Quote of the Day

Faith is not inherently virtuous.  Its value depends on the worth of its object.  The Bible understood in context and given precedent over our own instincts and preferences , is our dependable guide for faith and practice.

- Randy Alcorn

Quote of the Day

I would have every Christian wish to know all that he can know of revealed truth.  Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to us.  You may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is revealed you ought to know...

Charles Spurgeon

Quote of the Day

…a study which is exclusively practical and devotional is necessarily imperfect.  There are many things in Scripture which do not lend themselves to an immediate practical purpose, and which in fact are as good as shut out from the circle of ordinary Bible-reading.  I know that good people often try to hide this fact from themselves by hooking on some sort of lesson to passages which they do not understand, or which do not directly touch any spiritual chord.  There is very respectable precedent for this course, which in fact is nothing else than the method of topical  exegesis that reigned supreme in the Old Catholic and Medieval Church.  The ancient fathers laid down the principle that everything in Scripture which, taken in its natural sense, appears unedifying must be made edifying by some method of typical or figurative application.  In principle this is no longer admitted in the Protestant Churches (unless perhaps for the Song of Solomon), but in practice we still get over many difficulties by tacking on a lesson which is  not really taken out of the difficult passage, but read into from some other part of Scripture.  People satisfy themselves in this way, but they do not solve the difficulty.  Let us be frank with ourselves, and admit that there are many things in Scripture in which unsystematic and merely devotional reading finds no profit.

 

William Robertson Smith

I do not agree with his stance on the Old Testament(higher criticism)

Quote of the Day

We may if we please, confine our study of Scripture to what is immediately edifying, skimming lightly over all pages which do not serve a direct purpose of devotion, and ignoring every difficulty which does not yield to the faculty of practical insight, to the power of spiritual sympathy with the mind of the Spirit, which the thoughtful Christian necessarily acquires in the habitual excessive of bringing Scripture to bear on the daily needs of his own life.  This use of Scripture is full of personal profit, and raises no intellectual difficulties.  But it does not do justice to the whole Word of God.  It cannot exhaust the whole mind of the Spirit.  It is limited for every individual by the limitations of his own spiritual experience.  Reading the Bible in this way, a man comes to a very personal appreciation of so much of God's truth as is in immediate contact with the range of his own life.  But he is sure to miss many truths which belong to another range of experience, and to read into the inspired page things from his own experience which involve human error.  In this way he becomes narrow, and full of prejudice, which prevent him from seeing that the Bible is larger than his knowledge of it, and that other men whose needs are different from his may be quite in the right in getting things out of the Scripture which he does not know, does not need, and is inclined to call false or dangerous.  

William Robertson Smith

(Disclaimer:  his stance in his writings on higher criticism is wrong)

Quote of the Day

What use is there, it may be asked, in learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew?  We can read the Bible very well in German."  "Without languages, we could not have received the Gospel…Languages are the scabbard that contains the sword of the Spirit; they are the casket that guards the jewels; they are the vessel that holds the wine; and, as the Gospel says, they are the baskets in which the loaves and fishes are kept to feed the multitude.  If we neglect the languages, we shall not only eventually lose the Gospel, but be unable to write in Latin or in German.  No sooner did men cease to cultivate them than Christendom declined, even until it fell under the power of the pope.  But now that languages are again honored, they shed such light that all the world is astonished, and every one is forced to acknowledge that our Gospel is almost as pure as that of the apostles themselves.  In former times the holy Fathers were frequently mistaken, because they were ignorant of languages; and in our days there are some who, like the Waldenses, do not think the languages to be of any use; but although their doctrine be good, they have often erred in the real meaning of the sacred text; they are without arms against error, and I feel very much that there faith will not remain pure.

Martin Luther

Quote of the Day

And yet some people actually imagine that the revelation in God’s Word is not enough to meet our needs. They think that God from time to time carries on an actual conversation with them, chatting with them, satisfying their doubts, testifying to His love for them, promising them support and blessings. As a result, their emotions soar; they are full of bubbling joy that is mixed with self-confidence and a high opinion of themselves. The foundation for these feelings, however, does not lie within the Bible itself, but instead rests on the sudden creations of their imaginations. These people are clearly deluded. God’s Word is for all of us and each of us; He does not need to give particular messages to particular people.

 

Jonathan Edwards

Quote of the Day

Don't ever come to a conclusion at the price of a proper interpretation. Don't ever come to a conclusion or make a point at the price of a proper interpretation. Don't use the Scripture to support your viewpoint. You come up with a neat idea, you think it works, so you just push the Scripture into it.

John MacArthur

Quote of the Day

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order; It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

 

Sherlock Holmes

A.K. A. 

A. C. Doyle

Quote of the Day

Now what is food for the inner man?  Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water passes through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering it over and applying it to our hearts.

 George Muller

Quote of the Day

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."   I have read the 1st and 2d verses of the 12th chapter of Hebrews....Here in this wonderful 12th chapter of Hebrews, God calls the roll of the champions.  The champions are at the race.  There is a big crowd of them, a great throng......After God names the champions He say, "Now, you are in the race."  Remember you have to be a Christian to get in the race, but if you are already a Christian you are in the race.  And listen! Jesus is your Manager...He has arranged for the race.  He has mapped out the course for you.  He has fixed the race track for you.  He has put you on it.  He has told you about the champions that have won before.  You have a great crowd of witnesses here.  But these witness can't do anything for you except to encourage you.  All they can do is to tell you it can be done....Boys and girls, don't play to the grandstand.  Look to Jesus.  Jesus is the only one who can help you.  All the saints who have gone on before can only encourage you....God says you are compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses, but they can't win for you...you must put your eyes on Jesus in the race.

....Then He says, "I want you to win this race, and I will tell you how to do it.  There are three things you must do:  First, Look to Jesus.  That is essential! Put your eyes on Him!  Second, Lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset you.  Third, Run the race with patience."  "Lay aside the weight."  I don't know whether I am right about this.  It may not be taught here, but it is true anyway.  A great many people carry weights that are not actual sins.  Some people carry the weight of ignorance.  There is nothing that weighs a person down more than ignorance.  It is not a sin to be ignorant.  But it is a sin to stay ignorant...Suppose I should run down the street in this town with a jug of whiskey in one hand and a grindstone under the other arm.  Suppose I say to myself, "Now, I ought not to have this jug of whiskey.  It is a sin to carry this jug of liquor.  It is wrong .  I am going to throw it down."  I throw the jug of liquor down.  But I have the grindstone.  I say, "I will carry the grindstone; there is nothing wrong with that."  The jug of liquor is a sin.  The grindstone is a fault.   I drop the sin - that is  a good thing.  But sometimes a fault will hold one down almost as bad as a sin......A great many people delight themselves in their faults.  A girl said to me one time, "Everybody thinks I am angry when I am not angry."  Well, listen young lady, if that is so, then it is just the same as far as effect is concerned as if you were angry.  It may not be exactly the same as far as your character is concerned, but it is just the same in its effect and influence......If you have a style about you that hurts your testimony, get rid of it.  It is wrong to keep it.

Bob Jones Sr.

Quote of the Day

I never knew my own father...Personal deprivations…can easily distort our understanding of the Christian gospel by making it say what we want to hear, rather than what God is really saying…It is where we are most thirsty that we shall be most likely to drink, but also perhaps to be least discriminating about what we drink.  One of the functions of theology is to help us test the quality of the water, to distinguish what is brackish from what is living…

  Thomas Smail

Quote of the Day

God said it, I believe it, that settles it. This sounds good but isn't accurate because God's Word is true, irregardless of whether we believe it or not. A more accurate "saying" would be God said it, that settles it!

Bruce Hurt

Quote of the Day

The plea that the prophetic portions of the Bible present problems over which men disagree is not a worthy release from its claims.  There are no more problems in Eschatology than in Soteriology.  It happens that, owing to the central place accorded Soteriology by the Reformers and in subsequent theological writings, that it has had a measure of consideration not given to prophetic truth.  Disagreements as divergent as Calvinism and Arminianism have never been urged as a reason for the neglect of Soteriology, but disunity of the slightest degree among teachers respecting Eschatology has been seized on as a reason for its neglect.

- L. S. Chafer

Quote of the Day

All truth is given by revelation, either general or special, and it must be received by reason. Reason is the God-given means for discovering the truth that God discloses, whether in his world or his Word. While God wants to reach the heart with truth, he does not bypass the mind.

 

Jonathan Edwards

Quote of the Day

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.

Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

In space, astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that draws them to the center. Where there is no "moral gravity"- that is, no force that draws us to the center- there is spiritual weightlessness. We float on feelings that will carry us where we were never meant to go; we bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on solid rock. Our reference point, until we answer God's call, is merely ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.

Elisabeth Elliot

Quote of the Day

There is a vast difference, however, between a childlike faith and a childish faith, though the two are often confused. A childish faith balks at learning the things of God in depth. It refuses the meat of the gospel while clinging to a diet of milk. 

R. C. Sproul

Quote of the Day

While it is nice to have our problems solved and difficulties removed by others, it is not always best for us. Instead of continuing to answer your questions, I might be of more service if I put you in the way of answering them for yourself. That man is the greatest help to me who casts me back upon God and stimulates me to the study of his Word. 'Study', I say, for while there are many who read it daily, and use the concordance, scarcely any study it. The first requirment is, of course, a spirit of dependence upon the Lord(distrusting our own competency), yet prayer is not meant to encourage slothfulness, and is no substitute for the diligent use of whatever talents God has bestowed upon us...

 

A. W. Pink