Theologian Quotes

God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preventing [going before] grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere.

Jacobus Arminius

Jesus, to be sure, often spent long times alone in prayer. But he was also deeply at home where there was a party, a kingdom party, a celebration of the fact that God was at last taking charge.

Visit those who are sick, or who are in trouble, especially those whom God has made needy by age, or by other sickness, as the feeble, the blind, and the lame who are in poverty. These you shall relieve with your goods after your power and after their need, for thus biddeth the Gospel.

When the Lord fights the battles of the saints, he does it so effectually that nobody gets nervous but the enemy

If we go as far as we can into the darkness, regardless of the consequences, I believe a midnight truth will free us from our bondage to violence and bring us to the light of peace.

James W. Douglass

Because arrogance is born in personal vanity, arrogant people are driven without mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul's needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting.

Lewis B. Smedes

In the cross of Christ God is taking man dead-seriously so that he may open up for him the happy freedom of Easter. God takes upon himself the pain of negation and the God forsakenness of judgement to reconcile himself with his enemies and to give the godless fellowship with himself.

Jürgen Moltmann

Prayer is a rising up and a drawing near to God in mind and in heart, and in spirit.

Alexander Whyte

As the parish goes, so goes the faith of the people.

Most blacks want school vouchers, but most liberals vehemently oppose them. Why? Because what is good for teachers' unions is of more importance to the Left than what is good for blacks. Who, then, is racist? By their own admission, and by the policies they pursue, the answer is the people who call themselves progressive.

I cannot say my yes to legends that have been clearly and fancifully created. If I could not move my search beyond angelic messengers, empty tombs, and ghostlike apparitions, I could not say yes to Easter.

John Shelby Spong

You know a constellation of imperishable values. Live by the mighty truth and power of God. Live above the sludge of a sick society. Live among dispirited humans as the vanguard of peace and good news. Remember, our Commander in Chief has no use for tin soldiers.

Carl F. H. Henry

The teachings of Jesus begin in story and end in symbol - they begin in parable and end in us. These are not Bible stories that we learn; these are our stories.

Die to the world, repudiating the insanity that pervades it. Live to God, and by apprehending God, apprehend your own nature as a spiritual being created in his image.

All truth is a shadow, except the last; but every truth is a substance in its own place, though it be but a shadow in another place; and the shadow is a true shadow, as the substance is a true substance.

Isaac Penington

There is a vast difference between the outward clothing of the Spirit's power and the inward filling of the Spirit's life. In the first, despite the power, the hidden man of the heart may remain unchanged. In the latter, that monster is dealt with.

Men are; more inclined to ask curious questions than to obtain necessary instruction.

Pasquier Quesnel

Theological condemnation of others, which breaks off fellowship in either judgment or contempt, is impermissible.

Ernst Käsemann

The stinking puddle from which usury, thievery and robbery arises is our lords and princes. They make all creatures their property—the fish in the water, the birds in the air, the plant in the earth must all be theirs. Then they proclaim God's commandments among the poor and say, "You shall not steal." They oppress everyone, the poor peasant, the craftsman are skinned and scraped.

Thomas Müntzer

It is a theory of nature, that system of things which allows a plant to grow, an animal to graze, and a man to think, fully as much as it allows the sun to be eclipsed or bodies to be in motion or at rest.

Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge

Sloth is the desire for ease, even at the expense of doing the known will of God. Whatever we do in life requires effort. Everything we do is to be a means of salvation. The slothful person is unwilling to do what God wants because of the effort it takes to do it. Sloth becomes a sin when it slows down and even brings to a halt the energy we must expend in using the means to salvation.

Protestant Reformers wanted every believer to be a priest, but they couldn't have anticipated that anyone with an Internet connection could be a theologian.

Stephen H. Webb

Science can be and is being made into an escapist philosophy — into a dodge of moral disciplines and spiritual responsibilities.

Nels F. S. Ferré

St. Paul says, that God commendeth his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: and that when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. St. Paul was in a peculiar manner a child of grace: with gratitude, therefore, he honours and extols its efficacy in all his epistles; and particularly in his epistle to the Romans throughout he defends his doctrines with great precision and copiousness. 'Every mouth,' says he, 'must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. By the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified. Man must be justified freely by his grace. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.'

Thomas Bradwardine

They are separated from the mass, set apart that they may be a peculiar people to the Lord.

Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrugge