Category: Books and Culture

“In the flesh, people who like to test things tend to be ornery; they like to see people crash and burn. In the flesh, people who are eager to hold fast to that which is good tend to want everything to be good; everybody gets a participant ribbon. And these two errors feed off each other.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 57

[Concerning Heb. 13:7,17; 1 Thess. 5:12-13]
“These exhortations require the leaders of the church to know the names of those they are responsible for, and it requires the members of the church to know the names of those they are responsible to. The requirements are gibberish otherwise.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 56

“The Jewish War would ‘fill up’ the sins of Israel (Matt. 23:32). That event would begin the ‘times of the Gentiles,’ a period that would eventually be completed. I take that completion as being marked by the conversion of the Jews, an event that has not yet happened (Rom. 11:15). This means we are still living in the times of the Gentiles.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 52

“Loving more and more means gathering more and more, which means minding the store, and then being generous with what you have gained. We give in order to get, in order that we might be able to give even more.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 45

“Now the great Pauline principle here is ‘mind thine own business.’ Tend to thine own knitting. You do this, not because you are telling the rest of the body to get lost, but rather because you need to acquire something before you can give it. You cannot give what you do not have, and cannot have something to give unless you came by it honestly.”

Mines of Difficulty, pp. 44-45