“Everywhere the human race goes, it drags a bell curve around with it . . . one half of all medical doctors graduated in the lower half of their class, right?”
Ploductivity, p. 98
Testimony or Nothing
“The philosophers Hume and Kant, in a frenzy of high conceit, helped to banish ‘testimony’ from the modern world as a reliable source of knowledge. We want an idolatrous way of knowing that what we think is indubitable. But we are finite, and so it has to be testimony or nothing. Jesus is Lord, so it is testify and live or languish and die . . . Jesus is under your breastbone and throughout the congregation. That is what we are talking about . . . If He has no testimony concerning us, then we can have no testimony concerning Him.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 124
Should Have Said “When”
“This is the sinful pattern. God gives wealth, and man takes credit for it himself. If someone else comes along later and blames man for creating all this wealth, and demands that we have ourselves a little ‘social justice’ around here, he is just creating an extra layer of sedimentary silliness. And by this point, we don’t need any extra layers of silliness.”
Ploductivity, p. 96
Preaching to the Telos
“The service is not a zero-sum game, where the sacrament must give way to the Word or vice versa. Word and sacrament go together the way cooking and eating do. Services with great preaching and no sacrament are like celebrity chef television shows, where a lot of good food is prepared but not eaten. And sacramentalists are the ecclesiastical equivalent of a raw foods movement, where you come to church to get your puny carrot.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 122
The Primacy of Truth
“To claim that men should believe what we teach them because we teach it to them, and not because they see it to be true, is to assume a place which God does not give us and men will not acknowledge for us.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 178
Not the Best Way
“A very common feature of the acknowledgements section at the beginning of books is the part where the author thanks his long-suffering family for putting up with his surliness while he was Locked-in-the-Attic-in-Order-to-Write-the-Book, and for being willing to leave food by the door, tapping twice quietly, and then slipping quietly away.”
Ploductivity, p. 94
Parked Cars
“We always have the resources for doing what we are supposed to be doing at that moment. If we don’t have the resources for going forward, we have the resources for waiting. If we are supposed to go forward, we will have the resources to do so . . . God doesn’t steer parked cars. If there is no motion, it doesn’t matter how much the steering wheel is turned back and forth.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 119
Child and Father
“Let them see clearly that you value no feeling which is not the child of truth and the father of duty. And to let them see that you value no other feeling you must value no other feeling either in yourself or them.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 176
Deliberate Steps
“An amazing amount of work can be accomplished through diligent plodding. But please note that I said plodding, not shuffling.”
Ploductivity, p. 92
Emblem or Mask
“When congregations build church buildings, this is either a testimony or a mask. It is either a declaration of what we are all becoming in Jesus Christ, or it is an attempt to substitute with blocks of stone what God will only receive from tender hearts.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 117