“Adam’s sin includes us. We are sinners by nature, bad to the bone from the very first moment—bad to the bone before we have any bones.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 4
A Surly Bobcat
“The fact that the sweet child in the cradle hasn’t started smoking cigarettes or pounding shots does not signify anything. You say, ‘Oh, they look so sweet, they look so innocent.’ But five years later, they are out terrorizing the neighborhood, acting like a cross between a hobgoblin and a bobcat.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 4
Little Bundles of Sin
“Children do not begin in some neutral place. They do not start out innocent. As my father used to say, with great affection, ‘Babies are little bundles of sin.’ All that is necessary for the sinning to start is the requisite muscle strength and intelligence. Once the muscle strength and intelligence are there, the sinning starts. And sometimes it starts a little bit before that.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 3
Noise Abatement Long Term
“If the father uses the rod judiciously, his son will not die—sound effects notwithstanding.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 2
Descend to Hilarity
“Few earthly blessings compare to sitting around a dinner table with your grown kids and their spouses, all of them Christian. Someone starts telling spanking stories, and the evening descends into hilarity. In the next room, the grandkids are going at it as well. All this, coupled with wine, and laughter, and psalm singing, and jokes, and sausage stew, and a fire in the fireplace . . . The covenant is a wonderful thing.”
Keep Your Kids, pp. xi-xii
No Nuance at All
“All of this means you have to settle in your mind, in your soul, down in your bones, what you actually believe. And you have to be ready to walk into a buzz saw if you’re really going to practice some of the things that the Bible says we ought to practice. Your stance should be that of the sailor at Pearl Harbor who, when the third wave of Japanese Zeros was flying overhead, thought to himself, ‘The time for nuance has passed.’”
Keep Your Kids, p. xi
The Weight of Your Blessing
“Great God Jehovah, we call on You now,
And ask for the weight of Your blessing of glory.
We know we cannot, on our own, make it happen,
We know on our own, our wells are all dry.”
21 Prayers, p. 128
Real Substitution
“I pray that by faith we would come to see Christ
In the dragon impaled and set up in the wilderness,
And that You would help us really to see
The glory of ultimate and real substitution.”
21 Prayers, p. 124
The Ground That Is Fallow
“Break up the ground that is fallow within us,
And raise up a crop that fits with Your purpose.
What You have determined should be grown in our lives,
Water it, grow it, and harvest it all.”
21 Prayers, p. 122
No False Device
“I pray that this sin be removed in a way
That honors You deeply and lifts up Your name—
That no false device or evasive charade
Covers and hides what should not be covered.”
21 Prayers, p. 119