“Is salvation a cooperative affair, or does God simply intervene to bless us by taking the initiative? Was Lazarus raised from the dead in a semi-Pelagian fashion, with Lazarus pushing and Jesus pulling, or not?” (From The Romantic Rationalist, p. 68).
But Only If This Kind of Thing Reassures You
“Am I Reformed? Am I a Calvinist? This is a point upon which I understand there has been some discussion. Well, in brief, I wish there were seven points so I could hold to the Calvinistic extras. You may count me a devotee of crawl-over-broken-glass Calvinism, jet-fuel Calvinism, black-coffee Calvinism. Or, as my friend Peter …
In Each Season
“Preschool children are shaped, elementary school children are taught, teenage children are directed, and grown children are advised” (From To You and Your Children, p. 205),
Five Yards of Truth
“The rationalism that we inherited from the Enlightenment has trained us all to think that everything that we really ‘know’ is that which can be objectively measured and doled out in credit hours. We have created a great illusory mechanism for making ourselves think that we know how people actually know things. And we identify …
Because There Will Be Lots of Them
“You don’t know whether any of your ancestors prayed for you, but wouldn’t it have been glorious if they had? So apply the golden rule, and pray for your descendants” (From To You and Your Children, p. 200).
Not Curious Enough
“How would our loving father not answer such a prayer? But too often the reason we don’t ask is that we don’t really want to know. We belong to that shortsighted school of car maintenance and repair — don’t lift the hood if you don’t want to know” (From To You and Your Children, p. …
Prayer is Not for His Information
“God knows everything already. He is the source of everything already. The reason we pray to Him is that He wants us to learn this” (From To You and Your Children, p. 198).
When Faithfulness is Visible
“Sara appropriated the blessing of the promise through faith. Her faith consisted precisely of this — “she judged him faithful who had promised.” So this then is faith; faith is the natural response to the perceived faithfulness of God. Faith is “judging Him faithful” . . . A man with wobbly faith can get on …
And Five Yards from the Boat Too
“As soon as we begin to look at ourselves walking on water, we find that we are looking at ourselves not walking on water” (From To You and Your Children, p. 194).
A Larger Consistency
“A good border collie does not just decide (for the sake of doctrinal consistency) that he will always nip at a sheep’s left hind leg. He alternates, and does so with a larger purpose in view” (Against the Church, p. 206).