Words to Remember

I have a terrible memory. I also read a lot. This means that much of my reading is simply re-reading things that I have already read. It happens all the time. I go back to read something that I thought was very profound, only to discover that my memory under-served the text and the words are much more profound than I remembered.

Here are a few powerful quotes for recent re-reads.

1. From Philip Yancey's Disappointment With God: "Some Christians long for a world well-stocked with miracles and spectacular signs of God's presence. I hear wistful sermons on the parting of the Red Sea and the ten plagues and the daily manna in the wilderness, as if the speakers yearn for God to unleash his power like that today. But the follow-the-dots journey of the Israelites should give us pause. Would a burst of miracles nourish faith? Not the kind of faith God seems interested in, evidently. The Israelites give ample proof that signs may only addict us to signs, not to God."

2. From Mother Teresa, (a quote that I always try to take into the pulpit with me): "What we say does not matter, only what God says to souls through us."

3. From Dan Taylor's Myth of Certainty: "Mistaking this active life of faith for an institutionally backed and culturally bound belief system is similar to reducing the Mona Lisa to paint-by-numbers."

4. From Soren Kierkegaard: "Christian scholarship is the human race's prodigious invention to defend itself against the New Testament, to ensure that one can continue to be a Christian without letting the New Testament come too close."

Email me some of your though-provoking quotes!