound, questions that would ripple the water were they raised. However, because a Christian is supposed to have “answers,” life’s important questions are not discussed outside the church building; and, because the pastor is the educated, spiritual authority, they are not discussed inside either.

... Paul G. Johnson 1931-2013, Buried Alive, Richmond: John Knox Press, 1968, p. 37-38 (see the book; see also Rom. 14:5-6; Mal. 2:7; John 20:21; 21:15; 2 Cor. 5:20; 3:6; more at Action, Christ, Church, Faith, Minister, Question, World)

 Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century

The purpose of religion, at any rate, the Christian religion, is not to get you into heaven but to get heaven into you.

... Frederick Ward Kates (1910-1987), A Moment Between Two Eternities, New York: Harper & Row, 1965, p. 159 (see the book; see also Rom. 15:13; John 14:27; Eph. 5:18-20; 1 Pet. 1:8; Rev. 3:20; more at Gospel, Heaven, Regeneration, Religion)

 Thursday, May 24, 2018
Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788

I met the society and explained to them ... the original design of the Methodists, viz., not to be a distinct party, but to stir up all parties, ... to worship God in spirit and in truth; but the Church of England in particular, to which they belonged from the beginning. With this view I have uniformly gone on for fifty years, never varying from the doctrine of the Church at all; nor from her discipline, of choice, but of necessity.

... John Wesley (1703-1791), The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, v. IV, New York: J. & J. Harper, 1826, entry for Sunday, April 12, 1789, p. 264 (see the book; see also John 4:23-24; Isa. 60:1; Matt. 10:34-36; 25:6; John 4:31-34; Eph. 5:13-14; more at Choices, Church, Discipline, God, Historical, Spirit, Truth, Worship)

 Friday, May 25, 2018
Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian, 735
Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, 709

Such is our dependence upon God that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also to seek from Him the very power. This happy necessity of having recourse to Him in all our wants, instead of being grievous to us, should be our greatest consolation. What a happiness is it, that we are allowed to speak to Him with confidence, to open our hearts and hold familiar conversation with him by prayer! He Himself invites us to it.

... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Pious Reflections for Every Day in the Month, London: H. D. Symonds, 1800, p. 26 (see the book; see also Isa. 26:8-9; Matt. 7:7; Luke 11:9; Acts 17:27; 1 Thess. 5:17; more at Confidence, Consolation, Dependence, God, Happiness, Heart, Power, Prayer)

 Saturday, May 26, 2018
Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
Commemoration of Arthur John Gossip, Spiritual Writer, 1954

Barrie tells us how, in the little house at Thrums, they used to tiptoe to and fro when his mother was upon her knees, awed by the knowledge that she was praying for them. And here and there in the New Testament, we blunder in on Christ and find Him on His knees; and, once at least, ere we can escape, cannot but overhear Him pleading our names. “Neither pray I for these alone,” that is, for Peter and John and the rest, “but for those who will believe through them”—that is, for you and me. Hush! the Lord Christ is praying for you! And what is it He asks for us? That we be given such a spirit of unity and brotherliness and Christlikeness that people, coming upon us, will look at us, and look again, and then from us to Jesus Christ, seeking the explanation of us there.

... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 39 (see the book; see also John 17:20-21; Ps. 22:30-31; Rom. 15:18-19; 16:25-27; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 4:3-6; Phil. 2:1-5; Col. 3:11-14; more at Christ, Christlikeness, Jesus, Prayer, Spirit, Unity)

 Sunday, May 27, 2018
Trinity Sunday
Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564

But if the holy prophets had scruples against separating themselves from the church because of many great misdeeds, not of one man or another but of almost all the people, we claim too much for ourselves if we dare withdraw at once from the communion of the church just because the morals of all do not meet our standard, or even square with the profession of Christian faith.

... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. II, tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, IV.i.18, p. 240 (see the book; see also Jas. 4:11-12; Matt. 7:1; Rom. 2:1; 14:4,13; 1 Cor. 4:4-5; Eph. 4:3; more at Church, Communion, Morality, People, Prophet, Sin)

 Monday, May 28, 2018
Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089

Having tried, we must hold fast [to the truth], upon [the penalty of] the loss of a crown; we must not let go for all the fleabitings of the present afflictions, etc. Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, not the least grain of it for the whole world; no, not for the saving of souls, though our own most precious; least of all for the bitter sweetening of a little vanishing pleasure.

... Roger Williams (1603?-1683), The Bloudy Tenent [1644], London: J. Haddon, 1848, p. 9 (see the book; see also Rev. 3:11; 1 Cor. 9:24-25; 1 Thes. 5:21; 2 Tim. 1:13; Heb. 4:14; 1 Pet. 5:4; Rev. 2:25; more at Affliction, Perseverance, Pleasure, Truth, Weakness)

 Tuesday, May 29, 2018

The problem of evil assumes the existence of a world-purpose. What, we are really asking, is the purpose of suffering? It seems purposeless. Our question of the why of evil assumes the view that the world has a purpose, and what we want to know is how suffering fits into and advances this purpose. The modern view is that suffering has no purpose because nothing that happens has any purpose. The world is run by causes, not by purposes.

... W. T. Stace (1886-1967), Religion and the Modern Mind, Lippincott, 1952, p. 168 (see the book; see also 1 Pet. 2:21; Ps. 89:30-32; John 13:15; 1 John 2:6; 3:16; Rev. 12:11; more at Affliction, Evil, Purpose, Suffer, Weakness, World)

 Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933

There are doubtless many reasons for the degeneration of Christianity into churchiness, and the narrowing of the Gospel for all mankind into a set of approved beliefs; but the chief cause must be the worship of an inadequate god—a cramped and regulated god who is a ‘good churchman’ according to the formulas of the worshipper. For actual behaviour infallibly betrays the real object of the man’s worship.

All Christians, whatever their Church, would of course instantly repudiate the idea that their god was a super-example of their own denomination, and it is not suggested that the worship is conscious. Nevertheless, beneath the conscious critical level of the mind it is perfectly possible for the Anglo-Catholic, for example, to conceive God as particularly pleased with Anglo-Catholicism, doubtful about Evangelicalism, and frankly displeased by all forms of Nonconformity... The ultra-low Churchman on the other hand must admit, if he is honest, that the God whom he worships disapproves most strongly of vestments, incense, and candles on the altar. The tragedy of these examples—which could be reproduced ad nauseam any day of the week—is not difference of opinion, which will probably be with us till the Day of Judgment, but the outrageous folly and damnable sin of trying to regard God as the Party Leader of a particular point of view.

... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Your God is Too Small [1953], Simon and Schuster, 2004, p. 38-39 (see the book; see also Acts 10:34,35; Deut. 10:17; John 4:23; Rom. 2:11; 1 Cor. 1:11-13; Col. 3:11; Jas. 2:9; more at Church, Criticism, Folly, Gospel, Judgment, Sin, Worship)

 Thursday, May 31, 2018

If the prophecies of the Old Testament are not rightly interpreted of Jesus our Christ, then there is no prediction whatever contained in it of that stupendous event—the rise and establishment of Christianity—in comparison with which all the preceding Jewish history is as nothing. With the exception of the book of Daniel, which the Jews themselves never classed among the prophecies, and an obscure text of Jeremiah, there is not a passage in all the Old Testament which favours the notion of a temporal Messiah. What moral object was there, for which such a Messiah should come? What could he have been but a sort of virtuous [Napoleon]?

... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Table Talk, 2nd ed., London: John Murray, 1836, April 13, 1830, p. 49 (see the book; see also Isa. 53:5; 9:6-7; Dan. 7:13-14; Zech. 9:9; John 18:36; more at Bible, Historical, Jesus, Messiah, Prophecy)

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        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
        with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
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Last updated: 12/06/18