Classic and contemporary excerpts.
The greatest story
I suppose it has occurred to some film makers that more people go to church regularly than go to the movies.
—Charlton Heston on why Hollywood screen writers are turning to the Bible for plot ideas, quoted by Martin E. Marty in Context (June 15, 1993)
His lap’s too short to work for God
In a church in Verona stands, or rather sits, a wooden image of St. Zeno, an ancient bishop, with knees so ludicrously short that there is no lap on which a baby could be held. He was not the first nor the last ecclesiastic who has been utterly incapable of being a nursing father to the church. It would be good if all ministers had a heavenly instinct for the nourishing and bringing up of the Lord’s little ones, but this quality is sadly lacking.
—Charles Spurgeon in The Quotable Spurgeon
Doing, not just praying
I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.
—C. S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm
Candle in the rain
Faith, if we are honest, sometimes seems like a candle in the rain, hissing for air.… Right in the middle of our prayers, the baby cries, the thunder claps, the fury breaks.… [But] the power of God comes to those who obey.
—Bill Hybels in Descending into Greatness
Why we need community
At a recent meeting, our leader suggested, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” Words to live by, I think.
—Don Ratzlaff in Christian Leader (March 1993)
The German church: Lessons under Hitler
I have learned that the important thing for the church is not to have leaders and parish buildings, but to have Christians in the individual parishes who take the Gospel and the sacraments seriously.… This was a lesson for us. We had always had the church as an institution. The pastor was a civil servant, and when it rained, the pastor would go to the mayor and ask for money to fix the roof. The pastor got his money and had a lifelong job; he could lose it only for reasons of immorality.… In the Confessing Church, we learned to give all this up—and to learn this in only 12 years is a great gift.
—Pastor Friedemann M., remembering his years under Hitler, quoted in For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler, by Victoria Barnett
God’s harmonious voice
I lay it down as a foundation principle, which no one can gainsay, that of course [God’s] voice will always be in harmony with itself, no matter in how many different ways he may speak. The voices may be many, the message can be but one. If God tells me in one voice to do or to leave undone anything, he cannot possibly tell me the opposite in another voice. If there is a contradiction in the voices, the speakers cannot be the same. Therefore my rule for distinguishing the voice of God would be to bring it to the test of this harmony.
—Hannah Whitall Smith in The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life
Life’s cycle
Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.
—John Donne, from My Heart Sings, by Joan Winmill Brown
Needed connection
A person’s spiritual life is always dwarfed when cut apart from history. Mysticism is empty unless it is enriched by outward and historical revelation. The supreme education of the soul comes through an intimate acquaintance with Jesus Christ of history.
—Rufus M. Jones in The Double Search
