We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges

You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him.

It is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only leads you to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you will discover the true and the good. The philosophers promised them to you, and have not been able to keep their promises… Your principal maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to the earth; and they have done nothing but foster at least one of these maladies. If they have given you God for your object, it has only been to pander to your pride; they have made you think that you were like Him and resembled Him by your nature. And those who have grasped the vanity of such a pretension have cast you down into the other abyss by making you believe that your nature was like that of the beasts of the field, and have led you to seek your good in lust, which is the lot of animals.

…Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

February 7, 2004

One of Paul’s most important teachings… is the doctrine of what we call “justification by faith”. It frequently appears to the non-Christian mind that this is an immoral or at least unmoral doctrine. Paul appears to be saying that a man is justified before God, not by his goodness or badness, not by his good deeds or bad deeds, but by believing in a certain doctrine of Atonement. Of course, when we come to examine the matter more closely, we can see that there is nothing unmoral in this teaching at all. For if “faith” means using a God-given faculty to apprehend the unseen divine order, and means, moreover, involving oneself in that order by personal commitment, we can at once see how different that is from merely accepting a certain view of Christian redemption… That which man in every religion, every century, every country, was powerless to affect, God has achieved by the devastating humility of His action and suffering in Jesus Christ. Now, accepting such an action as a fait accompli is only possible by this perceptive faculty of “faith”. It requires not merely intellectual assent but a shifting of personal trust from the achievements of the self to the completely undeserved action of God. To accept this teaching by mind and heart does, indeed, require a metanoia [“transformation”], a revolution in the outlook of both heart and mind.

… J. B. Phillips (1906-1982),

New Testament Christianity [1956]

Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you — out of love — takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.

…Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961), Markings
[With thanks to Bill Blake at pilgrimwb@aol.com]

As I do no good action here, merely for the interpretation of good men, though that be one good and justifiable reason of my good actions: so I must do nothing for my salvation hereafter, merely for the love I bear to mine own soul, though that also be one good and justifiable reason of that action; but the primary reason in both, as well as the actions that establish a good name, as the actions that establish eternal life, must be the glory of God.

…John Donne (1573-1631)

I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that he is indeed our Master.

…John Newton (1725-1807)

“Don’t let your worries get the best of you. Remember, Moses started out as a basket case”

Be ye fishers of men. You catch them – He’ll clean them.

The best mathematical equation I have ever seen: 1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given.