“But to be tender of everyone in a fallen world is actually to be cruel. To be tender of the lambs is to be tender. To be tender to the wolves is to be cruel to the lambs. This is why Christ was tender of the little children who were brought to him, and He …
Neither Skeletal Nor Boneless
“We sometimes have trouble understanding how tenderness and strength can go together. In order to be strong, we harden ourselves in a wrong way, a way which makes tenderness impossible. Or we opt for tenderness, and render ourselves incapable of functioning” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 149).
Neither Does Education
“Training does not put in what God left out” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 141).
Puritan, Not Puritanical
“When it comes to sexual matters, the modern use of the word puritanical to describe prudishness is really a very successful historical slander . . . The Puritans were opposed, of course, to adultery and various other forms of immorality, but not at all to sexual fidelity within the boundaries of a marriage covenant . …
Women and the Destiny of Nations
“A woman who was related to the leaders in that society necessarily had far more influence than a man who occupied a more lowly station. When Bathsheba made a petition to David concerning her son Solomon, she was exercising far more influence than the average stablehand in the royal stables. When Esther interceded on behalf …
A Life of Insecurity
“Women who demand independence of this kind of familial masculinity are like a plant demanding independence from the soil. The effect is to uproot them, bringing in a life of insecurity, propped up here and there by reassurances from a thoughtful therapist and the regulations of some federal agency” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 114).
And You Shall Receive
“Demanding respect is the quickest and most efficient way to lose it. Rendering respect is the biblical way to give, and, in the giving, to receive back what was given in another form” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 112).
The Way It Did
“But history happened the way it did and not some other way. One of the most irritating characteristics of many modern writers is their inability to keep their current ideological crusades out of their reading (and rewriting) of history. We see Attila the Hun sweeping across Europe, and we want his army to contain more …
It Works the Other Direction Too
“She was a woman loved, and therefore lovely, and therefore loving” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 108).
Affliction as the Touchstone of Theology
“‘Calvinism’ is often mocked as an austere faith, fit only for ideologues. But in the instructed heart of Anne Bradstreet, and through her pen, we see the loveliness of her Calvinism, which is just a different way of saying the ‘loveliness of her Christian contentment'” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 97).