“When Chesterton writes about anything, each thought is like a living cell, containing all the DNA that could, if called upon, reproduce the rest of the body. Everything is somehow contained in anything. This is why you can be reading Chesterton on Dickens and learn something crucial about marriage, or streetlights, or something else” (Writers …
An Easy Mistake to Make
“Future readers, a century or two out, might make the mistake of calling the twentieth century a truly Christian literary age, because the only writers from that age still being read are overwhelmingly Christian. ‘Ah,’ they will say—‘a golden age of the Christian faith, when giants walked the earth. Not like today . . .’ …
The Work of Celestial Bees
“Watching covenantal righteousness and mercy come to your children’s children is not an abstraction, a dry datum out of your catechism or doctrine class. This is one of God’s great promises, and it tastes just like the honey made by celestial bees allowed to forage in heaven’s clover” (Rules, p. 279).
Where All and No Meet
“The cross was unjust because Jesus was on it, but it [was] entirely just because I am there too. Oh, the wisdom of God! When you come to the cross, what are you coming to? You are coming to the place of no condemnation — precisely because it is all condemnation” (Rules, p. 270).
Which Is Not Repentance
“More than one person has gone off to Hell dabbing at their sins, and sometimes picking at them” (Rules, p. 270).
Real Hope Then
“Nothing is dying but what has needed to die for a long time” (Rules, p. 267).
Your Best Casket Now
“We need our preachers to stop telling the skeletons to develop a positive mental attitude” (Rules, p. 266).
Context Matters
“For us, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’ is a Christian school slogan for our track teams’ T-shirts. Paul was talking there (Phil. 4:13) about this profound death and resurrection cycle in his life, while we tend to think it is about jumping higher, running faster, hanging with cute girls afterward, …
Just About There
“When it comes to revivals, the reason why it always comes as such a surprise to us is simple. God — in order to keep the glory where it needs to be kept — makes sure that we are in such a bad way, in such a condition of hopelessness, that nobody expects a resurrection. …
Inevitable Improbabilities
“Any historical event, once it occurs, however unlikely, can be shown to have been inevitable by any competent historian. But reading the clues before it all happens is a different matter. And so we declare, with certainty, the inevitability of the highly improbable” (Rules, 264).