• Home
  • About This Blog
  • Contact Me
  • Subscribe
  • Comment Policy

Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

  • Westminster Shorter Catechism Series
  • Sermon on the Mount Series
Home Archives for Quotation

Tim Keller on being defectively orthodox

Posted on December 8, 2014 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

Center ChurchI have been working my way through Center Church by Timothy Keller. It is slow going because there is so much to take in and think about. I’m finding that this book challenges most of what I’ve thought about church and has validated some of the misgivings I’ve had over the years regarding the way many churches go about their business. One paragraph in particular hit a chord with me so I thought I would share it with you. Regarding “defective orthodoxy” Mr. Keller writes:

“Some churches hold to orthodox doctrines but with imbalances and a lack of proper emphasis. Many ministries spend more time defending the faith than propagating it. Or they may give an inordinate amount of energy and attention to matters such as prophecy or spiritual gifts or creation and evolution. A church may become enamored with the mechanics of ministry and church organization. There are innumerable reasons that critical doctrines of grace and justification and conversion, though strongly held, are kept “on the shelf.” They are not preached and communicated in such a way that connects to people’s lives. People see the doctrines – yet they do not see them. It is possible to get an “a” grade on a doctrinal test and describe accurately the doctrines of our salvation, yet be blind to their true implications and power. In this sense, there are plenty of orthodox churches in which the gospel must be rediscovered and then brought home and applied to people’s hearts. When this happens, nominal Christians get converted, lethargic and weak Christians become empowered, and nonbelievers are attracted to the newly beautified Christian congregation.

Timothy Keller in Center Church

Filed Under: Church Leadership, Quotation Tagged With: Church, defective, orthodox

Paul Tripp on the purpose of the Word of God

Posted on October 20, 2014 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

Dangerous CallingWhen the Word of God, faithfully taught by the people of God and empowered by the Spirit of God, falls down, people become different. Lusting people become pure, fearful people become courageous, thieves become givers, demanding people become servants, angry people become peacemakers, complainers become thankful, and idolaters come to joyfully worship the one true God. The ultimate purpose of the Word of God is not theological information but heart and life transformation. Biblical literacy and theological expertise are not, therefore, the end of the Word but a God-ordained means to and end, and the end is a radically transformed life because the worship at the center of that life has been reclaimed. This means it is dangerous to teach, discuss, and exegete the Word without this goal in view. It should be the goal of every seminary professor. It should be his prayer for every one of his students. It should cause him or her to make regular pastoral pleas to the students. It means recognizing that this student’s future ministry will never be shaped by his knowledge and skill alone but also, inevitably, by the condition of his heart.

Paul David Tripp in Dangerous Calling

Filed Under: Quotation Tagged With: calling, Gospel, ministry, Tripp

Roy Abraham Varghese on the “New Atheism”

Posted on September 13, 2014 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

There is a GodAt the foundation of the “new atheism” is the belief that there is no God, no eternal and infinite Source of all that exists. This is the key belief that needs to be established in order for most of the other arguments to work. Int is my contention here that the “new atheists,” Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Lewis Wolpert, Sam Harris, and Victor Stenger, not only fail to make a case for this belief, but ignore the very phenomena that are particularly relevant to the question of whether God exists.

As I see it, five phenomena are evident in our immediate experience that can only be explained in terms of the existence of God. These are, first, the rationality implicit in all our experience of the physical world; second, life, the capacity to act autonomously; third, consciousness, the ability to be aware; fourth, conceptual thought, the power of articulating and understanding meaningful symbols such as are embedded in lanuage; and fifth, the human self, the “center” of consciousness, thought, and action.

Three things should be said about these phenomena and their application to the existence of God. First, we are accustomed to hearing about arguments and proofs for God’s existence. In my view, such arguments are useful in articulating certain fundamental insights, but cannot be regarded as “proofs” whose formal validity determines whether there is a God. Rather, each of the five phenomena adduced here, int heir own way, presuppose the existence of an infinite, eternal Mind. God is the condition that underlies all that is self-evident in our experience. Second, as should be ovbious from the previous point, we are not talking about probabilities and hypotheses, but about encounters with fundamental realities that cannot be denied without self-contradiction. In other words, we don’t apply probability theorems to certain sets of data, but consider the far more basic question of how it is possible to evaluate data at all. Equally, it is not a matter of deducing God from the existence of certain complex phenomena. Rather, God’s existence is presupposed by all phenomena. Third, atheists, new and old, have coplained that there is no evidence for God’s existence, and some theists have responded that our free will can be preserved only if suce evidence is non-coercive. The approach taken here is that we have all the evidence we need in our immediate experience and that only a deliberate refusal to “look” is responsible for atheism of any variety.

Roy Abraham Varghese in There is a God – How the world’s most notorius atheist changed his mind.

I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 1:18 where he informs us that the problem of those who don’t believe is not a lack of evidence, but the suppression of it.

Filed Under: Quotation Tagged With: atheism, atheist, Flew, God

Luther on trouble in the Church

Posted on August 20, 2014 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

Martin LutherMinisters of the Word, therefore, if they would be counted faithful and prudent on the Day of Christ, out to be very sure that St. Paul did not speak empty words or prophesy of a thing of nought, when he said: “There must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” Let the minister of Christ know, I say, that as long as he preaches Christ purely, there will be no lack of perverse persons, even among our own people, who will make it their business to cause trouble in the Church. And he may comfort himself with the thought that there is no peace between Christ and Belial, or between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent. Indeed, he may rejoice in the trouble he is caused by sects and the constant succession of seditious spirits. For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience that we are found standing and fighting on the side of the Seed of the woman against the seed of the Serpent. Let him bite our heel and never cease biting; we for our part will not cease to crush his head through Christ, the first to crush it, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Martin Luther in his introduction to his Commentary on Galatians

Filed Under: Quotation Tagged With: Galatians, Luther, trouble

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • …
  • 23
  • Next Page »

Follow Attempts at Honesty

Honesty in your Inbox

Post Series

  • Westminster Shorter Catechism Series
  • Sermon on the Mount Series
August 2025
SMTWTFS
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31 
« Jul    

Categories

Archives

Blogger Grid
Follow me on Blogarama

Copyright © 2025 · Focus Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in