Snippets

This is an abbreviated section of my version of Pensees. If nothing else, this might hopefully motivate people to appreciate the genuine article by Pascal all the more:

We have to be Christians in both creed and deed.

Don’t overestimate your goodness by underestimating your sin.

No monuments have ever been built to celebrate the contributions of cynics. That’s because their achievements are few.

Jesus Christ did not endure the crucifixion for fancy pews, elaborate worship sound systems, church bells, or stained glass windows. He did it for people.

An ideology that claims to be righteous must evoke righteousness from those who adhere to it.

It’s one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith that, having been placed in a creation full of abundant and excessive blessings, such blessings should prompt a spirit of self-denial and moderation, rather than excess and gluttony.

Why do we not love the poor the way Jesus does?

If you’re courageous enough to ask the deepest existential questions about meaning, life, loneliness, etc, you’re going to be in real trouble if such questions are asked without an acute awareness of the existence of an almighty God.

We don’t really believe that humans are made in the image of God. If we did, we wouldn’t treat people as badly as we do.

God doesn’t follow our formulas or jump through our hoops.

We are not mechanical, but relational. Why do we think mechanical solutions to human relational problems will work? We are not mechanical beings with something to fix; we’re relational beings with something to face.

We like bullet-points. We like bullet-point sermons and we like our lives that way as well. But life just ain’t that simple, nor are we.

In the Bible, people often missed and/or misunderstood the big things and their significance. Nothing has changed.

People have both radical dignity and radical depravity. We tend to see people as one or the other, but not both, and then we wonder why we can’t explain what we do or understand why things are the way they are.

A junior-high band playing Beethoven is a poignant image of great dignity and great depravity. Those who listen to good music being played badly should pay attention to what that says about the human condition. We are both dignified and depraved.

“Yes and no.” That’s the correct answer to almost every theological question.

The goal of parenting is to move children from foolishness (my way is the best way) to wisdom (God’s way is the best way). The problem is that the parents are often foolish too.

Make sure your heroes are very human.

God is not a non-descript blob in the sky. God is defined by propositional revelation, and definite in truth.

If our abstract theology does not inform our practical theology (and vice versa), it is next to useless.

Christianity is easy to fake from a distance, but not up close.

There’s a huge difference between a Christian who doesn’t always have the answers, and a non-Christian belief system that says there are no answers.

Liberals think they can get to a resurrection simply by rearranging the corpse. It doesn’t work that way. Their seminaries are dying, their churches are dying, and their publishing houses can’t sell anything. No resurrection is taking place on their side of the spectrum, nor will it.

Good preaching is comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable. ~ Spurgeon