“When a man committed adultery many generations ago, he was disobeying but not trying to redefine. It is like the difference between a thief and a socialist. A thief recognizes the boundaries of property, he just doesn’t respect them when it comes to his own personal behavior. The socialist wants to abolish all such distinctions—in effect, he wants to steal the world.”

Virgins and Volcanoes, pp. 9-10

“If an action or a behavior is not organically grown by the Spirit in your life, then you have set up a factory to manufacture plastic fruit, and you’re hanging that plastic fruit on your family tree with little wire hooks.”

Keep Your Kids, p. 120

“It should not be surprising that after I have urged the establishment of a mere Christendom for some time, questions about the First Amendment might arise. It would appear that I am trespassing on the sacred precincts. It would seem that I am strolling across the manicured lawns of the Temple grounds, in order to have a better shot at kicking one of the sacred geese.”

Mere Christendom, p. 110

“You can have true Christian churches that don’t baptize the right way. You can have real Christian churches that sing the wrong kind of songs. You can have genuine Christian churches that have adopted unedifying forms of church government. But you can’t have Christian churches that have the wrong God. And biblical marriage is one of the creational established and central confessions of faith concerning the nature of the true God.”

Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 6

“The elders of the Church do not rule over auto mechanics, or garbage collection, or interior design. First, it is none of their business, and secondly, they would do a bad job.”

Mere Christendom, p. 108

“There is nothing more suffocating than being trapped in a Christless Christianity. A Christless Christianity is all ‘Thou shalt not. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.’ These things are of no value, Paul says in Colossians, in checking fleshly indulgence (Col. 2:22-23). A Christless Christianity is not really Christianity at all: it has no blood in it, no salt in it, not sap in it. It’s not alive.”

Keep Your Kids, p. 119

“The principles here is that you export what you manufacture. Whatever your fields are growing, that is what gets loaded onto the ships. Whatever your life and heart are cultivating, that is what you are going to give to your kids. You can’t give anything else.”

Keep Your Kids, p. 114