Theology That Bites Back
“Calvin is not telling the people that must remind themselves that God has spoken in Scripture but that, while listening to a sermon, they must ask themselves whether they are listening to God or a man. If the teaching is faithful to Scripture, then it is God who is speaking.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 24
“They also want you to believe that their pockets are as deep as the all-round generosity and goobyness of the American taxpayer. Which is, let us be frank, pretty deep on both counts.”
“Not only do these people know how to bust your kneecaps, they know how to do it in a way that makes all the major media acclaim them for their altruistic zeal to save the children. They always want to do it for the children.”
“It is the humble position of preaching as derivative and subordinate that is precisely its glory.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p 23
“Those who cannot bear to be reproved had better look for another school-master than God. There are many who will not stand it: ‘What! is this the way to teach? Ho! we want to be won by sweetness.’ ‘You do? Then go and teach God his lessons!’”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 14
“He was about sixty, but his time in the Alaskan oil fields had made him seem about ten years older than that. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, as he went through. His voice sounded like loose gravel being stirred with a stick.”
“Teaching on its own is not sufficient, for we are cold and indifferent to God’s truth We need to be pierced. The preacher has to use vehemence, so that we may know that this is not a game.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 12
“So he tried his first line again. ‘Christ is the Lord of the nations in a spiritual sense,’ he said. A number of pony tails in the front rows bobbed because they saw that this was intended to make sense.”
“He felt like a quarterback who had just been ear-holed by a linebacker with poor manners and a bad attitude.”
