It is characteristic of the thinking of our time that the
problem of guilt and forgiveness has been pushed into the
background and seems to disappear more and more. Modern
thought is impersonal. There are, even today, a great many
people who understand that man needs salvation, but there are
very few who are convinced that he needs forgiveness and
redemption... Sin is understood as imperfection, ,
worldliness -- but not as guilt.
... Emil Brunner (1889-1966), The Word and the World
[1931]
--------------------------------------------------
basic principle in the interpretation of the Bible is
that one must first ask what a given Scripture was intended to
mean to the people for whom it was originally written; only
then is the interpreter free to ask what meaning it has for
Christians today. Failure to ask this primary question and to
investigate the historical setting of Scripture have prevented
many Christians from coming to a correct understanding of some
parts of the Bible. Nowhere is this more true than in respect
to the last book in the Bible. Here, there has been a singular
lack of appreciation for the historical background of the
book; the book has been interpreted as if it were primarily
written for the day in which the expositor lives (which is
usually thought to be the end time), rather than in terms of
what it meant to the first-century Christians of the Roman
province of Asia for whom it was originally written. This has
resulted in all sorts of grotesque and fantastic conclusions
of which the author of the Revelation and its early recipients
never would have dreamed.
... W. Ward Gasque, Sir William M. Ramsay: Archaeologist
and New Testament Scholar [1966]

****************************************************************
We read not that Christ ever exercised force but once; and
that was to drive profane ones out of his Temple, not to force
them in.
... John Milton (1608-1674)

_______________________________________________________________
If the [Incarnation] happened, it was the central event in
the history of the Earth—the very thing that the whole story
has been about. Since it happened only once, it is by Hume's
standards infinitely improbable. But then, the whole history
of the Earth has also happened only once: is it therefore
incredible? Hence the difficulty, which weighs upon Christian
and atheist alike, of estimating the probability of the
Incarnation. It is like asking whether the existence of nature
herself is intrinsically probable. That is why it is easier to
argue, on historical grounds, that the Incarnation actually
occurred than to show, on philosophical grounds, the
probability of its occurrence.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Miracles [1947]

_______________________________________________________________
Prayer and action, therefore, can never be seen as
contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action
grows in powerless pietism, and action without prayer
degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads
us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will
always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete
acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with
the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed,
they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet
Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet
people, and in them the suffering Christ.
... Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996), Compassion [1982]

_______________________________________________________________
Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it
yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To
convince them, you must yourself believe.

Winston Churchill
(1874-1965, British Prime Minister)

============================================
Every time we say, 'I believe in the Holy Spirit,' we mean
that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to
enter human personality and change it.
... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Plain Christianity [1954]
[With thanks to Bill Blake at pilgrimwb@aol.com]

_______________________________________________________________
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.

St. Ambrose
(340-397, Bishop of Milan)

============================================
I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I
cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.

Robert Brault
============================================

Man is only truly great when he acts from his passions.

Benjamin Disraeli
(1804-1881, British Statesman, Prime Minister)

============================================
Wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has
decreased in the same proportion. Therefore I do not see how
it is possible in the nature of things for any revival of
religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily
produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but
produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger,
and love of the world in all its branches. How then is it
possible that Methodism, that is a religion of the heart,
though it flourishes now as the green bay tree, should continue
in this state? For the Methodists in every place grow diligent
and frugal; consequently, they increase in goods. Hence, they
proportionately increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of
the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So,
although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly
vanishing away. Is there no way to prevent... this continual
decay of pure religion?
... John Wesley (1703-1791)

_______________________________________________________________

In the long run, the pessimist may be proved to be right, but the
optimist has a better time on the trip.

Daniel L. Reardon
============================================
... for one good never clashes with another.
... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?)

_______________________________________________________________
To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to
difficult achievement.

Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970, British Philosopher, Mathematician, Essayist)

============================================
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about
whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950, Irish-born British Dramatist)

============================================
We are all pencils in the hand of a writing God, who is
sending love letters to the world.
... Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) (1910-1997)
[With thanks to Mervin W Koehlinger]

_______________________________________________________________
The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking." -- C. Morley
-------------------------------------------------------

"I will go anywhere provided it is forward." -- D. Livingstone
============================================
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's
heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him
your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys,
that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may
purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you
conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may
shield you from them: show Him the wounds of your heart, that
He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your
depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-
love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be
insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles,
there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust
the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have
no secrets from each other never want for subjects of
conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is
nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to
say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without
consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they
who attain to such familiar, unreserved with God.
... François Fénelon (1651-1715)
[With thanks to Melissa Sargent at mmsarge@juno.com]

_______________________________________________________________
God is often faulted for creating a world full of suffering
and evil. The issue is complex, both philosophically and
theologically; but surely it is inappropriate to blame God for
a problem He did not initiate, and [that is] in fact, one which
He has sought to alleviate, at great cost to Himself. God sent
His Son to inaugurate the Kingdom and to "destroy him who has
the power of , that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14). God is
not the cause of suffering and sickness; He is its cure! Jesus'
ministry and guarantee this.
... George Mallone (1944- ), Those Controversial Gifts [1983]

_______________________________________________________________
In most parts of the Bible, everything is implicitly or
explicitly introduced with "Thus saith the Lord". It is... not
merely a sacred book but a book so remorselessly and
continuously sacred that it does not invite -- it excludes or
repels -- the merely aesthetic approach. You can read it as
literature only by a tour de force... It demands incessantly
to be taken on its own terms: it will not continue to give
literary delight very long, except to those who go to it for
something quite different. I predict that it will in the
future be read, as it always has been read, almost exclusively
by Christians.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), They Asked for a Paper

_______________________________________________________________
It seems to me that testimonies should once again become a
part of the life of our churches. I have not made a study of
why the testimony fell into disrepute and was discarded, but I
suspect these were three of the factors:
(1) The same persons gave the testimony every time.
(2) They gave the same testimony every time.
(3) The testimony they gave was about something that
happened ten, or twenty, or thirty years before.
... Findley B. Edge (1916-2002),
The Greening of the Church [1971]

_______________________________________________________________
Inward rest... gives an air of leisure to [Christ's]
crowded life: above all, there is in this Man a secret and a
power of dealing with the waste-products of life, the waste of
pain, disappointment, enmity, -- turning to divine uses
the abuses of man, transforming arid places of pain to
fruitfulness, triumphing at last in , and making a short
life of thirty years or so, abruptly cut off, to be a
"finished" life. We cannot admire the poise and beauty of this
human life, and then ignore the things that made it.
... A. E. Whitham (1879-1938),
The Discipline and Culture of the Spiritual Life [1938]

_______________________________________________________________
If thou believest that Christ was crucified for the sins of
the world, thou must with Him be crucified... If thou refusest
to comply with this order, thou canst not be a living member of
Christ, nor be united with Him by faith.
... John Arndt (1555-1621)

_______________________________________________________________
One who receives this Word, and by it salvation, receives
along with it the duty of passing this Word on... Where there
is no mission, there is no Church, and where there is neither
Church nor mission, there is no faith.
... Emil Brunner (1889-1966)

_______________________________________________________________
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have
found out that it has no meaning -- just as, if there were no
light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we
should never know that it was dark. Dark would be without
meaning.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
**********************************
In religion, we are not asked to make up our minds, we are
asked to make up our lives... We may refuse to make up our
minds, but our lives get made up, one way or the other...
Whatever we believe with our minds, our lives are committed
either to God's way or to the God-denying way, and what
matters in religion is the act of commitment.
... A. Leonard Griffith (1920- ),
Barriers to Christian Belief [1962]

_______________________________________________________________
The ordinary historian would probably not condemn the
spirit of Laodicea so strenuously as St. John did. In the
tendency of the Laodiceans towards a policy of compromise he
would probably see a tendency towards toleration and
allowance, which indicated a certain sound practical sense,
and showed that the various constituents of the population of
Laodicea were well mixed and evenly balanced. He would regard
its somewhat featureless character and its easy regular
development as proving that it was a happy and well-ordered
city, in whose constitution "the elements were kindlier mixed"
than in any other city of Asia. He would consider probably
that its success as a commercial city was the just reward of
the strong common sense which characterised its people. St.
John, however, was not one of those who regarded a successful
career in trade and money-making as the best proof of the
higher qualities of citizenship. The very characteristics
which made Laodicea a well-ordered, energetic, and pushing
centre of trade, seemed to him to evince a coldness of nature
that was to the highest side of human character, the
spirit of self-sacrifice and enthusiasm.
... Sir W. M. Ramsay (1851-1939), The Letters to the Seven
Churches [1904]

_______________________________________________________________
You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I
don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried
to do.

Jane Fonda
(American Actress)

============================================
oscar ragus (6/13/2004 8:22:57 PM)

"What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice" -- C. Baudelaire

*********************************************
oscar ragus (6/13/2004 8:23:28 PM)

"If ambition doesn't hurt you, you haven't got it." --K. Norris
******************************************