Some Pithy Statements
Idolatry is any religious practice that gives mankind a measure of religious and emotional satisfaction, and that alleviates their conscience and requires nothing from them. Religion is the propensity of men to take the holiest things of God in all of their well-meaning intention, and so to transfigure them as to rob them of their cogency and power. Religion is nothing more than something that establishes a status quo and keeps mankind from the knowledge of the truth. You do not need God for religion, because religion has a measure of efficacy of bringing to mankind certain benevolences and a toning affect, and gives one emotional, ethical or moral inspirations that are good. But you do not need to have a God for that.
Every sin in the last analysis is to ‘be as God.’
Truth, when it is spoken by the Spirit, has an uncanny power to penetrate and to make itself known as truth, despite everything to the contrary.
True worship should be a spontaneous expression of a reality that has been obtained corporately, by a people who have been long enough and intensely enough together to obtain it. Choruses should be the expression of joy not its substitute.
The interpretation that we bring to something is almost always invariably the statement of ourselves.
Optimism is a form of humanism that is not predicated on reality. It is a wishful thinking that has at its heart an egoistic self-validation of ourselves that says our unaided humanity is essentially good.
The apostolic distinctive is that willingness to turn aside and see. In the same way, looking into the crucifixion of God makes way for the revelation of Him as He is.
Do we glimpse the magnitude of our sin in the magnitude of our suffering?
The God of glory delights in the things that are unseen, low profile, obscure, and in the things that are a reproach to men. That which is esteemed of men is an abomination in the sight of God. We are called to be united with a God whose way and wisdom are in complete enmity with all that is applauded in the world-all that is called good, respectable, decent, honorific and all of the other plaudits that the world heaps up.
I was a teacher for seven years, and I came to realize that the underlying premise of the whole educational system is the mere contentment with the verbalization of things and the ability to repeat it, or to give it back, without the actualizing of that knowledge. In other words, there is little or no emphasis on becoming sufficiently existential. In Christian theology, we have not demanded an authentic appropriation. We can recite doctrine, but that will leave us with a credal faith rather than an existential one. The tragedy is that we have been satisfied with assuming that the credal faith is true, when that, in fact, makes it a lie.
Human pride clutches for the esteem and appreciation of men. We want the acknowledgement of men on the basis of what they do. There is something in us that craves to be accepted, and will employ even the cliché of being “accepted in the beloved” to bring it to the attention of others, but it is still the same expression under a spiritual guise.
Submission and authority is a biblical principle, but not when it is made into a system contrived by man.
The whole purpose of our human existence is the establishing of the truth of a relationship with God while we have breath in this life.
There can be no bringing of judgment unless a people have been warned.
The Kingdom of God is both literal as well as the glory of the divine life. The mystery of Christ in you and one new man is the same mystery.
God’s purpose with us is not to alleviate our tensions, but the revealing of His glory. We are alleviation-minded rather than glory-minded, and so long as we remain in that condition, we will never be used to minister the life or word of God.
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