“Birth is another irresistible process. As writers in another time would have said, the present writer was born in 1953. I do not recall being consulted about this in 1952, and I have on good authority that this was because I was not there. I was born a Wilson, and not a Smith. I was …
Irresistible Light
“The God who summoned light from darkness at the beginning, without consulting the wishes of darkness, is the same God who summoned the light in our souls into being” (From After Darkness, Light, p. 138).
As Irresistible As It Gets
“When God acted in creation, he did so ex nihilo . . . so we speak of creation. But no one speaks of the doctrine of irresistible creation. However, when we think about it for a moment, we should realize that creatio ex nihilo is about as irresistible as it gets” (Irresistible Grace, in After …
The Political Results
“His authority is extended by spiritual means and not by political means. It has political results, but His kingdom does not advance in the same way that other kingdoms do” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 130).
The Whole Point
“Jesus did not come in order to try to save the world, if the uncooperative world would only let Him. He came to save the world; He will be satisfied with nothing less than a saved world. That was the whole point” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 127).
Glombing Onto or Glooming Under
“We have to be careful not to fall into an either/or hole here. You have a cousin in Oklahoma who, with regard to Cadillacs and Leasr jets, is busy ‘naming and claiming’ every gaudy thing he can think of. And you have another cousin in Grand Rapids, this one a historical pessimist, who is living …
How Faith Functions
“Suppose a precocious young boy, after his father has finished saying grace over the evening meal, asked something like this. ‘Dad, how do we know that God gave us this food for blessing? Couldn’t He just be fattening us up for the day of slaughter?’ The father’s answer is simple: ‘We know because the Bible …
Humanity, Part Two
“It is possible to talk about the final judgment and the lordship of Jesus Christ in such a way that makes it clear that He is only lord over those areas that secularists are happy to let Him have — the afterlife, for example. Who cares if Jesus is Lord in ways that never make …
Chesterton on Bunyan
One of my pet peeves (revealed to the world most recently in Wordsmithy) is the way that many modern Christians have been cool-shamed into a patronizing attitude on the literary merits of John Bunyan. I recently finished a great collection of Chesterton quotes put together by Kevin Belmonte, way to go Kevin, and was pleased …
Mother of Cities
“The Christian church is far more than mother of the faithful. She is called to be mother of cities. And where shall the root of these new cities be planted? Where the Word and sacrament are. If God grants a genuine reformation, it will be one like that which was granted in the sixteenth century, …