Most Christians are affected far more than they know by the standards and methods of the surrounding world. In these days when power and size and speed are almost universally admired, it seems to me particularly important to study afresh the "weakness", the "smallness of entry", and the "slowness" of God as He begins His vast work of reconstructing His disordered world. We are all tempted to take short cuts, to work for quick results, and to evade painful sacrifice. It is therefore essential that we should look again at love incarnate in a human being, to see God Himself at work within the limitations of human personality, and to base our methods on what we see Him do.

One thief on the cross was saved, that none should despair; and only one, that one should presume.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

No one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one has ever written in--no one, either in the world or out of it (taking the Scriptures for evidence on the latter point); therefore it would not be fair to exact grammatical perfection from the people of the [Mississippi] Valley; but they and all other peoples may justly be required to refrain from knowingly and purposely debauching their grammar.

I was predestined to be an Arminian. I became a Calvinist of my own free will.

Have you ever met a Calvinist who did not think that he was one of the elect?

The fruit of the Spirit must be cultivated, all that grows naturally is weeds.

Try to understand the Trinity and you will lose your mind. Deny the Trinity and you will lose your soul.

If I had to be either omniscient or omnipotent, I would choose omnipotent, because that way I could beat up all those know-it-alls.

If a poet or an artist puts himself into his Productions he is criticized. But that is exactly what God does, he does so in Christ. And precisely that is Christianity. The creation was really only completed when God included himself in it. Before the coming of Christ, God was certainly in the creation, but as an invisible sign, like the watermark in paper. But the creation was completed by the Incarnation because God thereby included himself in it. In essence, God moved from being the watermark to being the letterhead.

Psychology is much more useful for studying harmartiology than soteriology, for studying sin more than righteousness.

A theologian and an astronomer were talking together one day. The astronomer said that after reading widely in the field of religion, he had concluded that all religion could be summed up in a single phrase. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," he said, with a bit of smugness, knowing that his field is so much more complex. After a brief pause, the theologian replied that after reading widely in the area of astronomy he had concluded that all of it could be summed up in a single phrase also. "Oh, and what is that?" the astronaut inquired. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are!"

A system of doctrine has risen up during the last three centuries, in which faith or spiritual-mindedness is contemplated and rested on as the end of religion, instead of Christ. I do not mean to say that Christ is not mentioned as the author of all good, but that stress is laid on the believing rather than on the object of belief, on the comfort and persuasiveness of the doctrine than on the doctrine itself. And in this way religion is made to consist of contemplating ourselves, instead of Christ; not simply in looking to Christ, but in seeing that we look to Christ; not in His divinity and atonement, but in our conversion and faith in Him... The fashion of the day has been to attempt to convert by insisting on conversion; to exhort men to be converted; to tell them to be sure they look at Christ instead of simply holding up Christ; to tell them to have faith rather than to supply its object; to lead them to work up their minds, instead of impressing upon them the thought of Him who can savingly work in them; to bid them to be sure their faith is justifying, that it is not dead, formal, self-righteous, or merely moral, instead of delineating Him whose image, fully delineated, destroys deadness, formality, self-righteousness; to rely on words, vehemence, eloquence, and the like, rather than to aim at conveying the one great idea, whether in words or not.

I have put no emphasis on the virgin birth in the course of this chapter. This is not because I do not believe in it, for I do; but because, as I understand it, the account of Christ's miraculous birth was given in the Gospels for the sake of those who had already come to believe in him and who wished to know the facts, but was never used as a means of evoking faith in those who were not yet convinced on other grounds as to who he was. After all, a virgin birth would be possible without any implications of deity.

The Hero died- But that isn't the end of the story. -Billboard 'Book Review' J Kornegay First Baptist Church, Bryan

Genesis 30.18: Leah interprets the birth of Issachar as God rewarding her for giving her servant to be Jacob's wife. This is a great example of basing theology on poorly-understood experience.

Capitalism - He who dies with the most toys, wins. Judaism - He who buys toys at the lowest price, wins. Catholicism - He who denies himself the most toys, wins. Anglican - They were our toys first. Greek Orthodox - No, they were OURS first. Branch Davidians - He who dies playing with the biggest toys, wins. Atheism - There is no toy maker. Polytheism - There are many toy makers. Evolutionism - The toys made themselves. Church of Christ, Scientist - We are the toys. Communism - Everyone gets the same number of toys, and you go straight to the opposite of heaven if we catch you selling yours. Baha'i - All toys are just fine with us. Amish - Toys with batteries are surely a sin. Taoism - The doll is as important as the dump truck. Mormonism - Every boy may have as many toys as he wants. Voodoo - Let me borrow that doll for a second... Hedonism - Hang the rule book! Let's play! 7th Day Adventist - He who plays with his toys on Saturday, loses. Church of Christ - He whose toys make music, loses. Baptist - Once played always played. Jehovah's Witnesses - He who "places" the most toys door-to-door, wins. Pentecostalism - He whose toys can talk, wins. Existentialism - Toys are a figment of your imagination. Confucianism - Once a toy is dipped in water, it is no longer dry. Non-denominationalism - We don't care where the toys came from, let's just play.

eternal security: who cares--live so that it's not an issue

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF `JOAN OF ARCADIA' Here's a list of guidelines, created by producer Barbara Hall, that the show's writers must keep in mind while penning their scripts. 1. God cannot directly intervene. 2. Good and evil exist. 3. God can never identify one religion as being right. 4. The job of every human being is to fulfill his or her true nature. 5. Everyone is allowed to say ``no'' to God, including Joan. 6. God is not bound by time. This is a human concept. 7. God is not a person and does not possess a human personality. 8. God talks to everyone all the time in different ways. 9. God's plan is what is good for us, not what is good for him. 10. God's purpose for talking to Joan, and everyone, is to get her (us) to recognize the interconnectedness of all things -- i.e., you cannot hurt a person without hurting yourself; all of your actions have consequences; God can be found in the smallest actions; God expects us to learn and grow from all our experiences. However, the exact nature of God is a mystery, and the mystery can never be solved.

A priest, a minister and a guru sat discussing the best positions for prayer while a telephone repairman worked nearby. "Kneeling is definitely the best way to pray," the priest said. "No," said the minister. "I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven." "You're both wrong," the guru said. "The most effective prayer position is lying down on the floor." The repairman could contain himself no longer. "Hey, fellas," he interrupted, "The best prayin' I ever did was when I was hangin' upside down from a telephone pole."

Thursday, March 18, 2004 Posted: 11:30 PM EST (0430 GMT) STATESBORO, Georgia (AP) -- A couple who got into a dispute over a theological point after watching "The Passion of the Christ" were arrested after the argument turned violent. The two left the movie theater debating whether God the Father in the Holy Trinity was human or symbolic, and the argument heated up when they got home, Melissa Davidson said. "It was the dumbest thing we've ever done," she said. Davidson, 34, and her husband, Sean Davidson, 33, were charged with simple battery on March 11 after the two called police on each other. They were released on $1,000 bail. According to a police report, Melissa Davidson suffered injuries on her arm and face, while her husband had a scissors stab wound on his hand and his shirt was ripped off. He also allegedly punched a hole in a wall. "Really, it was kind of a pitiful thing, to go to a movie like that and fight about it. I think they missed the point," said Gene McDaniel, chief sheriff's deputy.

As I look at pastors who have finished well, almost all are theological thinkers. Without a strong grounding in theology, pastors tend to have a short life. -- Dennis Baker, Director, Conservative Baptist Association

The Word became flesh -- and then through theologians it became words again.

In religion and politics, we seem to have less love for those who believe half our creed than for those who deny the whole of it. By: Charles Colson Source: As quoted in Mentoring: The Strategy of the Master, Ron Lee Davis, 1991, pg. 157

(In a debate with one of George Bernard Shaw=s disciples) Jackson: 'Truth is one's own conception of things.' Chesterton: 'The Big Blunder. All thought is an attempt to discover if one's own conception is true or not….' Jackson: 'Theology and religion are not the same thing. When churches are controlled by the theologians religious people stay away.' Chesterton: 'Theology is simply that part of religion that requires brains.' By: G.K. Chesterton Source: Chesterton Review, vol. XIV, no. 4, page 542-9

Responding to the question, 'What does it take to make a good theologian?' Martin Luther is reported to have answered, 'Suffering.' By: Martin Luther

When newlyweds, Carol and I had a couch in our living room that was so long it poked into the hallway. It was a fine couch; it just didn;t fit in our apartment. Many of us have pet doctrines like that couch. They seem plausible but they don't fit with biblical reality. Over the years, I've learned to keep a loose grip on some theological ideas of mine that may be peripheral and instead simply preach the gospel, 'not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power' (1 Co. 1:17, NIV). By: John Wimber Source: Charisma Magazine, Aug, 1995, pg 61

The dose makes the poison. (almost everything is a poison if taken in sufficient concentration)

To say that "a creed comes between a man and his God," is to suppose that it is not true; for truth, however definitely stated, does not divide the believer from his Lord. So far as I am concerned, that which I believe I am not ashamed to state in the plainest possible language; and the truth I hold I embrace because I believe it to be the mind of God revealed in his infallible Word. How can it divide me from God who revealed it? It is one means of my communion with my Lord, that I receive his words as well as himself, and submit my understanding to what I see to be taught by him. Say what he may, I accept it because he says it, and therein pay him the humble worship of my inmost soul. I am unable to sympathize with a man who says he has no creed; because I believe him to be in the wrong by his own showing. He ought to have a creed. What is equally certain, he has a creed—he must have one, even though he repudiates the notion. His very unbelief is, in a sense, a creed. The objection to a creed is a very pleasant way of concealing objection to discipline, and a desire for latitudinarianism.

If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God’s winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, "I’m not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I’ll just borrow my words from someone else," then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else. Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.

We all know that the Calvinist flower is the TULIP. But how many of you knew that the Arminian flower is the DAISY? “He loves me… He loves me not… He loves me… He loves me not…”

A man is castrated in order to make him a singer who can take higher notes than any normal man can take. And so with these preachers: from a Christian point of view they are castrati, are deprived of their real manhood which is 'the existential' - but they can take notes higher and more fascinating than any true Christian.

...your remark about "dead, white guys" is a little too flip for me in this context. It implies a view of doctrinal development that I find shockingly reductive of the Holy Spirit's work in the Church throughout the last two thousand years. And do we really want to lump together, say, 1st-century Jewish Christians with 4th-century North African Christians with 10th-century Russian Christians with 13th-century Italian Christians with 16th-century Saxon Christians with 18th-century English Christians with 20th-century American Christians--and call the fruit of their collective reflection merely the work of "dead, white guys"? That seems a little indiscriminate--not to mention ungrateful--to me.

Liberal Theology Becomes Atheism

Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism." Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.

Jesus Embodied Israel

God’s message to Israel throughout the prophets was always this: you will suffer deeply because of sin, but glory and restoration will be there to greet you on the other side. When the Christ came to stand in the place of Israel, to be Israel, what would we expect of him but that he would suffer judgement because of sin before being vindicated and glorified on judgement's far side?