A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
…G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Orthodoxy [1909]
Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566
All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired, although not in the hour or in the measure, or the very thing which they ask; yet they will obtain something greater and more glorious than they had dared to ask.
“I’ve found that anytime I followed my heart, good things almost always happened. It may not be what you think will happen, or even what you think should happen. But the heart can open doors.”
James Dodson, from his book Final Rounds
“If a man loves the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the Gods have called him.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
Wed, 1 June 2017 12:00:00 +0000Quotes Christian Quotation of the Day
“Men and women disbelieve the Easter story not because of the evidence but in spite of it. It is not that they weigh the evidence with open minds, assess its relevance and cogency and finally decide that it is suspect or inadequate. Instead, they start with the a priori conviction that the resurrection of Christ would constitute such an incredible event that it could not be accepted or believed without scientific demonstration of an irrefutable nature. But it is idle to demand proof of this sort for any event in history. Historical evidence, from its very nature, can never amount to more than a very high degree of probability.”
…J. N. D. Anderson (1908- ), Christianity: the Witness of History [1969]
An essential part of the ordination exam ought to be a passage from some recognized theological work set for translation into vulgar English —- just like doing Latin prose. Failure on this part should mean failure on the whole exam. It is absolutely disgraceful that we expect missionaries to the Bantus to learn Bantu, but never ask whether our missionaries to the Americans or English can speak American or English. Any fool can write learned language: the vernacular is the real test. If you can’t turn your faith into it, then either you don’t understand it or you don’t believe it.
…C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) in “The Christian Century”
Few have defined what free will is, although it repeatedly occurs in the writings of all. Origen seems to have put forward a definition generally agreed upon among ecclesiastical writers when he said that it is a faculty of the reason to distinguish between good and evil, a faculty of the will to choose one or the other. Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
…John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ii.2.4 [1559]