“The early Protestant preachers did not think their message was to get the sick patients to take their medicine. They saw their task as one of preaching in a graveyard, praying for a resurrection” (For Kirk and Covenant, p. 95).
Use the Right Standard
“Whenever we take the measure and weight of any man, we must be sure to use the canons and balances of heaven” (For Kirk and Covenant, p. 89).
Over Hill and Dale
“When Christ and the apostles preached, the established religious authorities were on the scene asking what appears to be their favorite question” ‘By what authority?’ John the Baptist was an eccentric hill preacher, Caiaphas had better establishment credentials than Jesus, and the Sanhedrin was amazed that men so obviously uneducated as the apostles could say …
And That Means Publishing Books
“Because the business of the Church is to multiply sound teaching, this means that we should be about our business — utilizing all available means. The early Christians were accused of filling Jerusalem with their doctrine (Acts 5:28). Isn’t it about time we were accused of doing something similar? (Mother Kirk, p. 259).
Teachers Must Be Students
“In order to teach, the Church must first be taught. Writers must be readers. ‘A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself’ (Prov. 18:2). The Church will never have a shortage of people who want to ‘say a few words.’ But mere talk, or writing, or publishing, is worthless. …
Taking the Show on the Road
“The principle here is that you cannot export what you do not have, and, if you try, you will only wind up exporting what you do have. Whenever Pharisees go on a mission, the result is Pharisaism overseas. When scriptural ignorance goes on a crusade, the result is crusading ignorance. The applications to our situation …
And Burn All Their Houses
“If someone says that no ethical standards are fixed, and so we ought not to apply our standards to anybody else, we now know what to ask. What does the good gentleman mean, “we ought not”? If ethical standards are not fixed, then the conclusion could just as easily be that we ought to apply …
Calvinism and Evangelism
“The principal problem here is not the fact that evangelicals adopted Calvinism and consequently lost their zeal for evangelism, but rather that postmillennial Calvinists abandoned their postmillennialism and consequently lost their conviction that the gospel would go forth into the world, conquering and to conquer” (Mother Kirk, p. 249).
What God Does Not Anoint
“There may be some commotion as a result, but cowardice in the pulpit has never been anointed by God” (Mother Kirk, p. 237).
The Devil’s Stragglers
“For example, the biblical pattern of evangelism was not at all like our modern method of picking off the devil’s stragglers, but rather a pattern of bringing the good news to household after household” (Mother Kirk, p. 236).