Quotes by Theologians - Page 11

It is a misery to be born a pain to live a trouble to die.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
I listened impatiently to the wisdom of the O'Neills for about twenty minutes until I could take no more (by this time Steve and Susan had me thumbing through the paperback). I slid the book across the desk at them and said, 'This is so much shit.'That was a mistake because the word 'shit' on the lips of a pastor deeply offended their moral sensibilities. Such was the state of things among us. They took grave exception to the word SHIT, while I was expected to remain noddingly neutral toward their adultery. WELL, SHIT, I thought. Without apologizing, I tried to convince them I was merely 'upset' by the prospects of their separation. Gradually, I achieved the clinical tone that they so admired in the O'Neills and evidently expected in their country parson.
Richard Lischer
The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman think about the next generation.
James Freeman Clarke
If you look at every flower individually, they look quite miserable. Put them together in a vase and they become a bouquet and that's quite attractive. I think about our community often in that way
Henri J.M. Nouwen
The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility. Detached intellectualism is (in the exact sense of a popular phrase) all moonshine; for it is light without heat, and it is secondary light, reflected from a dead world. But the Greeks were right when they made Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity; for he was both the patron of poetry and the patron of healing. Of necessary dogmas and a special creed I shall speak later. But that transcendentalism by which all men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the sky. We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion; it is something both shining and shapeless, at once a blaze and a blur. But the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her name.
G.K. Chesterton
The resurrection is the promise that death will not prevail, that nothingness does not have the last word. God promises to overcome it with life... We can trust that God will overcome death because Jesus is the resurrection, because on the third day Jesus rose again, as the first of many.
Andrew Root
The devil, the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles, flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God....Music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil and makes people cheerful. Then one forgets all wrath, impurity, and other devices.
Martin Luther
True contentment is the power of getting of any situation all that there is in it.
G.K. Chesterton
In other words, we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfill their mysterious purpose.
G.K. Chesterton
The reason the very concept of God has become at once so impoverished, so thoroughly mythical, and ultimately so incredible for so many modern persons is not because of all the interesting things we have learned over the past few centuries, but because of all the vital things we have forgotten.
David Bentley Hart
Men in prayer give greater license to their unlawful desires than if they were telling jocular tales among their equals.
John Calvin
It must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom's specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery.
C.S. Lewis
If you are foe, we do not fear you. If you are friend, your foes will be taught the fear of us.
C.S. Lewis
If Jesus is not your Lord, then Satan is.
Fritz Chery
Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history which cuts without wounding and enobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
Martin Luther King
(Of the main character seeing a new world for the first time.) The air was cold but not bitterly so, and it seemed a bit rough at the back of his throat. He gazed about him, and the very intensity of his desire to take in the new world at a glance defeated itself. He saw nothing but colours - colours that refused to form themselves into things. Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are. His first impression was of a bright, pale world - a watercolour world out of a child's paint-box, a moment later he recognised the flat belt of light blue as a sheet of water, or of something like water, which came nearly to his feet. They were on the shore of a lake or river.
C.S. Lewis
In his last years Linacre gave up medicine for the Church and then for the first time read the gospels. On so doing he exclaimed, 'Either this is not the gospel or we are not Christians.
Roland H. Bainton
Meditation puts reason in its authority and preeminence. It helpeth to deliver it form its captivity to the sense, and setteth it again upon the throne of the soul. When reason is silent, it is usually subject; for when it is asleep the senses domineer. . . . Reason is at the strongest when it is most in action. Now, meditation produceth reason into act (573).
Richard Baxter
When it becomes clear to us that prayer is a part of our daily program of work it will also become clear to us that we must arrange our daily program in such a way that there is time also for this work just as we set aside time for other necessary things such as eating and dressing.
O. Hallesby
Respect for the dignity of others includes treating them as rational creatures capable of being persuadad by rational argument, even in the face of frequent evidence to the contrary.
Richard John Neuhaus
Here was an absolutely compelling road sign. Stay on the road of objective truth - there is objective being and objective value. Stay on the road. There is Truth. There is a Point and Purpose and Essence to it all. Keep searching. You will find it.
John Piper
There is no hope but in prayer.
Andrew Bonar
The rich man is not one who is in possession of much but one who gives much.
Saint John Chrysostom
If we take reason strictly, the perceiving of spiritual beauty and excellence no more belongs to reason than it belongs to the sense of feeling to perceive colors or to the power of seeing to perceive the sweetness of food.
Jonathan Edwards
We have to grow into Scripture, like a young boy inheriting his older brother's clothes and flopping around in them, but he gradually builds out and grows up. Perhaps it's a measure of our maturity when parts of Scripture that we found odd or even repellent suddenly come up in a new light. Our sense is overtaken by a sense of the whole thing, wide, multicolored, and unspeakably powerful.
N.T. Wright
...there is therefore now no condemnation for two reasons: you are dead now; and God, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has been dead all along. The blame game was over before it started. It really was. All Jesus did was announce that truth and tell you it would make you free. It was admittedly a dangerous thing to do. You are a menace. Be he did it; and therefore, menace or not, here you stand: uncondemned, forever, now. What are you going to do with your freedom?
Robert Farrar Capon
The great rule of moral conduct is next to God to respect Time.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
The sky is an enormous man.
Emanuel Swedenborg
Many of those who are humiliated are not humble. Some react to humiliation with anger, others with patience, and others with freedom. The first are culpable, the next harmless, the last just.
Bernard of Clairvaux
Let me be one of the upward and outward lookers, not one of the downward and inward lookers.
Alfred Edersheim
I was suddenly made aware of another world of beauty and mystery such as I had never imagined to exist, except in poetry. It was as though I had begun to see and smell and hear for the first time. The world appeared to me as Wordsworth describes with “the glory and freshness of a dream.” The sight of a wild rosegrowing on a hedge, the scent of lime-tree blossoms caught suddenly as I rode down a hill on a bicycle, came to me like visitations from another world. But it was not only my sensesthat were awakened. I experienced an overwhelming emotionin the presence of nature, especially at evening. It began to have a kind of sacramental character for me. I approached it with a sense of almost religious awe and , in a hush that comes before sunset, I felt again the presence of an almost unfathomable mystery. The song of the birds, the shape of the trees, the colors of the sunset, were so many signs of the presence, which seemed to be drawing me to itself.
Bede Griffiths
Thought is what we start from: the simple, intimate, immediate datum. Matter is the inferred thing, the mystery.
C.S. Lewis
The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah...and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. ["Modern Christian Thought: The twentieth century, Volume 2" by James C. Livingston, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, p.13]
Albert Schweitzer
The most influential of all educational factor is the conversation in a child's home.
William Temple
You use your real voice with those you love, and you cannot be phony with those who know you well.
Frederick Buechner
Music is the art of the prophets the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.
Martin Luther
God wants man to be His creature. Furthermore, He wants him to be His PARTNER. There is a causa Dei in the world. God wants light, not darkness. He wants cosmos, not chaos. He wants peace, not disorder. He wants man to administer and to receive justice rather than to inflict and to suffer injustice. He wants man to live according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh. He wants man bound and pledged to Him rather than to any other authority. He wants man to live and not to die. Because He wills these things God is Lord, Shepherd, and Redeemer of man, who in His holiness and mercy meets His creature; who judges and forgives, rejects and receives, condemns and saves.
Karl Barth
Every healthy person at some period must feed on fiction as well as fact; because fact is a thing which the world gives to him, whereas fiction is a thing which he gives to the world.
G.K. Chesterton
Faith is tested throughout our lives (James 1:3; I Peter 1:7). As the object of our faith proves Himself faithful throughout these trials, our faith grows. Even if we do not have God’s personal revelation about why we are suffering or how He is weaving our trials into a hidden pattern, we do have the revelation of God’s hidden purposes for us and for creation in Jesus Christ. God has demonstrated His faithfulness objectively, publicly, and finally in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Michael S. Horton
Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been some magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up. "I'm sorry, Aslan," she said. "I'm ready now.""Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed.
C.S. Lewis
While the memory of guilt is far from pleasant (like 'wormwood and gall'), it has the curative intent of restoring us into an awareness of the constancy of God's love, new every morning. God's mercy is not spent even with our worst misdeeds.
Thomas C. Oden
My own understanding is similar to that of scholar of religion and pastor Howard Thurman. I find a profound teaching in Thurman's saying that "what is true in any religion is in the religion because it is true; it is not true because it is in the religion." Thurman's saying is true for Christian theology. If there is truth in a theology, then it is present simply because it is true, not because it is in the theology. Whether or not we can find truth in a school of thought or particular theological construction is most important, not the school of thought or particular theological construction. Therefore, I find events of truth to draw on from a diversity of theological writings, rather than locate my work in a particular school of thought. The truth we Christians seek, beyond all our words and all of our labels, is found through unity in diversity. It is the common ground we all long for. No one theology alone is capable of revealing this common ground. We require a diversity taken together, each with its distinctive gifts. Together, these various insights into Christian truth correct and inform one another. This is the gift of ecumenism.
Karen Baker-Fletcher
I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness.Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved". Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.
Jean Vanier
It is a greater work to educate a child in the true and larger sense of the word than to rule a state.
William Ellery Channing
The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That is it was founded on a faith that was not merely summed up after it had exited but was defined before it existed.
G.K. Chesterton
If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?
C.S. Lewis
[For the genuine believer] There are moments in life when God's pursuit of us seems like that of a persistent mosquito, constantly buzzing around our heads and causing us pain, and we are utterly powerless to shake him off.
Ian M. Duguid
We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody [behind the Moral Law]. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, then I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place). The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put into our minds. And this is a better bit of evidence than the other, because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.
C.S. Lewis
The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands
Martin Luther
Why is it that we are so busy with the future? It is not our province; and is there not a criminal interference with Him to whom it belongs, in our feverish, anxious attempts to dispose of it, and in filling it up with shadows of good and evil shaped by our own wild imaginations? To do God's will as fast as it is made known to us, to inquire hourly--I had almost said each moment--what He requires of us, and to leave ourselves, our friends, and every interest at His control, with a cheerful trust that the path which He marks out leads to our perfection and to Himself,--this is at once our duty and happiness; and why will we not walk in the plain, simple way?
William Ellery Channing
To obtain and possess the kingdoms of the world, with their power and glory, by violent injustice is to worship Satan. To obtain and possess the kingdom, the power, and the glory by nonviolent justice is to worship God.
John Dominic Crossan
You are guilty of no evil, Ransom of Thulcandra, except a little fearfulness. For that, the journey you go on is your pain, and perhaps your cure: for you must be either mad or brave before it is ended.
C.S. Lewis
First and foremost, God is the true hero of the story. No matter how captivating the other characters may be, our top priority is to discover what the Bible reveals about God.
Carolyn Custis James
We must have the love that exists among children, for with them love rules without any special purpose.
Eberhard Arnold
God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out air-quality. He knew it already. It was I who did. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the day all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize that fact was to knock it down.
C.S. Lewis
God without Christ is no God.
John Piper
Hope is something that is demanded of us; it is not, then, a mere reasoned calculation of our chances. Nor is it merely the bubbling up of a sanguine temperament; if it is demanded of us, it lies not in the temperament but in the will... Hoping for what? For delivereance from persecution, for immunity from plague, pestilence, and famine...? No, for the grace of persevering in his Christian profession, and for the consequent achievement of a happy immortality. Strictly speaking, then, the highest exercise of hope, supernaturally speaking, is to hope for perseverance and for Heaven when it looks, when it feels, as if you were going to lose both one and the other.
Ronald Knox
Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul's joy and delight. Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places. Now and at all times, forever. Amen.
Augustine of Hippo
The worship of God is…the only thing which renders men superior to brutes, and makes them aspire to immortality.
John Calvin