“One danger is the obvious one of calling it cultural engagement when we are just drifting along with whatever it is the world is dishing up.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. x
Lay Up Before You Lay Out
“The principle is that you should take up the hard task of counting your shekels before undertaking the relatively easy task of spending them.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 2
Changing the Focus
“Our evangelism is not an attempt to helicopter victims out of a disaster area, but rather is the work of rebuilding a disaster area.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. x
Hosing Down the Pigs
“Never let men feel that you and your gospel would be satisfied with mere decency, with the putting down of all vicious life that left the vicious character still strong behind.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 110
The Sum of All
“Worshiping God is not a means to another end. Worshiping God is the highest calling that any human being has, or that the entire human race has. It requires no other justification. Whatever we do, it should drive us to this great end. Whatever you do, it should culminate here, in the glorification of God. There is great wisdom in the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism here. This is our chief end”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. ix
Which Is Estrangement from God
“So cordially put the spiritual processes of which you preach within the judgment of all men who know a good life from a bad one. And in the second place strike at the symptom always for the sake of the disease.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 109
Remember the Point
“What is this structure for? When the structure is a church, the answer should obviously be that it was built to glorify God. But even this has to be connected to subordinate functions. A church building glorifies God in the architecture itself, but also in how it houses the singing acoustically, and whether it is obvious that the preaching occupies a central place, and so forth”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. v.
The Word Touches Down
“I believe no powerful pulpit ever held aloof from the moral life of the community it lived in, as the practice of many preachers, and the theory of some, would make our pulpit separate itself and confine its message to what are falsely discriminated as spiritual things.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 108
And Which Reveals a Lot
“Culture is the spiritual state of the people externalized.”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 97
Culture Are Not Static
“Notice that Paul says that Cretans are a particular way, but notice also that he tells Titus to rebuke them sharply so that they can learn how to be different. In other words, he is not fatalistic about it. Cultures can grow in virtue, and cultures can also be corrupted in vice.”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 83