Quote of the day

[lee_merrill]

Post a favorite quote here! A daily quote vitamin, a sentence or three...

Blessings,
Lee <- Likes quotes

[lee_merrill]

I'll begin with a quote from John Bunyan, saying why he doesn't like to quote!

I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11-12 NIV)

"Besides, I saw my work before me did run into another channel, even to carry an awakening word; to that, therefore, I did stick and adhere. I never endeavored to nor durst make use of other men's lines, Rom 15:18, though I condemn not all that do, for I verily thought and found by experience that what was taught me by the word and Spirit of Christ could be spoken, maintained, and stood to by the soundest and best established conscience; and though I will not now speak all that I know in this matter, yet my experience hath more interest in that text of Scripture, Gal. 1:11,12, than many among men are aware." (John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners)

[lee_merrill]

From Samuel Johnson's blog, in the year 1750...

"Every man has experienced how much ... ardour has been remitted, when a sharp or tedious sickness has set death before his eyes. The extensive influence of greatness, the glitter of wealth, the praises of admirers, and the attendance of supplicants, have appeared vain and empty things, when the last hour seemed to be approaching: and the same appearance they would always have, if the same thought was always predominant. We should then find the absurdity of stretching out our arms incessantly to grasp that which we cannot keep, and wearing out our lives in endeavours to add new turrets to the fabrick of ambition, when the foundation itself is shaking, and the ground on which it stands is mouldering away." (Samuel Johnson, The Rambler)

[Teluog]

From a book I read over last Christmas. It's fairly long, but powerful:

“Early on Friday morning Jesus was taken to Pilate’s headquarters in Jerusalem and the information was laid against him. The Governor was not greatly impressed by the case. His private opinion seems to have been that the whole affair arose out of the malice and ill-will of the Jewish authorities, and that he was being used for their purposes. There his judgement was sound. He also came to the conclusion, after seeing Jesus and questioning him, that he was harmless. He even made some abortive efforts to dismiss the charge or to give Jesus a pardon. But the accusers were insistent and their arguments were backed by the demonstrations of a crowd of ‘loyal’ Jews assembled for the purpose. A decision had to be given. Life was cheap in those days. There was a case of sorts; and even if Jesus was practically harmless alive, he would be quite harmless dead. So sentence was passed and execution followed without delay. By sunset on Friday it was over; and Jesus, with all the hopes and fears he had aroused, was buried in the rock tomb.

And most of the people who had been concerned doubtless went to bed that night with fairly easy consciences. Pilate had earned another day’s salary as Procurator of Judaea; and his province was quiet and peaceful—at any rate on the surface. The Temple authorities could feel that they had made things secure against untimely reforming zeal—for the time being at least. Patriotic Jews could tell themselves that it had been a mistake ever to imagine that Jesus was the kind of leader they were looking for—and in that they were not mistaken. Devout Jews could reflect that such an end as that which had overtaken Jesus was hardly to be wondered at, after the way in which he had flouted the scribes and even criticised the provisions of the Law itself. We might almost say that Jesus was crucified with the best intentions; and that those who sent him to the Cross believed that they were doing their plain duty by the Empire or the Temple, or the Law or the hope of Israel. Doubtless many, perhaps most, of them did so believe.

But Jesus stood for something greater than the Empire or the Temple or the Law. He stood for the kingdom of God. In truth he was the kingdom of God. In his Ministry he had shown the rule of God in action, what it offers to men everywhere and what it demands from them. In Pilate, Caiaphas, and the rest the lesser loyalties united against the kingdom of God incarnate in Jesus the Messiah; and so Jesus went to the Cross—and made it his everlasting throne.” T.W. Manson. The Servant-Messiah: A Study of the Public Ministry of Jesus. Cambridge University Press: 1939/1953, p. 87-88.

[lee_merrill]

From a book I read over last Christmas...
I do like writers who resemble the one of whom it was said "No one ever spoke like this man", yes, succinct and strong...

[lee_merrill]

"In dealing with the arrogant asserter of doubt, it is not the right method to tell him to stop doubting. It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting, to doubt a little more, to doubt every day newer and wilder things in the universe, until at last, by some strange enlightenment, he may begin to doubt himself." (Chesterton, "Introduction to the Book of Job")

[The Curtmudgeon]

"She fell silent, looking me steadfastly in the eye. Her eyes with their great black lashes were unlike any eyes that I have ever seen, and went strangely with her dark southern colouring and her jet-black hair: they were green, with enormous pupils, and full of fiery specks, and as the pupils dilated or narrowed the whole orbs seemed aglow with a lambent flame. Frightening eyes at the first unearthly glance of them: so much so, that I thought for an instant of old wild tales of lamias and vampires, and so of that loveliest of all love-stories and sweet ironic gospel of pagan love--Theophile Gautier's: of her on whose unhallowed gravestone was written:

Ici git Clarimonde,
Qui fut de son vivant
La plus belle du monde.

And then in an instant my leaping thoughts were stilled, and in awed wonderment I recognised, deep down in those strange burning eyes, sixty years in the past, my mother's very look as she (beautiful then, but now many years dead) bent down to kiss her child good night." -- Eric Rucker Eddison, Zimiamvia: A Trilogy, p. 10

The (the quote was the last paragraph, but I needed the rest to set the stage) Curtmudgeon

[lee_merrill]

"... my mother's very look as she (beautiful then, but now many years dead) bent down to kiss her child good night."
Nothing like fine writing in a trilogy--what hath J.R.R. Tolkien wrought!

[lee_merrill]

"Avaro, master of a very large estate, took a woman of bad reputation, recommended to him by a rich uncle, who made that marriage the condition on which he should be his heir. Avaro now wonders to perceive his own fortune, his wife's and his uncle's, insufficient to give him that happiness which is to be found only with a woman of virtue."

"I intend to treat in more papers on this important article of life, and shall, therefore, make no reflection upon these histories, except that all whom I have mentioned failed to obtain happiness, for want of considering that marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship; that there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity; and that he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness, that regard which only virtue and piety can claim." (Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, #18)

[Teluog]

“A person who truly grasps God’s Word will find that Word grasping them.” From my hermeneutics textbook. The quote in my sig is also from that same textbook.

[The Curtmudgeon]

Nothing like fine writing in a trilogy--what hath J.R.R. Tolkien wrought!

Actually, it's "what hath E. R. Eddison wrought," since he came before JRRT (slightly). JRRT called him, "The greatest and most convincing writer of invented worlds that I have read."

Anyway, next quote:

"Then I heard her say, in her voice that was gentler than the glow-worm's light among rose-trees in a forgotten garden between dewfall and moonrise: Be content. I have promised and I will perform." -- E. R. Eddison, Zimiamvia: A Trilogy, p. 20.

Despite the paganish nature of ERE's fantasy world, the italicised statement is one in which I find a promise of God. It's one of the primary reasons Zimiamvia is one of my favourite fantasies.

The (that's just me, I'm afraid) Curtmudgeon

[NeilUnreal]

"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."

-G. K. Chesterton

[Manwë Súlimo]

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

(wanna guess by who?)

[NeilUnreal]

I have no idea who said that, it sounds like it could be Lewis or MacDonald (it reminds me of the tone of the "Curdie" stories). In any case, here's a similar quote:

"Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you're only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you're sure to find some of them."

--Daryl Zero, The Zero Effect

[The Curtmudgeon]

"There is finally the claim that the universe is a closed causal system, the triplet of its three vaguely technical terms suggesting something more substantial by way of a definition. But to say that the universe is a causal system is hardly an improvement on the thesis that effects have causes, and if the universe is everything that there is, then to say that it is closed is only to observe that there is nothing beyond everything.

"This is not a thesis calculated to set the blood racing." -- David Berlinski, The Devil's Delusion, pp. 52-3.

The (his command of the understatement is magnificent) Curtmudgeon

[lee_merrill]

... it reminds me of the tone of the "Curdie" stories.
It does sound like those stories! Speaking of which:

"It means, my love, that I did not mean to show myself. Curdie is not yet able to believe some things. Seeing is not believing—it is only seeing. You remember I told you that if Lootie were to see me, she would rub her eyes, forget the half she saw, and call the other half nonsense." (George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie)

[The Curtmudgeon]

"'And we can take nothing out of the world. Is not that true?'
'Is it not that we can take everything worth the taking?'" --E.R. Eddison, Zimamvia: A Trilogy, p. 562

The (if I quote small enough snippets, I can quote the whole book here, all 856 pages) Curtmudgeon

[Teluog]

At my dad's church, in a sermon on Justification by Law, the pastor says, “Stop trying to earn what you already have by faith in Christ.”

I love how he puts that.

[lee_merrill]

"'And we can take nothing out of the world. Is not that true?'
'Is it not that we can take everything worth the taking?'" --E.R. Eddison, Zimamvia: A Trilogy, p. 562
C.S. Lewis said of Eddison, "no one can be said to remind us of him."


... if I quote small enough snippets, I can quote the whole book here, all 856 pages...
:read: Apparently it needs mention that books are for reading, not writing? :wink:

[lee_merrill]

"I feel as if I must once again gather up all in the two lessons: the danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think, and the grace for humility too."

"The danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think, and that especially at the time of our highest experiences. The preacher of spiritual truth with an admiring congregation hanging on his lips, the gifted speaker on a Holiness platform expounding the secrets of the heavenly life, the Christian giving testimony to a blessed experience, the evangelist moving on as in triumph, and made a blessing to rejoicing multitudes--no man knows the hidden, the unconscious danger to which these are exposed. Paul was in danger without knowing it; what Jesus did for him is written for our admonition, that we may know our danger and know our only safety. If ever it has been said of a teacher or professor of holiness, he is so full of self; or, he does not practise what he preaches; or, his blessing has not made him humbler or gentler--let it be said no more. Jesus, in whom we trust, can make us humble."

"Yes, the grace for humility is greater and nearer, too, than we think. The humility of Jesus is our salvation: Jesus Himself is our humility. Our humility is His care and His work. His grace is sufficient for us, to meet the temptation of pride too. His strength will be perfected in our weakness. Let us choose to be weak, to be low, to be nothing. Let humility be to us joy and gladness. Let us gladly glory and take pleasure in weakness, in all that can humble us and keep us low; the power of Christ will rest upon us. Christ humbled Himself, therefore God exalted Him. Christ will humble us, and keep us humble; let us heartily consent, let us trustfully and joyfully accept all that humbles; the power of Christ will rest upon us. We shall find that the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a joy that nothing can destroy."

(Andrew Murrray, Humility (http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/murray/5f00.0565/5f00.0565.c.htm))

[The Curtmudgeon]

C.S. Lewis said of Eddison, "no one can be said to remind us of him."


:read: Apparently it needs mention that books are for reading, not writing? :wink:

Yeah, but not enough people have read Eddison, so I feel it's my duty to make him more accessible to the masses.

But I'll give you guys a break:

"I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me." -- Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

The (my favourite opening line for a novel) Curtmudgeon

[lee_merrill]

The favorite opening line for me is I think well-known!

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."

[Manwë Súlimo]

The favorite opening line for me is I think well-known!

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."

Every time I see a Tolkien quote, I turn into a 10-year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert.

[Teluog]

On old age:

“There are few more valuable abilities in life than the ability to accept things as they are, and any wise person accepts the years without any resentment at all, for any wise person knows that it is possible to live in the attitude that the best possible age in life is exactly the age you happen to be.” William Barclay

[lee_merrill]

“There are few more valuable abilities in life than the ability to accept things as they are...” William Barclay

"Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, a duty: believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys too: be not content with them as joys. They too conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it, that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims wending through unknown country on our way home." (Fra Angelico)

[Teluog]

A guy from the Renaissance era, forget his name, said, "The Bible can't mean today what it didn't mean back then."

[The Curtmudgeon]

"Properly used, C++ can be a joy to work with. An enormous variety of software designs, both object-oriented and conventional, can be expressed directly and implemented efficiently.... In short, it isn't unduly difficult to write effective C++ programs, if you know how to do it.

"Used without discipline, C++ can lead to code that is incomprehensible, unmaintainable, inextensible, inefficient, and just plain wrong." -- Scott Meyers, Effective C++

The (words to live by) Curtmudgeon

[lee_merrill]

A guy from the Renaissance era, forget his name, said, "The Bible can't mean today what it didn't mean back then."
That's true, historical context is important--and another quote about another aspect of interpreting the Bible:

2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us...

"The love of Christ" is less likely to be objective ("our love for Christ") than subjective ("the love Christ showed"), though some commentators and grammarians believe that both senses are intended. Zerwick comments: "In interpreting the sacred text ... we must beware lest we sacrifice to clarity of meaning part of the fulness of the meaning." (Expositor's Bible Commentary)


"Used without discipline, C++ can lead to code that is incomprehensible, unmaintainable, inextensible, inefficient, and just plain wrong." -- Scott Meyers
I've found it fairly difficult to write good maintainable code in C++, I guess I haven't read Scott Meyers' book...

Blessings,
Lee

[The Curtmudgeon]

I've found it fairly difficult to write good maintainable code in C++, I guess I haven't read Scott Meyers' book...

Blessings,
Lee

Well, that's sort of the implied point -- it takes discipline to write good C++ code; it doesn't come naturally. One of my long-time co-workers explains it this way: "Writing in C is like handing a loaded gun with a hair-trigger to a kid: more than likely, it's going to go off and hurt you. Writing in C++ is like handing a hand grenade with the pin already pulled to a kid: without a doubt, it's going to go off and hurt a lot of people."

The (but I'm not quite that cynical about it, myself -- there's a lot you can do with a pin-pulled grenade besides let go) Curtmudgeon

[Edited to add:] As for Meyers' book, there's actually two (the second one is ... wait for it ... More Effective C++; isn't that catchy?). They're a little bit dated, 1992 & 1996 respectively, but still have a lot of good programming advice. Some of it is rather general, but mostly it addresses specific failings in C++, either the language itself or else the way it is commonly written. Worth a look if you write a lot of C++, or even moreso if you write some but not often enough to have learned the pitfalls the hard way.

[lee_merrill]

... or even moreso if you write some but not often enough to have learned the pitfalls the hard way.
Maybe this could be discussed over here (http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=128470)!

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

"Are you a professing believer in Christ, but without much joy and peace and comfort? Search your heart. Very likely you are sitting at ease, content with a little faith and a little repentance, a little grace and a little sanctification; unconsciously you are shrinking back from extremes. You will never be a happy Christian at this rate. Change your plan without delay, if you love life and would see good days. Be thorough in your Christianity. Lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily besets you (Heb. 12:1 NIV). Strive to get nearer to Christ, to abide in Him, to cleave to Him, to sit at His feet as Mary did. Drink full draughts out of the fountain of life: 'We write this to you, that your joy may be full.' " (J.C. Ryle)

[ChemMJW]

"We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power."
- Bertrand Russell

"Ich mag sie nicht, und es tut mir leid, daß ich jemals etwas mit ihr zu tun hatte.“ ("I do not like it, and I am sorry that I ever had anything to do with it.")
- Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrödinger on the quantum theory in whose development he played an instrumental role

"Trying to capture the physicists' precise mathematical description of the quantum world with our crude words and mental images is like playing Chopin with a boxing glove on one hand and a catcher's mitt on the other."
- George Johnson

"We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot

[lee_merrill]

"We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power."
- Bertrand Russell
Says Genesis 11:6!


"Ich mag sie nicht, und es tut mir leid, daß ich jemals etwas mit ihr zu tun hatte.“ ("I do not like it, and I am sorry that I ever had anything to do with it.")
- Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrödinger on the quantum theory in whose development he played an instrumental role
"God does not play dice", eh?

Blessings,
Lee

[wildrow12]

"Keep your eyes on the sun and you will not see the shadows."

[Teluog]

Secular man “killed a God in whom he could not believe but whose absence he could not bear.” Mircea Eliade

[lee_merrill]

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (C.S. Lewis)

"I was at that time living, like so many Atheists or Anti-theists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world. Why should creatures have the burden of existence forced on them without their consent?" (C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy)

[Teluog]

From Boston Bible Geeks blog:

"The spiritual person of Galatians 6:1 is the person who exhibits the fruit of the Spirit given in 5:22-23....Paul, and other biblical writers, wants hard evidence of the Spirit’s work in a person’s life. A person ought to be changed completely, including (especially) their behavior, when the Spirit is working in them. After all, what’s the benefit in “hearing from the Lord” if you’re still a jerk?"

:hehe: well said

[Teluog]

I just read this:

“We like to think we are being inclusive and tolerant by saying that all religions are really just the same underneath all the rites and beliefs. The solution doesn’t work, however, because instead of asserting that one religion is true, it ends up asserting that all religions are false.”

William T. Cavanaugh

[lee_merrill]

"The solution doesn’t work, however, because instead of asserting that one religion is true, it ends up asserting that all religions are false.”
The minimum does indeed rather resemble zero, especially when the Buddhists and Hindus say non-entity is the goal, and more especially now that various Satanists and Wiccans have started to take their seat in the hall of the religious.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

"... and for poor dear Margaret (certified 'mental deficient' maid, at times the humblest, most affectionate, quaintest little person you can imagine, but subject to fits of inexplicable anger and misery)."

"There is never a time when all these three women are in a good temper. When A is in B is out: and when C has just got over her resentment at B's last rage and is ready to forgive, B is just ripe for the next, and so on!"

"But out of evil comes good. From praying anxiously for a little of God's peace to communicate to them, I have been given more of it myself than I think I ever had before. Which is interesting. You don't get it when you ask for yourself: want it for the sake of others, you do..." (C.S. Lewis, Letters, To Sister Penelope, C.S.M.V.)

[lee_merrill]

I then heard a soft melodious voice, more pure and harmonious than any I had heard with my ears before; I believed it was the voice of an angel who spake to the other angels; the words were, "John Woolman is dead." I greatly wondered what that heavenly voice could mean. I believed beyond doubting that it was the voice of a holy angel, but as yet it was a mystery to me...

I then said, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Then the mystery was opened and I perceived there was joy in heaven over a sinner who had repented, and that the language "John Woolman is dead," meant no more than the death of my own will. (John Woolman, Journal (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1772woolman.html))

[lee_merrill]

"And so whatsoever thou wantest, be sure to strive to pitch thy faith upon the Son of God, and behold Him steadfastly, and thou shalt, by so doing, find a mighty change in thy soul. For when we behold Him as in a glass, even the glory of the Lord, we are changed, namely, by beholding, 'from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord' (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the true way to get both comfort to thy soul, and also sanctification and right holiness into thy soul." (John Bunyan)

[Teluog]

“God does who God is.” From a book I'm reading.

[lee_merrill]

On Monday Charles Williams lectured nominally on Comus but really on Chastity. Simply as criticism it is superb--because here was a man who really started with the same point of view as Milton and really cared with every fibre of his being about "the sage and serious doctrine of virginity" which it would never occur to the ordinary modern critic to take seriously. But it was more important still as a sermon. It was a beautiful sight to see a whole room full of modern young men and women sitting in that absolute silence which can not be faked, very puzzled, but spell-bound: perhaps with something of the same feeling which a lecture on unchastity might have evoked in their grandparents--the forbidden subject broached at last. ... I have at last, if only for once, seen a university doing what it was founded to do, teaching Wisdom. And what a wonderful power there is in the direct appeal which disregards the temporary climate of opinion...

C.S. Lewis -- Letters

[Teluog]

“The Bible has no fewer than 429 references to writing and to written documents. This is significant if it is remembered that the Illiad provides only one reference to writing and there is none in the Odyssey.”

The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible: An Introduction to the History of the Bible

[Kelp]

Why is that important? I can't figure it out.


I like this but I can never find the source of it:


The glibness with which some men still trace what they are pleased to call the hand of God in history is enough to make unregenerate historians sneer, and to shock those of us whose religion teaches them that the ways of God are past finding out, and that you cannot draw morals from the fall of towers in Siloam or from the success or failure of pious rebels in Galilee.

[lee_merrill]

A traveler in a wood espied
A way he discerned to be the way of truth.
Seeing it was thickly overgrown with weeds,
Remarked, "Ha! I see no one has been this way
In many a year."

On closer inspection, he perceived that each blade
Was a singular sword.

"Well", said the traveler at length--
"Doubtless there are other ways."

(Read this long ago, and am quoting from memory)

Blessings,
Lee

[Kelp]

"Miracles are not impossible from a logical standpoint, and right reason does not deny them. Natural laws do not have the claim to be the only ones, nor are they threatened with being overturned by the appearance of other laws, supernatural ones... Miracles are consequence of the Creator's love for His creatures." -St Nektarios of Aegina

[lee_merrill]

When we suffer or see people suffering, a cry from the depth of our being come up: "Where is God?" Especially when suffering lasts for years and years, then our morale deteriorates and our situation becomes frustrating. We begin to question even the essential attributes of God: His love, wisdom and faithfulness. I am sure many people, even Christians, are shaken by these doubts when their prayers have gone unanswered for years.

How can our faith be sustained in such circumstances? Our faith will be as deep as the cross is in our belief. People tend to look to heaven in the midst of their suffering and say, Where are you God? They feel that God is on His Throne up there in heaven, far away and uncaring. Those who have the cross as the centre of their theology will not look up to a distant heaven as if to get help for their suffering, but will look to the crucified Jesus down here on Golgotha, and from His suffering, their hearts find healing in the midst of their suffering. (Ghassan Khalaf, pastor in Lebanon, "Bound to be Free")

[Kelp]

We must die
before we die
so that we don't die
when we die
--Ancient saying of Eastern Orthodox monks

[lee_merrill]

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
EPHESIANS 3:17

Christ in you, the hope of glory.
COLOSSIANS 1:27


Enter my opening heart;
Fill in with love and peace and light from heaven;
Give me Thyself--for all in Thee is given;
Come--never to depart.
THOMAS WILLIAM WEBB


Wherever thou goest, whatever thou dost at home, or abroad, in the field, or at church, do all in a desire of union with Christ, in imitation of His tempers and inclinations, and look upon all as nothing, but that which exercises, and increases the spirit and life of Christ in thy soul. From morning to night keep Jesus in thy heart, long for nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing but to have all that is within thee changed into the spirit and temper of the holy Jesus. This new birth in Christ, thus firmly believed and continually desired, will do everything that thou wantest to have done in thee, it will dry up all the springs of vice, stop all the workings of evil in thy nature, it will bring all that is good into thee, it will open all the gospel within thee, and thou wilt know what it is to be taught of God.
WILLIAM LAW

(from Joy and Strength (http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Devotions.html), by Mary Wilder Tileston)

God bless you,
Lee

[Teluog]

"The Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done." Sally Lloyd-Jones

[Kelp]

I am not ashamed to confess publicly that next to theology there is no art which is the equal of music, for she alone, after theology, can do what otherwise only theology can accomplish, namely, quiet and cheer up the soul of man, which is clear evidence that the devil, the originator of depressing worries and troubled thoughts, flees from the voice of music just as he flees from the words of theology. For this very reason the prophets cultivated no art so much as music in that they attached their theology not to geometry, nor to arithmetic, nor to astronomy, but to music, speaking the truth through psalms and hymns.---Martin Luther

[lee_merrill]

"Vae Victis! Down, down, down with the defeated! Victory is the only ultimate fact. Carthage was destroyed, the Red Indians are being exterminated: that is the single certainty. In an hour from now that sun will still be shining and that grass growing, and one of you will be conquered; one of you will be the conqueror. When it has been done, nothing will alter it. Heroes, I give you the hospitality fit for heroes. And I salute the survivor. Fall on!"

The two men took their swords. Then MacIan said steadily: "Mr. Turnbull, lend me your sword a moment."

Turnbull, with a questioning glance, handed him the weapon. MacIan took the second sword in his left hand and, with a violent gesture, hurled it at the feet of little Mr. Wimpey.

"Fight!" he said in a loud, harsh voice. "Fight me now!"

Wimpey took a step backward, and bewildered words bubbled on his lips.

"Pick up that sword and fight me," repeated MacIan, with brows as black as thunder.

The little man turned to Turnbull with a gesture, demanding judgement or protection.

"Really, sir," he began, "this gentleman confuses..."

"You stinking little coward," roared Turnbull, suddenly releasing his wrath. "Fight, if you're so fond of fighting! Fight, if you're so fond of all that filthy philosophy! If winning is everything, go in and win! If the weak must go to the wall, go to the wall! Fight, you rat! Fight, or if you won't fight—run!"

And he ran at Wimpey, with blazing eyes.

Wimpey staggered back a few paces like a man struggling with his own limbs. Then he felt the furious Scotchman coming at him like an express train, doubling his size every second, with eyes as big as windows and a sword as bright as the sun. Something broke inside him, and he found himself running away, tumbling over his own feet in terror, and crying out as he ran.

"Chase him!" shouted Turnbull as MacIan snatched up the sword and joined in the scamper. "Chase him over a county! Chase him into the sea! Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!"

The little man plunged like a rabbit among the tall flowers, the two duellists after him. Turnbull kept at his tail with savage ecstasy, still shooing him like a cat. But MacIan, as he ran past the South Sea idol, paused an instant to spring upon its pedestal. For five seconds he strained against the inert mass. Then it stirred; and he sent it over with a great crash among the flowers, that engulfed it altogether. Then he went bounding after the runaway.

In the energy of his alarm the ex-Fellow of Magdalen managed to leap the paling of his garden. The two pursuers went over it after him like flying birds. He fled frantically down a long lane with his two terrors on his trail till he came to a gap in the hedge and went across a steep meadow like the wind. The two Scotchmen, as they ran, kept up a cheery bellowing and waved their swords. Up three slanting meadows, down four slanting meadows on the other side, across another road, across a heath of snapping bracken, through a wood, across another road, and to the brink of a big pool, they pursued the flying philosopher. But when he came to the pool his pace was so precipitate that he could not stop it, and with a kind of lurching stagger, he fell splash into the greasy water. Getting dripping to his feet, with the water up to his knees, the worshipper of force and victory waded disconsolately to the other side and drew himself on to the bank. And Turnbull sat down on the grass and went off into reverberations of laughter. A second afterwards the most extraordinary grimaces were seen to distort the stiff face of MacIan, and unholy sounds came from within. He had never practised laughing, and it hurt him very much.

(The Ball and the Cross (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5265/5265-h/5265-h.htm), by G.K. Chesterton)

[Kelp]

Even if we have thousands of acts of great virtue to our credit, our confidence in being heard must be based on God's mercy and His love for men. Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved. --St. John Chrysostom

[lee_merrill]

"To each of us there is something which seems simply impossible to get on top of. I know my special foe and all this week I have had to live looking off to Jesus."

- Amy Carmichael

[lee_merrill]

"The grace of God filling the heart with Christ, alone enables us to give up self, and its idols. The more filled we are with him, and his grace and truth, the more readily we can yield up all that his eye condemns."

"For it is only as we are led by the God of all grace that we can really go down, really be nothing, or really admit all his rebukes, and the hollowness of all not given by his grace. Christ enters, and all that cannot live in his company goes out."

"Slowly it may be—unwilling to yield possession—but the inflowing of the blessing through the knowledge and power of Christ, must cleanse the heart, while filling it."

"This indeed is a process, not a thing done at once, once for all. There is conflict. There are sad advantages often gained by the enemy. But just as Christ enters and abides—dwelling in the heart by faith—so are the many suggestions of the enemy driven outside, and kept outside."

(Anonymous)

[Teluog]

"D'oh!"

Homer Simpson

[lee_merrill]

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity...

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Blessings,
Lee

[Teluog]

A dialogue between an alien and a human on human logic:

man: You don't really understand. You see, all we were trying to do was to make life simpler and more pleasant for everybody.
alien: Simpler? More pleasant?
man: You know--free people from the back-breaking, dawn-till-dusk drudgery that was their lives, provide them with a few more luxuries and a few less sicknesses--give 'em a chance to--
alien: Rise?
man: Yeah, rise, that's it--rise above what they'd always been, what their fathers had been, what they themselves would continue to be without opportunities to change.
alien: Hmm, a noble goal.
man: You bet it was. That's why we invented technology and built great industries--to free man of the time-consuming toil that he was slave to, to allow him the time he needed to develop other interests, more noble ones, like you say.
alien: So he could fulfill himself, I suppose.
man: Right!
alien: And has he--fulfilled himself?
man: Well, some have and some have not.
alien: But surely you're free of the demands of survival.
man: In a way, yes--
alien: Then you're free to fulfill yourself.
man: Like I say it just ain't that simple. Just staying alive today, well, that's no mean task, let me tell you. A lot of people have to work a couple of jobs just to make ends meet--mothers as well as fathers. And when all the work is done and the bills are paid, well, a guy's just plumb worn out and too poor to do what he really wants to.
alien: And what's that?
man: Gee, I don't know.
alien: You don't know?
man: Well, like I say, I haven't given that too much thought--haven't had time to. What with everything else, a guy just can't sit around and philosophize, for cryin' out loud! I mean the rest of the world would just pass him by, wouldn't it?
alien: Would that be so terrible?
man: Terrible? Are you kiddin'? Where're your heads at anyway?
alien: On my shoulder, I presume, where they've always been.
man: Yeah, well let me ask you somethin'. If a guy don't look after number one, then who will? Huh? Answer me that one.
alien: So, you're actually back to where you began--trying to survive.
man: Trying to survive? That ain't the half of it. Today a guy could kill himself trying to survive and still not make it!

From the introduction of Vincent E. Barry's Practical Logic, 1976.

[lee_merrill]

A dialogue between an alien and a human on human logic...
Socrates: There is a certain experience we must be careful to avoid.

Phaedo: What is that?

S: That we should not become misologues, as people become misanthropes. There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.

Blessings,
Lee <- Thankful that if aliens have more than one head, they at least have them on their shoulder

[lee_merrill]

That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live.
DEUTERONOMY 16:20

This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.
DEUTERONOMY 26:16

Never pass by or palter with the clear voice of conscience, with the plain command of duty; never let it be doubtful to your own soul whether you belong to the right side or wrong, whether you are a true soldier or a false traitor. Never deliberate about what is clearly wrong, and try to persuade yourself that it is not.
FREDERICK TEMPLE

The first resolve of one who gives himself wholly to God must be never to give way deliberately to any fault whatever; never to act in defiance of conscience, never to refuse anything God requires, never to say of anything, It is too small for God to heed. Such a resolution as this is an essential foundation in the spiritual life. I do not mean but that in spite of it we shall fall into inadvertencies, infirmities, errors; but we shall rise up and go on anew from such faults--because they are involuntary, the will has not consented to them.
JEAN NICOLAS GROU

(from Joy and Strength (http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Devotions.html), by Mary Wilder Tileston)

God bless you,
Lee

[Teluog]

“This book was reading me as surely as I was reading it.” A.S.A. Jones on learning how to read the Bible.

Teluog

[lee_merrill]

"Allow me to give you a few practical words as to your prayers. Keep clear of the unprofitable habit of 'saying your prayers.'"

"Christendom is full of solemn warnings as to the tendency of our hearts to drop into a routine of religious forms. It is a very great loss to the soul to get into the habit of repeating substantially the same words in prayer every day. It is not prayer at all."

"We read, 'In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.' How can you do that if you are using the same form of words day after day, and week after week? Today is not like yesterday, and tomorrow will not be like today. If you are really with God you will be sensitive to the fresh needs of every day."

"God delights to have our confidence as to every need and care. Then let us cultivate a child's confidence, and a child's simplicity as we come to him in prayer. Bring the trying circumstances of today, and the expected difficulties and perplexities of tomorrow to the blessed God who tells you to cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."

"Be simple: give up the long preface; do not feel it necessary to quote a dozen scriptures; ask as a needy and confiding child would ask its parent."

C.A. Coates

[NeilUnreal]

By now they [the space aliens] had mastered my own language, but they still made simple mistakes like using "hermeneutics," when they meant "heuristic."

—Woody Allen

[lee_merrill]

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." - On Running After One's Hat, G.K. Chesterton

[lee_merrill]

C.S. Lewis, To Owen Barfield, April 4, 1949.

Talking of beasts and birds, have you ever noticed this contrast: that when you read a scientific account of any animal's life you get an impression of laborious, incessant, almost rational economic activity (as if all animals were Germans), but when you study any animal you know, what at once strikes you is their cheerful fatuity, the pointlessness of nearly all they do. Say what you like, Barfield, the world is sillier and better fun than they make out...

[Teluog]

Not sure who said it, but he was a biblical humanist in the Renaissance. Might have been Jacques Lefevre D'Etaples or Desiderius Erasmus. I'm not sure the exact words either, but it went something like this:

"The Bible can't mean today what it didn't mean back then."

[lee_merrill]

"What we love, we shall grow to resemble" (Bernard of Clairveaux)

[lee_merrill]

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with GOD: those only can comprehend it who practise and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive; it is not pleasure which we ought to seek in this exercise; but let us do it from a principle of love, and because GOD would have us.

Were I a preacher, I should above all other things preach the practice of the presence of GOD; and were I a director, I should advise all the world to do it: so necessary do I think it, and so easy too.

Ah! knew we but the want we have of the grace and assistance of GOD, we should never lose sight of Him, no, not for a moment. Believe me; make immediately a holy and firm resolution never more wilfully to forget Him, and to spend the rest of your days in His sacred presence, deprived for the love of Him, if He thinks fit, of all consolations.

Set heartily about this work, and if you do it as you ought, be assured that you will soon find the effects of it. I will assist you with my prayers, poor as they are: I recommend myself earnestly to yours, and those of your holy society.

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.html)

[lee_merrill]

All things are possible to him who believes.
MARK 9:23

My grace is sufficient for thee.
2 CORINTHIANS 12:9

It is possible, I dare to say, for those who will indeed draw on their Lord's power for deliverance and victory, to live a life in which His promises are taken as they stand, and found to be true. It is possible to cast every care on Him, daily, and to be at peace amidst the pressure. It is possible to see the will of God in everything, and to find it, as one has said, no longer a sigh, but a song. It is possible, in the world of inner act and motion, to put away, to get put away, all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and evil speaking, daily and hourly. It is possible, by unreserved resort to divine power, under divine conditions, to become strongest, through and through, at our weakest point; to find the thing which yesterday upset all our obligations to patience, or to purity, or to humility, an occasion today, through Him who loveth us, and worketh in us, for a joyful consent to His will, and a delightful sense of His presence and sin-annulling power. These are things divinely possible.
HANDLEY C. G. MOULE

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

God bless you,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

"See Jesus in everything, then in everything you will find blessing. Keep looking to Jesus. Do nothing but for Him, but as in Him and by His strength and direction. Christ all and in all! And may He abundantly and personally manifest Himself to you." (J. Hudson Taylor)

[Nunzio]

When we turn to the other New Testament data concerning the life of Jesus, we see that some actions are clearly those of a superhuman power, while others can be only attributed to a truly human power.

(from the Christian Life by Dallas M. Roark)

[Nunzio]

"I doubt whether man can ever support at the same time complete religious independence and entire political freedom. And I am inclined to think that, if faith be wanting in him, he must be subject; and if he be free, he must believe."

~ Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America. pg. 150

[Nunzio]

"War is not merely an act of policy, but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means."

Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz

[Nunzio]

from Thomas Paine in The American Crisis:

"These are the times that try men’s souls. the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."

[glassonion]

From Dean Koontz newsletter

When you accept your talent, not as something to take pride in but as something for which to be grateful, you remove ego. You are freed from the desire to impress.

[lee_merrill]

There is never a crack in the ivory tower
Or a hinge to groan in the house of gold
Or a leaf of the rose in the wind to wither
And she grows young as the world grows old.
A Woman clothed with the sun returning
to clothe the sun when the sun is cold.


The light is bright on the Tower of David,
The evening glows with the morning star
In the skies turned back and the days returning
She walks so near who had wandered far
And in the heart of the swords, the seven times wounded,
Was never wearied as our hearts are.

G.K. Chesterton, The Towers of Time (http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/towers-of-time.html)

[lee_merrill]

But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has made us alive together with Christ.
EPHESIANS 2:4-5

We may hate ourselves when we come to realize failings we have not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am sure. It is one's greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt by God. just as a mother would not love her child the better for its being turned into a model of perfection at once, but does love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our struggles with folly and sin.
JULIANA H. EWING

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[lee_merrill]

The secret of true obedience—let me say at once what I believe it to be—is the clear and close personal relationship to God. All our attempts after full obedience will be failures until we get access to His abiding fellowship. It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him.

Andrew Murray, The School of Obedience (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/obedience.html)

[Teluog]

"I am he is you are he is you are me and we are all together."

I Am The Walrus, The Beatles

[lee_merrill]

"Hammer this truth out on the anvil of experience-this truth that the loving thoughts of God direct and perfect all that concerns us; it will bear to be beaten out to the uttermost. The pledged word of God to man is no puffball to break at a touch and scatter into dust. It is iron. It is gold, that most malleable of all metals. It is more golden than gold. It abides imperishable forever. If we wait till we have clear enough vision to see the expected end before we stay our mind upon Him who is our Strength, we shall miss an opportunity that will never come again: we shall never know the blessing of the unoffended (Mt. 11:6). Now is the time to say, 'My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise,' even though as we say the words there is no sense of exultation. 'It is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight,' by which I understand something less helpful than daylight would be in the search and the finding of gold. By moonlight, then, let us gather our gold." (Amy Carmichael)

[Kelp]

Behold, through the truth of Christian humility you will be able to achieve victory over every vice, that is by attributing to God rather than to yourself the fact that you have won.--St. Martin of Braga

[Teluog]

Behold, through the truth of Christian humility you will be able to achieve victory over every vice, that is by attributing to God rather than to yourself the fact that you have won.--St. Martin of Braga

According to FredFlanders, humility gets you all the girls.

One of my favourites:

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." Jim Elliot

[Teluog]

"The best things in life aren't things." From an artpiece at DeviantArt, from a photo of a sign.

[Kelp]

Faith and love which are gifts of the Holy Spirit are such great and powerful means that a person who has them can easily, and with joy and consolation, go the way Jesus Christ went. Besides this, the Holy Spirit gives man the power to resist the delusions of the world so that although he makes use of earthly good, yet he uses them as a temporary visitor, without attaching his heart to them. But a man who has not got the Holy Spirit, despite all his learning and prudence, is always more or less a slave and worshipper of the world.--St. Innocent of Alaska

[NeilUnreal]

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (film version)

[Methuselah]

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep for that which he cannot lose" Jim Elliot

[Teluog]

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep for that which he cannot lose" Jim Elliot

I just posted that quote 3 or 4 posts ago :ahem:

Welcome to T-Web, btw! :hi:

[Pilgrim]

In honor of john Hughes:

"And these children that you spit on as the try to change their world are immune to your consultations, they are quite aware of what they're going through..." David Bowie from the opening title of "The Breakfast Club."

[Teluog]

Long one, but very relevant to all of us. It's from an article on Christian's and the movies (http://www.angelfire.com/ia/skywriter/), and is a combination of quotes:

Nancy Pearcey, in her book TOTAL TRUTH, continues the work of Dr.Schaeffer. She writes, "Artists are often the barometers of society, and by analyzing the worldviews embedded in their works we can learn a great deal about how to address the modern mind effectively. Yet many Christians critique culture one dimensionally, from a moral perspective alone, and as a result they come across as negative and condemning. At a Christian college, I once took an English course from a professor whose idea of critiquing classic works of literature was to tabulate how many times the characters used bad language or engaged in illicit sexual relations. He seemed blind to the books' literary quality--whether or not they were good as literature. Nor did he teach us how to detect the worldviews expressed there...When the only form of cultural commentary Christians offer is moral condemnation, no wonder we come across to non-believers as angry and scolding. Our first response to the great works of human culture should be to celebrate them as reflections of God's own creativity. And even when we analyze where they go wrong, it should be in a spirit of love.. Today on religious radio or in ministry funded letters, it is common for Christian activists to attack Hollywood or television in tones of aggrieved anger, berating their immoral content or mocking the pretensions of postmodern political correctness. But Schaeffer would have none of that. Even when raising serious criticisms, he expressed burning compassion for people caught in the trap of false worldviews. When describing the pessimism and nihilism expressed in so many movies, paintings, and popular songs, he demonstrated profound empathy for those actually living in despair. These works of art "are the expression of men who are struggling with their appalling lostness," he wrote. "Dare we laugh at such things? Dare we feel superior when we view their tortured expression in their art" The men and women who produce these things "are dying while they live, yet where is our compassion for them?" Pg.57.

[Kelp]

That is very good. Reminds me of D.A. Carson's lament that most authors who try to follow in Schaeffer's footsteps and interact with culture just come off sounding like "very angry people".

[Teluog]

That is very good. Reminds me of D.A. Carson's lament that most authors who try to follow in Schaeffer's footsteps and interact with culture just come off sounding like "very angry people".

:eh: the quote is saying that Schaeffer's attitude is to be followed. It's the rest of the church that come off as angry. Unless that is what you meant to say.

Just came across this:

"If Jesus preached the same message minister's preach today, He would have never been crucified." Leonard Ravenhill

[Kelp]

Oh sorry. Carson meant other people come off as angry, not Schaeffer (nor Pearcy for that matter).

[Teluog]

"I give thanks unto my God for this; that I am found worthy to be among those whom the world hateth." St. Jerome

[lee_merrill]

Good quotes! And the Jim Eliot quote is worth repeating...

Bring joy to your servant; for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
--PSALMS 86:4


Prayer is a habit; and the more we pray the better we shall pray. Sometimes to go to be alone with God and Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit, just for the joy and blessedness of it; to open, with reverent yet eager hands, the door into the presence chamber of the great King, and then to fall down before Him, it may be, in silent adoration; our very attitude an act of homage, our merely being there, through the motive that prompts it, being the testimony of our soul's love; to have our set day-hours of close communion, with which no other friends shall interfere, and which no other occupations may interrupt; to which we learn to look forward with a living gladness; on which we look back with satisfaction and peace; this indeed is prayer.
--ANTHONY W. THOROLD

Ah, dearest Lord! to feel that Thou art near,
Brings deepest peace, and hushes every fear;
To see Thy smile, to hear Thy gracious voice,
Makes soul and body inwardly rejoice
With praise and thanks!
--CHRISTIAN GREGOR

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

God bless you,
Lee

[Teluog]

A Man Said to the Universe by Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

[JB]

A quote from David Crump, on page 107 of his Knocking on Heaven's Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer:

Studying the Lord's Prayer while neglecting to participate in the existential reality of God's fatherhood is like a condemned death-row criminal minutely analyzing the governor's signature at the bottom of the bottom of the pardon while refusing to exit the cell.

[Teluog]

"No man ever repented of being a Christian on his death bed." Hannah More

[Teluog]

Hilarious quote, not related to religion though:

"A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired." From an IRC conversation.

[Teluog]

Even better:

"I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out." Rodney Dangerfield

[NeilUnreal]

Hilarious quote, not related to religion though:

"A woman has a close male friend...

Story of my life. :lol:

-Neil

[lee_merrill]

Even better:

"I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out." Rodney Dangerfield
It's good to know who said that! Now I can give an attribution. And speaking of sports, in view of the many criminal reports on ESPN now, should it be called "Sports Sinner"?

Not that I should be snooty, given that Jesus was a friend of publicans and sinners, and now the conservative camp seems to be known as the friend of Republicans and Senators.

There, two quotes from me. :smile:

Blessings,
Lee

[Teluog]

“The winds of God are always blowing, but you must set the sails.” Anonymous

[lee_merrill]

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not the hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

- Alfred Tennyson





"Perhaps we do not think enough what an effective service prayer is, especially intercessory prayer. We do not believe as we should how it might help those we so fain would serve, penetrating the hearts we cannot open, shielding those we cannot guard, teaching where we cannot speak, comforting where our words have no power to soothe; following the steps of our beloved through the toils and perplexities of the day, lifting off their burdens with an unseen hand at night. No ministry is so like that of an angel as this— silent, invisible, known but to God." (Elizabeth Rundle Charles)

[Pilgrim]

"The word 'prodigal' does not mean 'wayward' but, according to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 'recklessly spendthrift.' It means to spend until you have nothing left. This term is therefore as appropriate for describing the father in the story as his younger son. Ther father's welcome to the repentant son was literally reckless, becaouse he refused to 'reckon' or count his sin against him or demand repayment." ~Rev. Dr. Timothy Keller from "The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith."

[Teluog]

“We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking only to learn that it is God shaking them.” Charles West

[lee_merrill]

"I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me" (Acts 27:25).

I went to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a
very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me,
"The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which
revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We had George Mueller of
Bristol on board. I had been on the bridge twenty-four hours and never
left it. George Mueller came to me, and said, "Captain I have come to tell
you that I must be in Quebec Saturday afternoon." "It is impossible," I
said. "Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other
way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go
down into the chart-room and pray."

I looked at that man of God, and thought to myself, what lunatic asylum
can that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing as this. "Mr.
Mueller," I said, "do you know how dense this fog is?" "No," he replied,
"my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who
controls every circumstance of my life."

He knelt down and prayed one of the most simple prayers, and when he had
finished I was going to pray; but he put his hand on my shoulder, and told
me not to pray. "First, you do not believe He will answer; and second I
BELIEVE HE HAS, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it."

I looked at him, and he said, "Captain, I have known my Lord for
fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have
failed to get audience with the King. Get up, Captain and open the door,
and you will find the fog gone." I got up, and the fog was indeed gone. On
Saturday afternoon, George Mueller was in Quebec for his
engagement.

(from Streams in the Desert, by Lettie Cowman)

[lee_merrill]

According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
--2 PETER 1:3

We often try in vain to cut up our errors by the roots, to fight evil hand to hand on its own ground, where it has us at a disadvantage, whereas our most sure way to victory is by developing and fortifying the good that is in us. We have but a certain measure of strength and activity; as much of this as is added to the good is taken from the evil.
--MADAME SWETCHINE

I think you will find that it is not by making resolutions in a difficulty that you will conquer a fault--tackling it, I mean--but much more by opening a window to Almighty God, and letting Him speak to you. As long as we are young we set so much importance on our own efforts, whereas often, if we will just do nothing but listen quietly to what God has to say to us, we shall find that He sets us thinking and mending our faults by a quiet way which looks as though it had nothing to do with it; and then, when we come to where our fault used to be, we find it gone, imperceptibly as it were, by our having been strengthened in another direction which lay, though we did not know it, at the real root of the matter.
--HENRIETTA KERR

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

God bless you,
Lee

[NeilUnreal]

"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do."

--Wendell Berry

[Teluog]

“Our local Catholic church has plans to bring their parishioners to services by bus; they plan to call it mass transit.” Robert Tanner

:hehe:

[lee_merrill]

“Our local Catholic church has plans to bring their parishioners to services by bus; they plan to call it mass transit.” Robert Tanner
Oog... :smile:

"To go to Him is nothing mysterious. It simply means to turn our minds to Him, to rest our hearts on Him, and to turn away from all other resting places. It means we must not look at, think about, and trouble over our circumstances, our surroundings, our perplexities, or our experiences. We must look at and think about the Lord."

- Hannah Smith

[lee_merrill]

The fulness of joy is to behold God in all; for by the same blessed might, wisdom, and love that He made all things, to the same end our good Lord leadeth it continually, and there to Himself shall bring it, and, when it is time, we shall see it.
--Mother Juliana

[lee_merrill]

"Our Christianity is apt to be of a very 'dutiful' kind. We mean to do our duty, we attend church and go to our communions. But our hearts are full of the difficulties, the hardships, the obstacles which the situation presents, and we go on our way sadly, downhearted and despondent. We need to learn that true Christianity is inseparable from deep joy; and the secret of that joy lies in a continual looking away from all else--away from sin and its ways, and from the manifold hindrances to the good we would do--up to God, His love, His purpose, His will. In proportion as we do look up to Him we shall rejoice, and in proportion as we rejoice in the Lord will our religion have tone and power and attractiveness." (Charles Gore)

[lee_merrill]

And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
--COLOSSIANS 3:14 (R. V.)

We have cause to suspect our religion if it does not make us gentle, and forbearing, and forgiving; if the love of our Lord does not so flood our hearts as to cleanse them of all bitterness, and spite, and wrath. If a man is nursing anger, if he is letting his mind become a nest of foul passions, malice, and hatred, and evil wishing, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
--HUGH BLACK

(from Joy and Strength (http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/devotions/classics/mary_wilder_tileston.html), by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[Teluog]

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." Robert Jastrow

[lee_merrill]

Some of us believe that God is all mighty, and may do all; and that He is all wisdom, and can do all; but that He is all love, and will do all, there we fail.

- Mother Juliana

[Teluog]

A teacher told this story in class yesterday:

There is a wise man in a village with a reputation for having solid answers and for never being caught off guard. One day some kids decide they want to trick him into saying something untrue. One proud kid says “I can spot a lie easily when I see one. I know how to trick him. I will get a bird and hide it behind my back. I will ask him what I have in my hands. If he guesses correctly, I will then ask him if the bird is dead or alive. If he says it’s dead, then I’ll open my hands and let it fly away. But if he says it’s alive, I’ll just twist it until it snaps and show the dead bird to him.”

So the kids go to the wise man, the one kid with a bird in his hands behind his back. He asks the wise man what he has in his hands. The wise man spots a white feather fall to the ground behind the kid, so he says, “You have a white bird in your hands.” The other kids are all amazed at the answer, but the proud kid with the bird isn’t fazed one bit. So he proceeds to ask the wise man if the bird is dead or alive.

"That," replies the wise man, "is entirely up to you."

[lee_merrill]

"That," replies the wise man, "is entirely up to you."
Sounds like a Solomon story! And people thought they had Jesus in a puzzle trap a number of times.

"Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers." (Luk2:47 NIV)

[Teluog]

Sounds like a Solomon story! And people thought they had Jesus in a puzzle trap a number of times.

"Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers." (Luk2:47 NIV)

I pray hard to become like that some day, and stay that away from then on.

[lee_merrill]

ABERDEEN, 1637 XLV. To JOHN LENNOX, Laird of Catty
MUCH HONORED SIR, - Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. - I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I have that confidence that your soul mindeth Christ and salvation. I beseech you, in the Lord, to give more pains and diligence to fetch heaven than the country-sort of lazy professors, who think their own faith and their own godliness, because it is their own, best; and content themselves with a cold rife custom and course, with a resolution to summer and winter in that sort of profession which the multitude and the times favor most; and are still shaping and clipping and carving their faith, according as it may best stand with their summer sun and a whole skin; and so breathe out hot and cold in God's matters, according to the course of the times. This is their compass which they sail towards heaven by, instead of a better. Worthy and dear Sir, separate yourself from such, and bend yourself to the utmost of your strength and breath, in running fast for salvation; and, in taking Christ's kingdom, use violence. It cost Christ and all His followers sharp showers and hot sweats, see they won to the top of the mountain; but still our soft nature would have heaven coming to our bedside when we are sleeping, and lying down with us that we might go to heaven in warm clothes. But all that came there found wet feet by the way, and sharp storms that did take the hide off their face, and found tos and fros and ups and downs, and many enemies by the way.

Samuel Rutherford, Letters

[lee_merrill]

"Faith must pass through the furnace—it will not do to say that we trust in the Lord, we must prove that we do, and that when everything is against us." (C.H. Mackintosh)

How beautiful our lives may be; how bright
In privilege; how fruitful of delight!
And lo! all round us His bright servants stand;
Events, His duteous ministers and wise,
With frowning brows, perhaps, for their disguise,
But with such wells of love in their deep eyes,
And such strong rescue hidden in their hands!
—Henry Septimus Sutton

[lee_merrill]

I would not exchange my sighs for the laughing of my adversaries, for He has sealed my sufferings with the comforts of His Spirit on my soul. Now, Sir, I have no earthly comfort, but to know I have espoused, and shall present a bride to Christ in that congregation. The Lord has given you much, and therefore He will require much of you again; number your talents, and see what you have to render back again; you cannot be enough persuaded of the shortness of your time. I charge you to write to me, and in the fear of God, be plain with me, whether or not you have made your salvation sure: I am confident, and hope the best; but I know, your reckonings with your Judge are many and deep. Sir, be not beguiled, neglect not the one thing, your one necessary thing, "the good part that shall not be taken from you"; look beyond time; things here are but moonshine; they have but children's wit, who are delighted with shadows, and deluded with feathers flying in the air.

Desire your children in the morning of their life, to begin and seek the Lord, and "to remember their Creator in the days of their youth," to "cleanse their way, by taking heed thereto, according to God's word." Youth is a glassy age. Satan too often finds a "swept chamber," and a "garnished lodging" for himself and his train, in youthhood. Let the Lord have the flower of their age; the best sacrifice is due to Him; instruct them in this, that they have a soul, and that this life is nothing in comparison of eternity; they will have much need of God's conduct in this world, to guide them bye those rocks upon which most men split; but far more need when it cometh to the hour of death, and their compearance before Christ. Oh that there were such an heart in them, to fear the name of the great and dreadful God, who has laid up great things for those that love and fear Him! I pray that God may be their portion.

Samuel Rutherford, Letters

[lee_merrill]

I remember the morning I came out of my room after I had first trusted Christ, and I thought the old sun shone a good deal brighter than it ever had before; I thought that the sun was just smiling upon me, and I walked out upon Boston Common, and I heard the birds in the trees, and I thought that they were all singing a song for me. Do you know I fell in love with the birds? I never cared for them before; it seemed to me that I was in love with all creation. I had not a bitter feeling against any man, and I was ready to take all men to my heart. If a man has not the love of God shed abroad in his heart, he has never been regenerated. If you hear a person get up in a prayer meeting, and he begins to speak and find fault with everybody, you may know that his is not a genuine conversion; that it is counterfeit; it has not the right ring, because the impulse of a converted soul is to love, and not to be getting up and complaining of every one else, and finding fault.

But it is hard for us to live in the right atmosphere all the time. Some one comes along and treats us wrongly, perhaps we hate him; we have not attended to the means of grace and kept feeding on the word of God as we ought; a root of bitterness springs up in our hearts, and perhaps we are not aware of it, but it has come up in our hearts; then we are not qualified to work for God. The love of God is not shed abroad in our hearts as it ought to be by the Holy Ghost.

D.L. Moody, "Secret Power" (http://www.bibleteacher.org/moodysp1.htm)

[lee_merrill]

The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end. (Isa 60:19-20NIV)

[lee_merrill]

"And after the earthquake a fire; and after the fire a still, small voice" (1 Kings 19:12)

A soul, who made rapid progress in her understanding of the Lord, was once asked the secret of her easy advancement. She replied tersely, "Mind the checks." And the reason that many of us do not know and better understand Him is, we do not give heed to His gentle checks, His delicate restraints and constraints. His is a still, small voice. A still voice can hardly be heard. His voice is for the ear of love, and love is intent upon hearing even faintest whispers. There comes a time also when love ceases to speak if not responded to, or believed in. He is love, and if you would know Him and His voice, give constant ear to His gentle touches. In conversation, when about to utter some word, give heed to that gentle voice, mind the check and refrain from speech. When about to pursue some course that seems all clear and right and there comes quietly to your spirit a suggestion that has in it the force almost of a conviction, give heed, even if changed plans seem highest folly from standpoint of human wisdom.

(from Streams in the Desert (http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/), by Lettie Cowman)

[lee_merrill]

My heart is easy, and my burden light;
I smile, though sad, when thou art in my sight:
The more my woes in secret I deplore,
I taste thy goodness, and I love thee more.

There, while a solemn stillness reigns around,
Faith, love, and hope within my soul abound;
And, while the world suppose me lost in care,
The joys of angels, unperceived, I share.

Thy creatures wrong thee, O thou sovereign good!
Thou art not loved, because not understood;
This grieves me most, that vain pursuits beguile
Ungrateful men, regardless of thy smile.

Frail beauty and false honour are adored;
While Thee they scorn, and trifle with thy Word;
Pass, unconcerned, a Saviour's sorrows by;
And hunt their ruin with a zeal to die.

Translation of Madam Guyon's poems (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/cowper/guyonpoems.H9.html) by William Cowper

[lee_merrill]

Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, whereby thou wilt receive his strength and power from whence life comes, to allay all tempests, against blusterings and storms. That is it which moulds up into patience, into innocency, into soberness, into stillness, into stayedness, into quietness, up to God, with his power.

- George Fox

[lee_merrill]

My father was recovered, but not entirely, enough to give me new marks of his affection. I told him of the strong desire I had to love God, and my great sorrow at not being able to do it fully. He thought he could not give me a more solid indication of his love than in procuring me an acquaintance with this worthy man. He told me what he knew of him, and urged me to go and see him.

At first I made a difficulty of doing it, being intent on observing the rules of the strictest prudence. However, my father’s repeated requests had with me the weight of a positive command. I thought I could not do that amiss, which I only did in obedience to him. I took a kinswoman with me. At first he seemed a little confused; for he was reserved toward women. Being newly come out of a five years’ solitude, he was surprised that I was the first to address him. He spoke not a word for some time. I knew not to what attribute his silence. I did not hesitate to speak to him, and to tell him a few words, my difficulties about prayer. Presently he replied, “It is, madame, because you seek without what you have within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will there find Him.”

Having said these words, he left me. They were to me like the stroke of a dart, which penetrated through my heart. I felt a very deep wound, a wound so delightful that I desired not to be cured. These words brought into my heart what I had been seeking so many years. Rather they discovered to me what was there, and which I had not enjoyed for want of knowing it.

O my Lord, Thou wast in my heart, and demanded only a simple turning of my mind inward, to make me perceive Thy presence. Oh, Infinite Goodness! how was I running hither and thither to seek Thee, my life was a burden to me, although my happiness was within myself. I was poor in riches, and ready to perish with hunger, near a table plentifully spread, and a continual feast. O Beauty, ancient and new; why have I known Thee so late? Alas! I sought Thee where Thou wert not, and did not seek Thee where thou wert. It was for want of understanding these words of Thy Gospel, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation . . . The kingdom of God is within you.” This I now experienced.

Jeanne Guyon, Autobiography

[lee_merrill]

I was weary and sick at heart of opinions, and had not the Lord brought that to my hand which my soul wanted, I had never meddled with religion more. But, as I felt that in my heart which was evil and not of God, so the Lord God of my life pointed me to that of Him in my heart which was of another nature, teaching me to wait for and know His appearance there; in subjection whereto, I experience Him stronger than the strong man that was there before; and by His power he has separated me from that which separated me from Him before; and truly I feel union with Him, and His blessed presence every day, which, what it is unto me, my tongue cannot utter.

- Isaac Penington

[lee_merrill]

You must make, at least once every week, a special act of love to God's will above all else, and that not only in things supportable, but also in things insupportable.
--St. Francis de Sales

[lee_merrill]

"But how can we control our thoughts? No more than we could blot out our sins, or create a world. What then are we to do?"

"We must look to Christ. That is the true secret of self-control. He can keep us not only from the lodgement, but also from the suggestion of evil thoughts. In our own strength we could no more prevent the one than the other. He can prevent both. He can keep the vile intruders, not only from getting in, but even from knocking at the door. When His divine life is our source of life, when the current of spiritual thought and feeling is deep and rapid—when the heart's affections are intensely occupied with the Person of Christ, vain thoughts do not trouble us. It is only when spiritual indolence creeps over us that evil thoughts and their vile and horrible progeny come in upon us like a flood; and then our only resource is to look straight to Jesus."

"The more excellent way is, to be preserved from the suggestions of evil, by the power of preoccupation with good. When the channel of thought is decidedly upward, when it is deep and well formed, free from all curves and indentations, then the current of imagination and feeling, as it gushes up from the deep fountains of the soul, will naturally flow onward in the bed of that channel."

"This, I repeat, is unquestionably the more excellent way. May we prove it in our own experience. When the heart is fully engrossed with Christ, the living embodiment of 'all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, all that is admirable', we enjoy profound peace, unruffled by evil thoughts."

"This is true self-control."

- C.H. Mackintosh

"The most of our spiritual decays and barrenness arise from an inordinate admission of other things into our minds; for these are they that weaken grace in all its operations. But when the mind is filled with thoughts of Christ and his glory, when the soul thereon cleaves unto him with intense affections, they will cast out, or not give admittance unto, those causes of spiritual weakness and indisposition."

- John Owen

[Teluog]

"God is dead."

- Nietzsche, 1883



"Nietzsche is dead."

- God, 1900

[lee_merrill]

"Let us run with patience" (Heb. 12:1).

Oh, run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve.

There is a patience which I believe to be harder--the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!

Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service--in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience."

This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running--a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow--a minister to others' joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard.

--George Matheson

(from Streams in the Desert (http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/), by Lettie Cowman)

[Teluog]

"When you do your devotions, don't stop thinking.

And when you do your studying, don't stop feeling."

D. A. Carson

[lee_merrill]

LONDON, Jan 9, 1646 LXX. To LADY KENMURE
MADAM, - Oh how sweet is it that the company of the firstborn should be divided into two great bodies of an army, and some in their country, and some in the way to their country! If it were no more than once to see the face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and beams of matchless glory, and incomparable fountain-love, it were a well-spent journey to creep hands and feet through seven deaths and seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head. Only let us not weary: the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we first believed. Strangers are not wise to quarrel with their host, and complain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a fair home. Oh that I had but such grapes and clusters out of the land as I have sometimes seen and tasted in the place whereof your Ladyship maketh mention! But the hope of it in the end is a heartsome convoy in the way.
Grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's, in Jesus Christ.

Samuel Rutherford

[lee_merrill]

Are you in sorrow? Prayer can make your affliction sweet and strengthening. Are you in gladness? Prayer can add to your joy a celestial perfume. Are you in extreme danger from outward or inward enemies? Prayer can set at your right hand an angel whose glance could lay an army low. What will prayer do for you? I answer: All that God can do for you. "Ask what I shall give thee." --Farrar

[lee_merrill]

"Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Eph 5:20 NIV)

To "give thanks to Him for all things," is, indeed, a very difficult duty; for it includes giving thanks for trials of all kinds; for suffering and pain; for languor and weariness; for the crossing of our wills; for contradiction; for reproaches; for loneliness; for privations. Yet they who have learned submission will not find it a hard duty; for they will so entirely love all that God wills and appoints, that they will see it is the very best thing for them. Hereafter they will see all the links of the chain, and how wonderfully even those have fitted, which at the time seemed to have no adaptation or agreement. This belief enables them to praise Him, and give thanks now for each thing, assured that as it has been, so it will be--that the God of love will do all things well.

Priscilla Maurice


Is it not a thing worth having, to have this settled conviction of your hearts, that Christ is moving through all the impulses of your life, and that nothing falls out without the intervention of His presence and the power of His will working through it? Do you not think that such belief would gird you up for difficulty, and would lift you buoyantly over trials and depressions, and would see you upon a vantage ground high above all the petty annoyances of life?

Tell me, is there any other place a Christian can plant his foot and say, "Now I am on a rock and I care not what comes!"

Alexander Maclaren

[lee_merrill]

"When we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales--because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water." (Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

[odis]

never let the fear of striking out stop you from playing the game
--- a cinderella story

talk less, say more
---unknown

can't decide between these 2

[Teluog]

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra

[lee_merrill]

'Twas the night before Tweb, and all through the house,
Not a disk drive was stirring, not even a mouse,
The browsers were placed on the desktop with care,
In hopes that St. DDW soon would be there.

The keytops were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of op'ning posts danced in their heads,
Xman's mom with her cursor, Yxboom in locked caps,
Had screensavers running, while taking their naps.

That Javascript script, that would fling us some snows,
Was only a gleam in the eye of ... who knows?
When what to my wondering firewall appeared,
But a message that said “You have email!” Oh dear...

It's a new Windows driver! Just point here and click,
So I knew in a moment it must be a trick,
More rapid than Google, my cursor aflame,
I whistled for Norton, and called them by name:

Melissa! The Love Bug! Bugbear! Really fix 'em!
Check Blaster and Code Red, erase them and nix 'em,
I'll be checking my Porsche too, and holes in the wall,
Lest they trash my boot sector, and then dash it all!

Then I heard a beep! Why, it wasn't a spoof,
For the program was signed with its Microsoft proof.
So I clicked on "Install," and then read "Now please wait,"
My computer then brought up a Twebby slate,

"Now type in a name not familiar to most,
Which will always appear in each message you post.
A password is needed, an avatar, too,
Though with just the one post, that GIF can't yet be you."

The forums were rosy, some solemn, some merry,
And though there were thorns, skip the prunes, pick the cherries,
Saw oodles of smilies that danced in a row,
Made a link to my home page, to toot up my show.

Then I ventured a post, with a tightening of teeth,
For some smoke had encircled one thread like a wreath,
Thirty posts! Pick a face, not that GIF! Vermicelli?
Well, people will think you're attached to your belly.

Add a fine signature that I got off the shelf,
Although people won't say that I said it myself.
A wink of the eye, and a smilie or two,
And edit it twice, so you're done when you're through.

Tried to sit on my hands, through the flames of "ye jerk!"
And I spent hours and hours, even posted at work,
There was sending of pearls, and tweaking of noses,
I even learned something! And smelled a few roses.

I copied and saved, cut and pasted and whistled,
Bought some more Biblesoft, quoted favorite epistles,
Is there life after Tweb? Log off for the night,
Happy bitstreams! Till we all get theology right...

[lee_merrill]

As thou learnest this lesson, to carry all thy sorrows to God, and lie at thy Saviour's feet, and spread thy grief before Him, thou wilt find a calm come over thee, thou knowest not whence; thou wilt see through the clouds a bright opening, small perhaps and quickly closed, but telling of eternal rest, and everlasting day, and of the depth of the Love of God. Thy heart will still rise and sink, but it will rise and sink, not restlessly, nor waywardly, not in violent gusts of passion; but resting in stillness on the bosom of the ocean of the Love of God. Then shalt thou learn, not to endure only patiently, but, in everything against thy will, humbly and quickly to see and to love the loving Will of God. Thy faith and thy love and thy hope will grow, the more thou seest the work of God with thee; thou wilt joy in thy sorrow, and thy sorrow will be turned into joy.

- Edward B. Pusey

[Mr MacGuffin]

i know this doesn't quite fit with the other quotes but...

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known."
Invisible Monsters

[lee_merrill]

The whole duty and blessedness of waiting on God has its root in this, that He is such a blessed Being, full, to overflowing, of goodness and power and life and joy, that we, however wretched, cannot for any time come into contact with Him, without that life and power secretly, silently, beginning to enter into us and blessing us. God is Love! God's love is just His delight to impart Himself and His blessedness to His children. Come, and however feeble you feel, just wait in His presence. As a feeble invalid is brought out into the sunshine to let its warmth go through him, come with all that is dark and cold in you into the sunshine of God's holy, omnipotent love, and sit and wait there, with the one thought: Here I am, in the sunshine of His love. As the sun does its work in the weak one who seeks its rays, God will do His work in you.

- Andrew Murray

[lee_merrill]

"O Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God whom you serve continually, able to deliver you?" (Dan. 6:20)

How many times we find this expression in the Scriptures, and yet it is just this very thing that we are so prone to lose sight of. We know it is written "the living God"; but in our daily life there is scarcely anything we practically so much lose sight of as the fact that God is the living God; that He is now whatever He was three or four thousand years since; that He has the same sovereign power, the same saving love towards those who love and serve Him as ever He had and that He will do for them now what He did for others two, three, four thousand years ago, simply because He is the living God, the unchanging One. Oh, how therefore we should confide in Him, and in our darkest moments never lose sight of the fact that He is still and ever will be the living God!

Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him and expect help from Him, He will never fail you. An older brother who has known the Lord for forty-four years, who writes this, says to you for your encouragement that He has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but because I was enabled by His grace to trust Him He has always appeared for my help. I delight in speaking well of His name.

George Mueller

[lee_merrill]

"Bring them here to me," he said. (Mat 14:18 NIV)

"In all that is in our hands, we must bring them to the Son of God. If we would feed others, our gifts must first be blessed and broken by the Lord. In all our trials and discouragements, they only bear fruit when tended by him. If our joys are not to vanish like the morning mist, they must be joys shared with God."

"There is no other place for all that concerns us, but in the hands of the Savior."

(a quote I just made up to sound like C.H. Mackintosh or E.B. Pusey :smile:)

[lee_merrill]

Heed not distressing thoughts, when they rise ever so strongly in you; nay, though they have entered you, fear them not, but be still a while, not believing in the power which you feel they have over you, and it will fall on a sudden.

Isaac Penington

[lee_merrill]

From an inward purifying and steadfast abiding under it, springs a lively operative desire for the good of others.

- John Woolman's Journal (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/woolman/journal.toc.html)

"Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart." (1Pe 1:22 NIV)

[lee_merrill]

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows. - Exodus 3:7

Thou knowest, Lord, the weariness and sorrow
Of the sad heart that comes to Thee for rest;
Cares of today, and burdens for tomorrow,
Blessings implored, and sins to be confessed;
I come before Thee at Thy gracious word,
And lay them at Thy feet--Thou knowest, Lord.

JANE BORTHWICK

That sorrow which can be seen is the lightest form really, however apparently heavy; then there is that which is not seen, secret sorrows which yet can be put into words, and can be told to near friends as well as be poured out to God; but there are sorrows beyond these, such as are never told, and cannot be put into words, and may only be wordlessly laid before God: these are the deepest. Now comes the supply for each: "I have seen" that which is patent and external; "I have heard their cry," which is the expression of this, and of as much of the external as is expressible; but this would not go deep enough, so God adds, "I know their sorrows," down to very depths of all, those which no eye sees or ear ever heard.

F. R. HAVERGAL

(from Joy and Strength (http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/devotions/classics/mary_wilder_tileston.html), by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[lee_merrill]

"The person who does what God tells him sits at his Father's feet and looks up into His face."

- George McDonald

[lee_merrill]

"I do not know when or where the story started; it is enough that it started somewhere and ended with me; for I only seek to write upon a hearsay, as the old balladists did. For the second case, there is a popular tale that Alfred played the harp and sang in the Danish camp; I select it because it is a popular tale, at whatever time it arose. For the third case, there is a popular tale that Alfred came in contact with a woman and cakes; I select it because it is a popular tale, because it is a vulgar one. It has been disputed by grave historians, who were, I think, a little too grave to be good judges of it." (Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm))

And a little excerpt.


But who shall look from Alfred's hood
Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud
Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,
Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud
And the dense arrows drive.

Lady, by one light only
We look from Alfred's eyes,
We know he saw athwart the wreck
The sign that hangs about your neck,
Where One more than Melchizedek
Is dead and never dies.

Therefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe,
And laid peace on the sea.

Do you remember when we went
Under a dragon moon,
And 'mid volcanic tints of night
Walked where they fought the unknown fight
And saw black trees on the battle-height,
Black thorn on Ethandune?

[lee_merrill]

Now that you have purified your souls by obeying the truth through the Spirit...
1 PETER 1:22


You little think how much the life of all your graces depends upon your ready and cordial obedience to the Spirit. When the Spirit urgeth thee to secret prayer, and thou refusest obedience; when He forbids thee a known transgression, and yet thou wilt go on; when He telleth thee which is the way, and which not, and thou wilt not regard--no wonder if heaven and thy soul be strange.
RICHARD BAXTER

Whatever the particular call is, the particular sacrifice God asks you to make, the particular cross He wishes you to embrace, whatever the particular path He wants you to tread, will you rise up, and say in your heart, "Yes, Lord, I accept it; I submit, I yield, I pledge myself to walk in that path, and to follow that Voice, and to trust Thee with the consequences"? Oh! but you say, "I don't know what He will want next." No, we none of us know that, but we know we shall be safe in His hands.
CATHERINE BOOTH

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[lee_merrill]

"I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc., don’t get the upper hand. No *amount* of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence." (C.S. Lewis, letter to a former pupil, Jan. 20, 1942)

[Teluog]

"To live through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of Hercules, the mind of Einstein. You simply need to know what to do." Anthony Greenbank in The Book of Survival

[lee_merrill]

"To live through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of Hercules, the mind of Einstein. You simply need to know what to do." Anthony Greenbank in The Book of Survival
Amen! A Chesterton quote along these same lines...

"Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. If it wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury-box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity." (Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles)

[lee_merrill]

Fairy-tales do not give a child his first idea of bogy. What fairy-tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogy. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy-tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

Exactly what the fairy-tale does is this: it accustoms him by a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors have a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies, that these infinite enemies of man have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the darkness until the whole of it turned into a giant taller than heaven. If there was one star in the sky it only made him a Cyclops. But fairy-tales restored my mental health. For next day I read an authentic account of how a giant with one eye, of quite equal dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself (of similar inexperience and even lower social status) by means of a sword, some bad riddles, and a brave heart.

Chesterton, "Tremendous Trifles"

[lee_merrill]

You are my hiding-place, You preserve me from trouble, and surround me with songs of deliverance.
PSALMS 32:7

Fearest sometimes that thy Father
Hath forgot?
When the clouds around thee gather,
Doubt Him not.
Always hath the daylight broken--
Always hath He comfort spoken--
Better hath He been for years
Than thy fears.
KARL RUDOLPH HAGENBACH

It is the indwelling Presence of God, believed in trusted, reverenced, recollected, which ought to become the support to meet every case of trouble. The soul finds rest from its perplexities, as it turns from what perplexes and disturbs it, to fix its gaze and hope and purpose on Him. If there be a pressure of distress, or anxiety, or care, or perplexity of any kind, a heavy burden weighing down the spirits, then let the soul look off for a moment from itself, and from the trying object, to God. The recollection of His presence within, ever abiding, continually renewed by perpetual communion, would secure to the soul, if duly and constantly cherished, an habitual life of rest.
T. T. CARTER

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[lee_merrill]

Ahem.

"Drinking drivers"
"Nothing worse"
"They put the quart"
"Before the hearse"

That's BurmaShave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma-Shave)...

[lee_merrill]

"What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

[lee_merrill]

"He that would be like Christ must study him. We cannot make ourselves holy by merely trying to be so, any more than we can make ourselves believe and love by simple energy of endeavor. No force can effect this."

"Men try to be holy, and they fail. They cannot by direct effort work themselves into holiness. They must gaze upon a holy object; and so be changed into its likeness 'from glory to glory.'"

"They must have a holy being for their bosom friend. Companionship with Jesus, like that of John, can alone make us to resemble either the disciple or the Master." (Horatius Bonar)

[Teluog]

"The aim is not so much to become a master of the Bible as to be mastered by the Bible." D. A. Carson

[lee_merrill]

"I was thinking while coming here of Jesus Christ in heaven with his wounds, and another thought struck me. Another reason why Jesus wears his wounds is, that when he intercedes he may employ them as powerful advocates. When he rises up to pray for his people, he needs not speak a word; he lifts his hands before his Father's face; he makes bare his side, and points to his feet. These are the orators with which he pleads with God—these wounds. Oh, he must prevail." (Spurgeon, The Wounds of Jesus (http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0254.htm))

[lee_merrill]

Enjoyed the following book...

"Cimorene looked down and saw a small green frog looking up at her. 'I beg your pardon. Did you speak?' 'You don't see anyone else around, do you?' said the frog. 'Oh!' said Cimorene. She had never met a talking frog before. 'Are you an enchanted prince?' she asked a little doubtfully. 'No, but I've met a couple of them, and after a while you pick up a few things,' said the frog. 'Now, why is it that you want to be eaten by a dragon?'"

- Dealing with Dragons (http://books.google.com/books?id=AC72LXrmo7oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Dealing+with+dragons&source=bl&ots=mzJgvm8mXg&sig=l8XK5ZfoxehFoEWr-to8VTQ1GwI&hl=en&ei=rF3OS_-JHozu9gTt9KS7Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=16&ved=0CD4Q6AEwDw#v=onepage&q&f=false), by Patricia Wrede

[lee_merrill]

Surely Thou hast some work for me to do!
Oh, open Thou mine eyes,
To see how Thou wouldst choose to have it done,
And where it lies.

Elizabeth Prentiss

Then saw I that each kind compassion that man hath on his fellow-Christians with charity, it is Christ in him.

Mother Juliana

Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty "to make many rich?" God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremist duty and thy highest wisdom. "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."

George Body

(from Joy and Strength (http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/devotions/classics/mary_wilder_tileston.html), by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[Teluog]

“Before you pull any fence down, always pause long enough to find out why it was put there in the first place.” G. K. Chesterton

[lee_merrill]

"As well fill your treasure chest with grace, as your heart with gold." (Thomas Brooks, "The Beatitudes")

[Cow Poke]

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”
Tertullian

[lee_merrill]

It is quite unlike anything else. It is a thing final like the trump of doom though it is also a piece of good news; or news that seems too good to be true. It is nothing less than the loud assertion that this mysterious Maker of the world has visited His world in person. It declares that really and even recently, or right in the middle of historic times, there did walk into the world this original invisible being; about whom the thinkers make theories and the mythologists hand down myths; the Man who made the World. That such a higher personality exists behind all things had always been implied by the best thinkers as well as by all the beautiful legends. But nothing of this sort has ever been implied by any of them...

The most that any religious prophet had said was that he was the true servant of such a being. The most that any visionary had ever said was that men might catch glimpses of the glory of that spiritual being; much more often of lesser spiritual beings. The most that any primitive myth had ever suggested was that the Creator was present at the Creation. But that the Creator was present at scenes a little subsequent to the supper-parties of Horace, and talked with tax collectors and government officials in the detailed daily life of the Roman Empire, and that this fact continued to be firmly asserted by the whole of that great civilization for more than a thousand years--that is something utterly unlike anything else in nature. It is the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke his first articulate word. ... It makes nothing but dust and nonsense of comparative religion.

- Chesterton, "The Everlasting Man"

[lee_merrill]

"Here is one of the fruits of unhappiness: that it forces us to think of life as something to go through. And out at the other end. If only we could steadfastly do that while we are happy, I suppose we should need no misfortunes. It is hard on God really. To how few of us He dare send happiness because He knows we will forget Him if He gave us any sort of nice things for the moment." (C.S. Lewis, Letters, March 1951)

[lee_merrill]

With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies. (Ps.60:12)

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Ps. 51:10)

IF any man compares his own soul with the picture drawn in the New Testament of what a Christian ought to be; if any man fixes his eye on the pattern of self-sacrifice, of purity, of truth, of tenderness, and measures his own distance from that standard, he might be ready to despair. But fear not, because you are far from being like the pattern set before you; fear not because your faults are painful to think of: continue the battle and fear not. If, indeed, you are content with yourself, and are making no endeavor to rise above the poor level at which you now stand, then there is reason to fear. But if you are fighting with all your might, fear not, however often you may have fallen, however deeply, however ungratefully, however inexcusably. This one thing we can give, and this is what He asks, hearts that shall never cease from this day forward, till we reach the grave, to strive to be more like Him; to come nearer to Him; to root out from within us the sin that keeps us from Him. To such a battle, brethren, I call you in His name.

- Frederick Temple

(from Streams in the Desert, by Lettie Cowman)

[Teluog]

"If you take the 'Christ' out of 'Christian,' you are left with 'ian.' And Ian can't save you." Michael Ramsden

[lee_merrill]

The Christian is one who has forever given up the hope of being able to think of himself as a good man. He is forever a sinner for whom the Son of God had to die because by no other means could he be forgiven. How ready we are to take Christ as our pattern and teacher only, using the words of the Gospel, and yet never allowing ourselves to face the experience of forgiveness at the foot of the Cross—the humiliating discovery that, so far from our being like Jesus, there is literally no hope for us at all except that He has forgiven us. There is a whole universe of moral and psychological difference between saying, 'Christ is my pattern, and if I try I can be like Him', and saying, 'I am so far from goodness that Christ had to die for me that I might be forgiven.' The one is still in the world of legalism, and its center of attention is still the self. The other is in the world of grace, and its center of attention is another to whose love it is our whole and only aim to give ourselves. The one must always lack what the other increasingly has, the spontaneity and whole-heartedness that come when there is the whole force of an emotionally integrated life behind action. (Lesslie Newbigin)

[lee_merrill]

It would be vain to attempt to say anything adequate, or anything new, about the change which this conception of a deity born like an outcast or even an outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and its duties to the poor and outcast. It is profoundly true to say that after that moment there could be no slaves. (Chesterton)

[Teluog]

In a long discussion between Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, where Branch was trying to persuade Jackie to sign on his team, Branch said: "I need a ballplayer who has enough guts not to fight back."

[JB]

"Faith, then, in every way, is the cause of life, as that which slays sin, the mother and nurse of death." - Cyril of Alexandria

[Teluog]

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
fast bound in sin and nature's night;
thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

And Can it Be . . ., Charles Wesley

[lee_merrill]

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
fast bound in sin and nature's night;
thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

And Can it Be . . ., Charles Wesley
Ooo, a favorite hymn.

A favorite hymnist...

[Teluog]

Ooo, a favorite hymn.

A favorite hymnist...

It's one of the few Christian songs that captures the joy of our salvation. A lot of songs have a joyful tune to it, but this is has an EXTREMELY joyful tone to it, which I think still doesn't do justice to the joy, but better than most songs.

[lee_merrill]

It's one of the few Christian songs that captures the joy of our salvation.
With depth to it! "If you're saved and you know it clap your hands" this ain't.


A lot of songs have a joyful tune to it, but this is has an EXTREMELY joyful tone to it, which I think still doesn't do justice to the joy, but better than most songs.
It's not at all a typical hymn tune--nor is it very easy to play. :smile:

But it is excellent, on a par with say, Hyfrydol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyfrydol).

[lee_merrill]

"Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks." - Chesterton, Daily News

[Bill the Cat]

JARDIN PRAYER

[Teluog]

JARDIN PRAYER

:huh:

[Cow Poke]

:huh:

It SINGS

[lee_merrill]

It SINGS
Well, hmmm, I'm still not sure what this might mean. But Jardin Prayer is quite quotable!

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Well, hmmm, I'm still not sure what this might mean...
Mystery (I think) solved (http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showpost.php?p=3040178&postcount=5606)!

[lee_merrill]

We have people who represent that all great historic motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices in order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according to their theory, the world always does.

Chesterton, 'Tremendous Trifles'

[lee_merrill]

We are able to answer the question, 'Why have we no great men?' We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them. We are connoisseurs of greatness, and connoisseurs can never be great; we are fastidious -- that is, we are... small. When Diogenes went about with a lantern looking for an honest man, I am afraid he had very little time to be honest himself. And when anybody goes about on his hands and knees looking for a great man to worship, he is making sure that one man at any rate shall not be great. Now the error of Diogenes is evident. The error of Diogenes lay in the fact that he omitted to notice that every man is both an honest man and a dishonest man. Diogenes looked for his honest man inside every crypt and cavern, but he never thought of looking inside the thief. And that is where the Founder of Christianity found the honest man; He found him on a gibbet and promised him Paradise. Just as Christianity looked for the honest man inside the thief, democracy looked for the wise man inside the fool. It encouraged the fool to be wise. We can call this thing sometimes optimism, sometimes equality; the nearest name for it is encouragement. It had its exaggerations -- failure to understand original sin, notions that education would make all men good, the childlike yet pedantic philosophies of human perfectibility. But the whole was full of faith in the infinity of human souls, which is in itself not only Christian but orthodox; and this we have lost...

- Chesterton, again

[Teluog]

"We may be Protestants or Catholics, Lutherans or Reformed, to the right or to the left, but in some way we must have seen and heard the angels at the open and empty tomb if we are to be sure of our ground."

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics

[lee_merrill]

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." (Chesterton)

[lee_merrill]

"How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?"
— Julia Child

And another:

"Life itself is the proper binge."
— Julia Child

And another!

"Everything in moderation... including moderation."
— Julia Child

[lee_merrill]

It may be suspected that in that black cell or cave Francis passed the blackest hours of his life. By nature he was the sort of man who has that vanity which is the opposite of pride; that vanity which is very near to humility. He never despised his fellow creatures and therefore he never despised the opinion of his fellow creatures; including the admiration of his fellow creatures. All that part of his human nature had suffered the heaviest and most crushing blows. it is possible that after his humiliating return from his frustrated military campaign he was called a coward. It is certain that after his quarrel with his father about the bales of cloth he was called a thief. And even those who had sympathised most with him, the priest whose church he had restored, the bishop whose blessing he had received, had evidently treated him with an almost humorous amiability which left only too clear the ultimate conclusion of the matter. He had made a fool of himself. Any man who has been young, who has ridden horses or thought himself ready for a fight, who has fancied himself as a troubadour and accepted the conventions of comradeship, will appreciate the ponderous and crushing weight of that simple phrase. The conversion of Saint Francis, like the conversion of Saint Paul, involved his being in some sense flung suddenly from a horse; but in a sense it was an even worse fall; for it was a war-horse. Anyhow, there was not a rag of him left that was not ridiculous. Everybody knew that at the best he had made a fool of himself. It was a solid objective fact, like the stones in the road, that he had made a fool of himself. He saw himself as an object, very small and distinct like a fly walking on a clear window pane; and it was unmistakably a fool. And as he stared at the word "fool" written in luminous letters before him, the word itself began to shine and change.

We used to be told in the nursery that if a man were to bore a hole through the centre of the earth and climb continually down and down, there would come a moment at the centre when he would seem to be climbing up and up. ... when Francis came forth from his cave of vision, he was wearing the same word "fool" as a feather in his cap; as a crest or even a crown. He would go on being a fool; he would become more and more of a fool; he would be the court fool of the King of Paradise.

Chesterton, "Saint Francis"

[lee_merrill]

The great thing is to suffer without being discouraged.

--Fenelon

[lee_merrill]

"What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears." (Hos 6:4 NIV)

"I believe that if we are to be and to do for others what God means us to be and to do, we must not let adoration and worship slip into second place, 'For it is the central service asked by God of human souls; and its neglect is responsible for much lack of spiritual depth and power.' Perhaps we may find here the reason why we so often run dry. We do not give time enough to what makes for depth, and so we are shallow; a wind, quite a little wind, can ruffle our surface; a little hot sun, and all the moisture in us evaporates. It should not be so."

"This has been our God's word to me afresh this morning and so I pass it on. Is it not worthwhile earnestly to set ourselves towards this? Today, if we will hear His voice, today, this morning, if we will draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. In the hush of that nearness we shall not seek anything for ourselves, not even help, or light, or comfort; we shall forget ourselves, 'lost in wonder, love and praise.' "

" 'Let us draw near to God.' 'Let us press on to know the Lord: we shall find Him ready as the morning.' The morning never disappoints us by not coming, neither does our loving God."

- Amy Carmichael

[singpeace]

I do everything with all my might.

-anonymous

[lee_merrill]

I do everything with all my might.

-anonymous
Good to do, and good advice!

[lee_merrill]

And over all these virtues put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. (Col 3:14)

We have cause to suspect our religion if it does not make us gentle, and forbearing, and forgiving; if the love of our Lord does not so flood our hearts as to cleanse them of all bitterness, and spite, and wrath. If a man is nursing anger, if he is letting his mind become a nest of foul passions, malice, and hatred, and evil wishing, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

--HUGH BLACK

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Rom 5:5 NIV)

When love is heard inviting more trust, more love, the encouragement to trust, to love, goes beyond the rebuke that our love is so little, and we take heart to confide in the love that is saying, "Give me thine heart," expecting that it will impart itself to us, and enable us to give the response of love which it desires. For indeed it must be with the blessed purpose to enable us to love Him that our God bids us love Him; for He knows that no love but what He Himself quickens in us can love Him.

Therefore always feel the call to love a gracious promise of strength to love, and marvel not at your own deadness, but trust in Him who quickeneth the dead.

--JOHN MCLEOD CAMPBELL

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[lee_merrill]

Amidst my list of blessings infinite
Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled;
For all I bless Thee, most for the severe.

--Hugh Macmillan

[lee_merrill]

"Do not begin to be anxious" (Phil. 4:6, PBV).

Not a few Christians live in a state of unbroken anxiety, and others fret and fume terribly. To be perfectly at peace amid the hurly-burly of daily life is a secret worth knowing. What is the use of worrying? It never made anybody strong; never helped anybody to do God's will; never made a way of escape for anyone out of perplexity. Worry spoils lives which would otherwise be useful and beautiful. Restlessness, anxiety, and care are absolutely forbidden by our Lord, who said: "Take no thought," that is, no anxious thought, "saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?" He does not mean that we are not to take forethought and that our life is to be without plan or method; but that we are not to worry about these things. People know you live in the realm of anxious care by the lines on your face, the tones of your voice, the minor key in your life, and the lack of joy in your spirit. Scale the heights of a life abandoned to God, then you will look down on the clouds beneath your feet.

--Rev. Darlow Sargeant

[lee_merrill]

"Joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." (Rom 12:12 NIV)

Prayer to God regular and earnest, never intermittent for any reason, never hurried over for any weariness or for any coldness; this is one chief means of keeping our spiritual growth healthy and alive. If we would live in any degree by that ideal which our better selves sometimes set before us, we must steadily maintain the habit of regular prayer. For whether or not we are conscious of it at the time, there is a calm and unceasing strength which can be thus engrafted on our souls, and thus only.

--Frederick Temple

[Teluog]

"The easiest thing to teach is Law. Grace is the hardest." JAck Deere

[Aposphet]

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."- Frederick Douglass

[lee_merrill]

To see Him, and to be sure that His wisdom cannot err, His power cannot fail, His love can never change; to know that even His direst dealings with us are for our deepest spiritual gain, is to be able to say, in the midst of bereavement, sorrow, pain, and loss, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Nothing else but seeing God in everything will make us loving and patient with those who annoy and trouble us. They will be to us then only instruments for accomplishing His tender and wise purposes toward us, and we shall even find ourselves at last inwardly thanking them for the blessings they bring us. Nothing else will completely put an end to all murmuring or rebelling thoughts.

--H. W. Smith.

[lee_merrill]

‎Baseball season...

"They say you don't want to have a knuckleballer pitching for you or against you" - Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda

"I always thought the knuckleball was the easiest pitch to catch. Wait'll it stops rolling, then go to the backstop and pick it up." ― catcher Bob Uecker

"Throwing a knuckleball for a strike is like throwing a butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor's mailbox." ― Willie Stargell

"Like some cult religion that barely survives, there has always been at least one but rarely more than five or six devotees throwing the knuckleball in the big leagues... Not only can't pitchers control it, hitters can't hit it, catchers can't catch it, coaches can't coach it, and most pitchers can't learn it. The perfect pitch." ― Ron Luciano, AL umpire

"You're not expected to hit it. [I am] expected to catch it." ― John Flaherty summing up his day catching Tim Wakefield in a spring training game against the Twins by relaying a comment made by fellow catcher Mike Redmond. Flaherty retired the next day.

(basely stolen from Wikipedia)

[Teluog]

"He threw the ball as far from the bat and as close to the plate as possible." Casey Stengel on Satchel Paige.

[lee_merrill]

"It is not only the grace, but the glory of a believer when we can stand and take affliction quietly." --Joseph Caryl

[lee_merrill]

It is true that love cannot be forced, that it cannot be made to order, that we cannot love because we ought, or even because we want. But we can bring ourselves into the presence of the lovable. We can enter into Friendship through the door of Discipleship; we can learn love through service; and the day will come to us also, when the Master's word will be true, "I call you no longer servant, but friend."
--Hugh Black

The hands that tend the sick tend Christ; the willing feet that go on errands of love, work for Christ; the words of comfort to the sorrowful, and of sympathy to the mourner, are spoken in the name of Christ--Christ comforts the world through His friends. How much have you done for Him? What sort of a friend have you been to Him? God is working through His people; Christ is succoring through His friends--it is the vacancies in the ranks of His friends wherein the mischief lies: come and fill one gap.
--Arthur F. Winnington Ingram

[lee_merrill]

Five years ago I came to believe in Christ’s teachings, and my life suddenly changed. I ceased to desire what I had previously desired and began to desire what I formerly did not want.

What had previously seemed to me good seemed evil, and what seemed evil seemed good. It happened to me as it happens to a man who goes out on some business and suddenly decides that the business is unnecessary and returns home. All that was on his left is now on his right; his former wish to get as far as possible from home has changed into a wish to be as near as possible to it. The direction of my life and my desires became different, and good and evil changed places.

- Leo Tolstoy

[Rushing Jaws]

Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo !

- The Fellowship of the Ring

[lee_merrill]

The word "temperance" in the New Testament signifies self-possession. It is a disposition suitable to one who has a race to run and therefore will not load his pockets with lead. (John Newton)

[lee_merrill]

That age of the church which was most fertile in subtle questions was most barren in religion; for it makes people think religion to be only a matter of cleverness, in tying and untying of knots. The brains of men inclining that way are hotter usually than their hearts. (Richard Sibbes)

[lee_merrill]

It is Thy will, O God, to be found that Thou mayest be sought, to be sought that Thou mayest the more truly be found. (Bernard of Clairveaux)

[lee_merrill]

“Christians who are much in secret prayer, and in meditation and contemplation, rather than they who are in hearing and reading and conference, are men of greatest life and joy, because they are nearer the source of the fountain.” (Richard Baxter)

[lee_merrill]

"He told our class that we would find that one of the best preparations for death was a thorough knowledge of the Greek grammar." "This," comments Dr. Hodge, in his quaint fashion, "was his way of telling us that we ought to do our duty." (Benjamin Warfield)

[lee_merrill]

He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, "Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think." (A.W. Tozer)

[lee_merrill]

Think not again the wells of Life to fill,
By any conscious act of your own will;
Retire within the silence of your soul,
And let God's Spirit enter, and control.
The springs of feeling which you thought were stilled,
Shall so be deepened, sweetened, and refilled.

Anna J. Granniss

[lee_merrill]

"You little think how much the life of all your graces depends upon your ready and cordial obedience to the Spirit. When the Spirit urgeth thee to secret prayer, and thou refusest obedience; when He forbids thee a known transgression, and yet thou wilt go on; when He telleth thee which is the way, and which not, and thou wilt not regard--no wonder if heaven and thy soul be strange."

- Richard Baxter

[lee_merrill]

Some Richard Sibbes (from "The Bruised Reed")...

Therefore desire God that he would bring a clear and a strong light into all the corners of our souls, and accompany it with a spirit of power to lay our hearts low.

Nothing in the world is of so good use as the least grain of grace.

How careful not to put new wine into old vessels (Matt. 9:17), not to alienate new beginners with the austerities of religion (as some do indiscreetly). Oh, says he, they shall have time to fast when I am gone, and strength to fast when the Holy Ghost is come upon them.

It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none.

When truth is most unadorned, it is most lovely and powerful.

[lee_merrill]

Moses’ father-in-law replied, "What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out." (Ex 18:17–18)

Don't be unwise enough to think that we are serving God best by constant activity at the cost of headaches and broken rest. I am getting to be of the opinion that we may be doing too much. We want at least this is my own want--a higher quality of work. Our labor should be to maintain unbroken communion with our blessed Lord; then we shall have entire rest, and God abiding in us; that which we do will not be ours, but His.

- John Kenneth Mackenzie

Our object in life should not be so much to get through a great deal of work, as to give perfect satisfaction to Him for whom we are doing the work.

- William Hay M. H. Aitken

From Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston

[lee_merrill]

"To understand this, we should remember, firstly, that God's children usually, in their troubles, overcome by suffering. Here lambs overcome lions, and doves eagles, by suffering, that herein they may be conformable to Christ, who conquered most when he suffered most. Together with Christ's kingdom of patience there was a kingdom of power." (Richard Sibbes)

[lee_merrill]

Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to Heaven, but great faith will bring Heaven to your souls.

- C. H. Spurgeon

[lee_merrill]

They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress. (Ps 107:5–6)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled. (Mt 5:6)

If God had not said, Blessed are those that hunger, I know not what could keep weak Christians from sinking in despair; many times all I can do is to find and complain that I want Him, and wish to recover Him; now this is my stay, that He in mercy esteems us not only by having, but by desiring also; and, after a sort, accounts us to have that which we want and desire to have. (Joseph Hall)

Honest sighing is faith breathing and whispering in the ear; the life is not out of faith, where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes, and breathing toward God. (Samuel Rutherford)

He never yet rejected the feeble soul which clung to Him in love. (H.L. Sidney Lear)

(from Joy and Strength, by Mary Wilder Tileston)

[lee_merrill]

According to your faith be it unto you. (Mt. 9:29)

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40)

"I find that while faith is steady nothing can disquiet me, and when faith totters nothing can establish me. If I ramble out among means and [people], I am presently lost, and can come to no end. But if I stay myself on God, and leave Him to work in His own way and time, I am at rest, and can lie down and sleep in a promise, though a thousand rise up against me. Therefore my way is not to cast beforehand, but to walk with God by the day. Keep close to God, and then you need fear nothing. Maintain secret and intimate acquaintance with Him, and then a little of [fellowmen] will go a great way. Crowd not religion into a corner of the day. Would men spend those hours they wear out in plots and devices in communion with God, and leave all on Him by venturesome believing, they would have more peace and comfort."

- Joseph Eliot, 1664

[lee_merrill]

Be content to go on quietly. When you discover somewhat in yourself which is earthly and imperfect, be patient while you strive to cast it out. Your perceptions will grow--at first God will show you very obvious stumbling-blocks, be diligent in clearing these away, and do not aim at heights to which you are not yet equal. Leave all to God, and while you earnestly desire that He would purify your intention, and seek to work with Him to that end, be satisfied with the gradual progress He sets before you; and remember that He often works in ways unseen by us.

- Jean Nicolas Grou

[lee_merrill]

Miss Havergal has said: "Every year, I might almost say every day, that I live, I seem to see more clearly how all the rest and gladness and power of our Christian life hinges on one thing; and that is, taking God at His word, believing that He really means exactly what He says, and accepting the very words in which He reveals His goodness and grace, without substituting others or altering the precise modes and tenses which He has seen fit to use."

Bring Christ's Word--Christ's promise, and Christ's sacrifice--His blood, with thee, and not one of Heaven's blessings can be denied thee. --Adam Clarke

[Teluog]

‎"Let us not then choose that which is more pleasing at first sight but that which is truly better." Ambrose of Milan

[lee_merrill]

"Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much."

Chesterton, as quoted in "The Sleep of Trees"

[lee_merrill]

"... this is the very important difference between his sort of mystery and mere allegory. The commonplace allegory takes what it regards as the commonplaces or conventions necessary to ordinary men and women, and tries to make them pleasant or picturesque by dressing them up as princesses or goblins or good fairies. But George MacDonald did really believe that people were princesses and goblins and good fairies, and he dressed them up as ordinary men and women."

Chesterton, "George MacDonald"

[lee_merrill]

"That God knows how to deliver from troubles by troubles, from afflictions by afflictions, from dangers by dangers. God, by lesser troubles and afflictions, doth often-times deliver his people from greater, so that they shall say, We had perished, if we had not perished; we had been undone, if we had not been undone; we had been in danger, if we had not been in danger." (Thomas Brooks)

[lee_merrill]

There are two verses in the Bible that are disbelieved by Bible believers in every age. Those who fail to believe these verses may also fail to hear much of what God is saying to them. I am referring to Isaiah 55:8-9: “ ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ ” Most of us Christians would say we agree with this, but the way we agree with it is this: “That’s right, Lord, they don’t think like we do, do they?” The truth is we believe it for someone else.

- Jack Deer, "The Gift of Prophecy"

[lee_merrill]

Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. (Psalm 97:11)

That is what our sacrifice of ourselves should be--"full of life." Not desponding, morbid, morose; not gloomy, chilly, forbidding; not languid, indolent, inactive; but full of life, and warmth, and energy; cheerful, and making others cheerful; happy, and making others happy; contented, and making others contented; doing good, and making others do good, by our lively vivid vitality--filling every corner of our own souls and bodies, filling every corner of the circle in which we move, with the fresh life-blood of a warm, genial, kindly Christian heart. Doubtless this requires a sacrifice; it requires us to give up our own comfort, our own ease, our own firesides, our dear solitude, our own favorite absorbing pursuits, our shyness, our reserve, our pride, our selfishness.

Arthur P. Stanley

[lee_merrill]

"The modern habit of saying 'Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and its suits me'; the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos." (G.K. Chesterton)

[lee_merrill]

"Mon., February 19th. I prayed in the prison with Anne Dodd, well-disposed, weary of sin, longing to break loose. I preached powerfully on the last day. I prayed after God for the poor harlots. Our sisters carried away one in triumph. I followed to M. Hanson’s, who took charge of the returning prodigal. Our hearts were overflowed with pity for her. She seemed confounded, silent, testifying her joy and love by her tears only. We sang and prayed over her in great confidence."

Just got my copy of Charles Wesley's journal. What a challenge and encouragement--and what a heart he had.

[lee_merrill]

More of Charles! Church was evidently rather exciting at times, back in those days.

"Mon., March 12th. I was at Newgate with Bray. I prayed, sang, exhorted with great life and vehemence. I talked in the cells to two Papists, who renounced all merit but that of Jesus Christ. I expounded at Bray’s on the day of judgment. The power of the Lord was present to wound. A woman cried out as in an agony. Another sank down overpowered. All were moved and melted, as wax before the fire. At eight I expounded on Dowgate-hill. Two were then taken into the fold.

Wed., March 14th. I found one of the Papists full of peace and joy in believing, immediately after we prayed.

Tues., March 20th. A double power and blessing accompanied my word at Fetter-lane.

Thur., March 22d. I was at the Marshalsea with Mr. Oakley. I prayed with the sick; read prayers, and expounded the lesson.

Sun., March 25th. Betty Hopson came, and prayed that to-day we might have a feast of fat things. Mr. Stonehouse was full of love, and preached an excellent sermon on faith. After the sacrament we continued our triumph. I preached with power, “Lazarus raised.” Then sang and prayed at the room. Great was our rejoicing in the Lord. I buried a corpse, and exhorted the congregation. I expounded at Mr. Stonehouse’s with great enlargement. An opposer was troublesome, till we prayed him down. I visited Mr. Lloyd, and then M. Vaughan, both as full of love and joy as they could contain. By midnight I rested with Oakley at J. Bray’s.

Tues., March 27th. At Mr. Crouch’s I expounded on persecution. A man cried out, “That’s a lie.” We betook ourselves to prayer and singing. The shout of a King was in the midst of us. The man came up quite affable. Another asked what that comfort and joy meant: I calmly invited him to experience it."

[shunyadragon]

The beliefs that are most rigid, inflexible, and absolute are the ones that are most likely wrong.

[lee_merrill]

In other words, what modern interpreters call a lack of fidelity to the literal meaning of a given text actually grows out of the [patristic] fathers’ conviction that since the Bible is God’s Word, it has a unity about it that can be discerned if we recognize the patterns connecting the various passages one to another. Conversely, the reason modern interpreters focus so intently on a single text, in its own context, is that they generally do not believe the Bible fits together as a unity, so they are not permitted (or so they think) to allow the rest of Scripture to infringe on the interpretation of a given passage. Kannengiesser expresses the same idea even more boldly when he asserts that the basis for patristic interpretation was the belief in the stunning idea that the radically transcendent God had indeed revealed himself in the words of Scripture.

... what lurks just below the surface of Kannengiesser’s irritating claim is the possibility that modern exegesis as a whole, with its almost fanatical commitment to each individual text and its exhaustive probing of all possible backgrounds to that text, is wedded to a view of reality in which the Bible is not the self-revelation of God, is not trustworthy, and is definitely not to be seen as a unity. To put it another way, the painful search for ‘‘objective’’ methods of exegesis in the modern world may actually be an attempt to discover a foundation for truth outside of the Bible itself, since the theological conviction that God has revealed himself to humanity in the words of Scripture is deemed to be either false or irrelevant.

- Donald Fairbairn, "Patristic Exegesis and Theology" article

(the patristic fathers being early writers in the Christian church, and the complaint of modern interpreters being that these early commentators were doing allegorical interpretations of Scripture, such as Joseph and Isaac being a type of Christ, or the Christian church, etc.).

[shunyadragon]

In other words, what modern interpreters call a lack of fidelity to the literal meaning of a given text actually grows out of the [patristic] fathers’ conviction that since the Bible is God’s Word, it has a unity about it that can be discerned if we recognize the patterns connecting the various passages one to another. Conversely, the reason modern interpreters focus so intently on a single text, in its own context, is that they generally do not believe the Bible fits together as a unity, so they are not permitted (or so they think) to allow the rest of Scripture to infringe on the interpretation of a given passage. Kannengiesser expresses the same idea even more boldly when he asserts that the basis for patristic interpretation was the belief in the stunning idea that the radically transcendent God had indeed revealed himself in the words of Scripture.

... what lurks just below the surface of Kannengiesser’s irritating claim is the possibility that modern exegesis as a whole, with its almost fanatical commitment to each individual text and its exhaustive probing of all possible backgrounds to that text, is wedded to a view of reality in which the Bible is not the self-revelation of God, is not trustworthy, and is definitely not to be seen as a unity. To put it another way, the painful search for ‘‘objective’’ methods of exegesis in the modern world may actually be an attempt to discover a foundation for truth outside of the Bible itself, since the theological conviction that God has revealed himself to humanity in the words of Scripture is deemed to be either false or irrelevant.

- Donald Fairbairn, "Patristic Exegesis and Theology" article

(the patristic fathers being early writers in the Christian church, and the complaint of modern interpreters being that these early commentators were doing allegorical interpretations of Scripture, such as Joseph and Isaac being a type of Christ, or the Christian church, etc.).

I was not referring to 'In other words . . . ' or any specific belief. Regardless of what the church fathers claimed to know or believe, nor modern 'Monday morning quarterbacking. Absolute claims and beliefs are questionable regardless of belief system.

[lee_merrill]

I was not referring to 'In other words . . . ' or any specific belief. Regardless of what the church fathers claimed to know or believe, nor modern 'Monday morning quarterbacking. Absolute claims and beliefs are questionable regardless of belief system.
Well, this wasn't actually in response to your quote! But isn't what you're saying, an absolute claim? :smile:

[shunyadragon]

Well, this wasn't actually in response to your quote! But isn't what you're saying, an absolute claim? :smile:

It was not really a quote. What was it in response to?

No, it is not an absolute claim, because i am as fallible as all men including church fathers. Claims, beliefs or statements are only 'absolute' when the possibility of alternatives is rejected. It is possible that any religious or philosophical belief is 'absolutely true,' but at present I have no evidence to support this.

[lee_merrill]

It was not really a quote. What was it in response to?
It was just another quote, from a theology article I was reading, actually.


No, it is not an absolute claim, because i am as fallible as all men including church fathers. Claims, beliefs or statements are only 'absolute' when the possibility of alternatives is rejected. It is possible that any religious or philosophical belief is 'absolutely true,' but at present I have no evidence to support this.
So let's leave it at that! Unless you want to pick this up in another forum.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Some gaze into tender faces,
Others drink until morning light,
But all night I hold conversations
With my conscience, who is always right.

I say to her: 'You know how tired I am,
Bearing your heavy burden, many years.'
But for her, there is no such thing as time,
And for her, space also disappears.

And again, a black Shrove Tuesday,
The sinister park, the unhurried ring
Of hooves, and, flying down the heavenly
Slopes, full of happiness and joy, the wind.

And above me, double-horned and calm
Is the witness ... O I shall go there,
Along the ancient well-worn track,
To the deathly waters, where the swans are.

- Anna Akhmatova

[lee_merrill]

Thou wouldest say, "So soon?
Let me go back, and suffer yet awhile
More patiently; I have not yet praised God."

- Amy Carmichael

[Skyller]

"The best way to know about yourself is to offer your self in the service of others"
Hmm.. this is really a quote of the day.. So what about your best quote.