“An army might enjoy some tranquil times marching from one battle to another—but the battles are why they are there. The wrong kind of conflict is always to be avoided, but the right kind of conflict is the point.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 91
MInistry Sinkholes
“There will also be ministry sinkholes where countless hours go and where gratitude is rarely in evidence. This is a problem, but it should be their problem, not yours. The ministry is before the Lord, not before man. Let the Lord repay you, let the Lord thank you.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 90
Disqualified Buttercups
“In 2 Tim. 2:3-6, the apostle Paul compares the work of ministry to three vocations, each of which involves a goodly amount of sweat—soldiers, athletes, and farmers. The calling of ministry is not for buttercups, and if buttercups can do it, it isn’t ministry.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 89
And Now Rank All Four
“This is equivalent to Luther’s comment (which may be apocryphal) that he would rather be governed by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian. Quite so, but we must also remember there are two other options as well. Beware of false dichotomies. There is also the option of the foolish Turk and the wise Christian.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 85
Glow-Brain Limitations
“Christian orthodoxy requires us to deny that the mind and the brain are synonymous. For the secularist, the brain is the driver of the car. For the Christian, the brain is the clutch and transmission that the (invisible) driver of the car, a driver named Soul, Heart, or Mind, uses to make the car go. For the Christian, the glow-brain reductionism of the secularist is like taking x-rays of the clutch in an attempt to find out what song the driver is humming and why he is so happy to get to his destination. A great deal of what makes us go will never be reducible to brain scans.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 84
With the Sky an Azure Blue
“When the secular counselor gets to the brain, he has found the roof of the cavern. When the Christian counselor gets to the brain, he has found the bottom step of a staircase that leads up to the top of the tower that looks out over the sea.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 84.
Not the Best Consulting Group
“It is quite possible to glean wisdom from a donkey (Num. 22:31), but this is very different from seeking wisdom among the donkeys.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 81
Sourcing the Golden Calf
“All truths are God’s truths, this is true. But it is also the case that an all lies are the devil’s lies. And all good lies claim to be true. All gold is God’s gold, and all fool’s gold is the devil’s gold. Speaking of plundering the Egyptians, all gold is God’s gold, and all the gold that Egyptians gave the Israelites was God’s gold, but some of it still wound up in the golden calf.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 81
Product Limitations
“An unbeliever can offer to sell me oil that will make my hands slippery. That is within his right and capacity, and we have no reason to object to his attempting to do so. But he has no right to sell me oil that will remove guilt and shame. That really is blasphemy. He has no authorization to sell me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control—and it does not matter whether he makes such promises through the medium of oils, crystals, joy pills in a bottle, lying on his couch to relate my dreams, or drawing energy from my third chakra.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 80
Assigned Duties
“Pastors can fail at their assigned task, but it by no means follows from this that the task was somehow not assigned to them. You can only fail a class that you were enrolled in.”
Concise and to the Point, p. 79