“This message of the cross lies at the center of our existence, and there are enough antibodies there to fight off every form of a creeping carnal respectability.”
Gashmu Saith It, p. 23
Words and Wounds
“Preaching Christ means preaching both His words and His wounds. You cannot preach the cross, which is a scandal, without scandal. There is no such thing as sanitized gospel faithfulness. It doesn’t exist, and never has.”
Gashmu Saith It, p. 22
Not Even a Little
“When David went out to face Goliath, he was not looking for a dialogue partner.”
Gashmu Saith It, p. 21
Dead Prophets Are Apparently an Improvement
“Jesus pointed out that after prophets are dead and gone, their reputations start to improve. This is because the only manageable prophet is a dead prophet. And if enough time passes, the ungodly start to build memorials to the deceased godly, lining it all with marble (Matt. 23:29). But whenever a living Christian leader comes back from a hot engagement at the front, with a couple of arrows through his hat, the careful me are quite willing to offer their critiques. ‘It would have been far better had you remembered to . . .’”
Gashmu Saith It, pp. 17-18
The Wrong Kind of Good Testimony
[Concerning Luke 6:26-28] “Jesus teaches that when we finally have that ‘good testimony’ we have been striving for, we ought immediately to see a red danger light blinking on the dashboard of our sanctification center. Something has gone terribly wrong.”
Gashmu Saith It, pp. 14-15
Including the Container Labeled Skepticism
“The problem with this scoffer is that his attitude is a universal corrosive, and eats out every container you might try to keep it in.”
The Light From Behind the Sun, p. 191
Actually the Opposite of Language
“Now suppose that someone else in a frenzy says something like ‘bah bah bah shambalah na na.’ There is basically only one vowel sound in all of that, and they are all stirred up together like they were vegetables in a sizzling wok, separated from one another by only three consonants. This is not a language at all.”
The Light From Behind the Sun, p. 184
Damnation and Proportions
“Hell is not the result of God losing all sense of proportion, condemning someone to eternal flames because they used to cheat at pinochle. Rather, the judgment of God falls on someone because of their complete loss of all sense of proportion. The damnation is eternal because the lack of repentance is eternal.”
The Light From Behind the Sun, p. 177
The Hellish Thought Is the Center
“The damned could be sent anywhere and they would bring the Hell with them. Hell is the kind of place that wraps around the hellish thought.”
The Light From Behind the Sun, p. 176
The Hellfire Preacher
“When it comes to lurid descriptions of the damned, no one in the New Testament rivals an eloquent Dublin Jesuit from 1878, but there are moments when Jesus comes close. And only Jesus.”
The Light From Behind the Sun, p. 169