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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 086ea4b | the essence of sin is not [primarily] the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one another, and the whole created order. "All sins are attempts to fill voids," wrote Simone Weil." | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| f23731d | Identity apart from God is inherently unstable. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 7d29d8a | Without socially shared discovered meaning we have no basis for saying to somebody else: "You need to stop doing that!" Created meanings cannot be the basis for a program of social justice. Martin" | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 4f0834c | One of the signs that an object is functioning as an idol is that fear becomes one of the chief characteristics of life. When we center our lives on the idol, we become dependent on it. If our counterfeit god is threatened in any way, our response is complete panic. We do not say, "What a shame, how difficult," but rather "This is the end! There's no hope!" | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 5565057 | Created meaning is a less rational way to live life than doing so with discovered meaning. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 902e9e0 | Judges is the best book in the Old Testament for the understanding of renewal and revival, while Acts is the best place in the New Testament. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| f6bb36a | the revival cycles in Judges become weaker and weaker as time goes on, while in Acts they grow wider and stronger. We need a true Savior, to which all human saviors point, through both their flaws and strengths. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 29192c2 | The Bible speaks of our relationship with God as knowing and being known (Gal 4:9; 1 Cor 13:12). The goal is not just the sharing of ideas but also of ourselves. Communication can lead to two-way personal revelation that produces what can only be called a dynamic experience. J. I. Packer, in his famous work Knowing God, writes: Knowing God is a matter of personal dealing. . . . Knowing God is more than knowing about him; it is a matter of d.. | Timothy Keller | ||
| 2882ed4 | Through faith in the cross we get a new foundation for an identity that both humbles us out of our egoism yet is so infallibly secure in love that we are enabled to embrace rather than exclude those who are different. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 819ff06 | There is no more proper response to really seeing God as he is--transcendent beyond all imagination--than to be still and adore. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 14d33b8 | It needs to be said that faith-journeys are never simply intellectual exercises. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| bc3d11a | Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more."36" | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| a7b09a1 | Western secularity is not the absence of faith but a new set of beliefs about the universe.72 | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| a6cbf88 | Wherein... consists the difference between fiction and belief? | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | ||
| 9b01bdb | All our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions. | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | ||
| ceb24c8 | The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. My thesis is that if you come to recognize the b.. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| eb454ca | Individuals are now "spiritual consumers" who will go to a church only if (and as long as) its worship and public speaking are immediately riveting and attractive. Therefore, ministers who can create powerful religious experiences and draw large numbers of people on the power of their personal appeal are rewarded with large, growing churches. That" | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 8f26581 | Could the observers of the crucifixion "clearly perceive" the ways of God? No--even though they were looking right at a wonder of grace. They saw only darkness and pain, and the categories of human reason are sure God cannot be working in and through that. So they called Jesus to "come down now from the cross," sneering, "He saved others . . . but he can't save himself." (Matt 27:42 NIV). But they did not realize he could save others only b.. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| e445126 | Augustine believed that even when you seem to be enjoying something else, God is the actual source of your joy. The thing you love is from him and is lovely because it bears his signature. All joy is really found in God, and anything you do enjoy is derivative, because what you are really looking for is him, whether you know it or not. THE | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 5206f75 | We hide from ourselves our self-centered capacity for acts of evil, but situations arise that act as a "potion," and out they come." | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| a2ade28 | God's reckless grace is our greatest hope, a life changing experience. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| a8e488b | Deep humility. Examination: Have I looked down on anyone? Have I been too stung by criticism? Have I felt snubbed and ignored? Consider the free grace of Jesus until I sense (a) decreasing disdain, since I am a sinner too, and (b) decreasing pain over criticism, since I should not value human approval over God's love. In light of his grace, I can let go of the need to keep up a good image--it is too great a burden and is now unnecessary. I .. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 009d4c4 | Obedience flows out of faith; it is a consequence of saving faith, not a second condition for salvation. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| a69eb43 | There is a surprise here. The great apostle does not want to visit simply so he can encourage them. He will visit so that they can encourage him, too--"that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith" (v 12)." | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 9710bfe | Religion is not the place where the problem of man's egotism is automatically solved. Rather, it is there that the ultimate battle between human pride and God's grace takes place. Insofar as human pride may win the battle, religion can and does become one of the instruments of human sin. But insofar as there the self does meet God and so can surrender to something beyond its own self-interest, religion may provide the one possibility for a .. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| d3200ec | For the first phase of American history, "hope was chiefly expressed through a Christian story that gave meaning to suffering and pleasure alike and promised deliverance from death." But then, under the influence of Enlightenment rationality, belief in God and the supernatural began to weaken among cultural elites. Instead of finding ultimate hope in the kingdom of God, Americans began to believe in the sacred calling of being the "greatest.. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 391fc24 | Verse 11 teaches us to use whatever gifts the Lord has graciously given us to make others stronger in their faith. Verse 12 teaches us to allow others to use the faith and gifts the Lord has given them to build us up. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 9e65e7e | Theodoret, a Syrian bishop in the fifth century, likened the gospel to a pepper: "A pepper outwardly seems to be cold ..." | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 1934e10 | The gospel's power is seen in its ability to completely change minds, hearts, life orientation, our understanding of everything | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 9c53078 | All that is required to know this salvation is belief: it is offered to "everyone who believes" (v 16)." | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| e9601be | There are other more profound arguments against the senses, which admit not of so easy a solution. | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | ||
| 1f7878f | Notice that Paul says that the gospel's power is boundless and boundaried at the same time. He says it is to everyone. It came to the Jew first, through Jesus, but it is for the Gentile as well--everyone and anyone. Yet he also sets a limit on it. It is for everyone who believes. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 1ae9409 | Think of the implication of the very term "regressive." To reject the Bible as regressive is to assume that you have now arrived at the ultimate historic moment, from which all that is regressive and progressive can be discerned. That belief is surely as narrow and exclusive as the views in the Bible you regard as offensive." | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 2f8aa7d | a saved person does not work (v 5a). This cannot mean that a saved person disregards the law (see 3:31). It must therefore mean that the saved person no longer trusts in obedience as a way to be saved. A Christian is one who stops working to be saved, not one who stops working! | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 52b816d | The main problem in a person's life is never his suffering; it's his sin. | sin suffering | Timothy J. Keller | |
| 53c087f | To have any kind of livable society some choices have to be restricted, some authorities have to be respected, and some individual responsibility has to be assumed. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 49f8fda | Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the "sin" of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, "Our culture's approach to other culture.. | culture relativism religion | Timothy J. Keller | |
| 0f5f65e | If you go to Jesus to get a new personality, Lewis says, you still haven't really gone to Jesus. Your real self will not come out as long as you are looking for it; it will only emerge when you're looking for Him. | faith jesus self self-improvement | Timothy J. Keller | |
| 6cf36cd | Externalities are to do with our doing; internalities have to do with our being; and Christianity is about who I am in Christ, not what I do for Him. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 4955ac4 | I believe this particular part of 1 Corinthians 7 is an important practical resource. Each partner in marriage is to be most concerned not with getting sexual pleasure but with giving it. In short, the greatest sexual pleasure should be the pleasure of seeing your spouse getting pleasure. When you get to the place where giving arousal is the most arousing thing, you are practicing this principle. When I was doing research for this chapter, .. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 35c61cd | If we just preach general doctrine and ethics from Scripture, we are not preaching the gospel. The gospel is the good news that God has accomplished our salvation for us through Christ in order to bring us into a right relationship with him and eventually to destroy all the results of sin in the world. Still, it can be rightly argued that in order to understand all this -- who God is, why we need salvation, what he has done to save us -- we.. | Timothy Keller | ||
| 084921f | The spiritual intense fixation of the mind, by contemplation on God in Christ, until the soul be as it were swallowed up in admiration and delight, and being brought unto an utter loss, through the infiniteness of those excellencies which it doth admire and adore . . . are things to be aimed at in prayer, and which, through the riches of divine condescension, are frequently enjoyed. 293 | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| a2ad382 | when you try to get payment through revenge the evil does not disappear. Instead it spreads, and it spreads most tragically of all into you and your own character. | Timothy J. Keller | ||
| 7876358 | The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. | Timothy J. Keller |