Law & Grace

"Almost all Scripture and the understanding of all theology hangs on the proper understaning of law and gospel." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.80

Justification

"Through faith in Christ, therefore, Christ's righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather he himself becomes ours." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.78

Idolatry

... the cross declares "God's everlasting 'no' to the idolatry of the self. Mark Noll, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guded Tour of His Life and Thought, p.75

Prayer

"God wants to be heard through the Propitiator, and so He'll listen to nobody except through Christ... Those who don't seek God or the Lord in Christ, won't find him." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.74

Trails

Luther wrote, "I didn't learn my theology all at once, I had to ponder over it even more deeply, and my spiritual trails were of help to me in this." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.71

Theology

In the spring of 1509, Luther, settled in Wittenberg and beginning his career as a professor of theology and Bible, wrote a letter to Johann Braun, a priest at Eisenach whom he greatly admired. In the letter, Luther expresses his goal for his teaching and writing, noting that fundementally he wanted to pursue a theology "that would penetrate to the meat of the nut, to the very core of the wheat grain, to the marrow of the bone." It would be some time before Luther would arrive there, yet his unique methodology given his historical context clearly evidences itself in these words. Not content with his colleagues' approach, which largely consisted of rehearsing the tradition's teaching in an encyclopedic fashion, Luther longed to go deeper, to get to the heart of the matter, to get at the meat of the nut. This radical starting point led to a radical way of thinking that quickly distinguished Luther from his peers. Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.70

Theology

"It's very hard for a man to believe that god is gracious to him. The human heart can't grasp this." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p. 69

Galatians

"The one doctrine which I have supremely at heart, is that of faith in Christ, from whom, through whom, and unto whom all my theological thinking flows back and forth day and night." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.56

Character

Luther referred to the home "as a perfect school for character." Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, p.50

Marriage

"Ther is no sweeter union than that in a good marriage." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther, A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought p.50

Marriage

"I would not exchange my Katie for Paris or all of France, for Venice or all of Italy, for God has given her to me and has given me to her." Martin Luther, cited in Stephen J. Nichols, Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thoughts p. 50

Modesty, Clothing

"...public nudity today is not a return to innocence but rebellion against moral reality. God ordains clothes to witness to the glory we have lost, and it is added rebellion to throw them off.

And for those who rebel in the other direction and make clothes themselves a means of power and prestige and attention getting, God’s answer is not a return to nudity but a return to simplicity (1 Timothy 2:9-10; 1 Peter 3:4-5). Clothes are not meant to make people think about what is under them. Clothes are meant to direct attention to what is not under them: merciful hands that serve others in the name of Christ, beautiful feet that carry the gospel where it is needed, and the brightness of a face that has beheld the glory of Jesus."

- John Piper, The Rebellion of Nudity and the Meaning of Clothing

The Cross, Inability

To suppose that whatever God requires of us that we have the power of ourselves to do it, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ to no effect.

- John Owen

Christian Immaturity

They are like infants still and display their wretched immaturity even in the way that they complain if you give them more milk. Not for them solid knowledge of Scripture; not for them mature theological reflection; not for them growing and perceptive Christian thought. They want nothing more than another round of choruses and a “simple message”-something that won’t challenge them to think, to examine their lives, to make choices, and to grow in their knowledge and adoration of the living God.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.72

Christian Immaturity

They are “mere infants in Christ” (3:1). Yes, they are Christians; yes, they do have the Spirit. But in certain particulars, still to be laid out, they simply do not act like it. Paul judges them to be spiritually immature-- wretchedly, unacceptably, spiritually immature.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.71

Carnal Sin

The word carnal has come to be associated with sexual sin (there is no doubt what “carnal desire” means today)-and at this juncture Paul is certainly not accusing the Corinthians of lust or of sexual misconduct.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.71

Judgement and Discernment

The principle for which Paul is here contending does not entail the conclusion that Christians are to be so wimpy that they make no distinctions whatsoever. Just because Calvinists have important things to learn from Wesley, and Wesleyans from Calvin, does not mean that both men were entirely right in all they said and taught. Paul is not here absolving Christians from the responsibility to discern, to test all teaching by Scripture, to pursue the best. Rather, he is roundly condemning that kind of judging that simply writes a Christian leader off because he does not neatly fit into my camp or because he appears to compete with my preferred guru or because he is not in my pocket.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.101

Divine Revelation, Salvation

The possibility of knowing God and of understanding his ways does not belong to any human being as an essential component of his or her being. The distance is too great; our self-centeredness is too deep. And nothing in “the wisdom of this age”(v.6) can help us. A wisdom proper to this age is …one that arises out of and is marked by rebellion against God; it represents (however splendid and spiritual-or scientific-it may appear) the creature’s attempt to secure his position over against the Creator; in a world it is (as far as men are concerned) man-centered.

What is required, then, is revelation. The agent who brings such revelation to us is the Spirit of God

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.53

Universal Power of the Cross

The outreach of the cross as measured by the profile of the Corinthian congregation confirms the message of the cross: salvation is God’s free gift, secured by the ignominious death of his own Son. This obvious death is God’s triumphant act, his most dazzling and powerful deed, the action by which he disgraces and trashes all human pretensions.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.31

Knowledge of God

The only thing of transcendent importance to human beings is the knowledge of God. This knowledge does not belong to those who endlessly focus on themselves. Those who truly come to know God delight just to know him. He becomes their center. They think of him, delight in him, boast of him. They want to know more what kind of God he is. And they learn that he is the God “ who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth,” naturally they want those same values to prevail-not because their egos are bound up with certain arbitrary notions of, say, “justice,” but because their center is God and they take away their cues from him and his character. They boast in him.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.32

Guardian vs. Father's Role

The guardian in the first-century Hellenistic household was usually a trusted slave who was put in charge of the child, bringing the child (usually a son) to and from school and generally supervising his conduct. Such guardians exercised a certain authority over the child, of course, but it would never be equal to that of a Father.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.109

Grammateus or scribe

The Greek word grammateus used here was not used in Greek culture to denote any kind of advanced scholar. What Paul has in mind is the use of this term among Greek-speaking Jews: the grammateus was the “scribe,” the expert in the law of God, the person knowledgeable in biblical heritage and in all the tradition that flowed from it.

-D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.17

Leveling Power of the Gospel

The gospel is not simply good advice, nor is it good news about God’s power. The gospel is God’s power to those who believe. The place where God has supremely destroyed all human arrogance and pretension is the cross.

- D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.15

Spiritual Disciplines, Pursuit of Holiness

The love and the pursuit of holiness is the enduring mark of the true Christian.

-Jonathan Edwards, cited in Iain Murray's, Jonathan Edwards A New Biography, p.259

Jonathan Edwards: Doctrine

The general spiritual scene in the late eighteenth century militated against interest in the doctrine which he had preached. Calvinistic convictions waned in North America. In the progress of a decline which Edwards had rightly anticipated, those Congregational churches of New England which had embraced Arminianism after the Great Awakening gradually moved into Unitarianism and universalism, led by Charles Chauncy.

-Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards A New Biography, p.454

Johnathan Edwards: Fundamental Beliefs

The fundamental beliefs, those which had to do with Calvinistic and experimental Christianity, were for him firmly settled and the future course of his life was determined accordingly.

-Iain Murray, Johnathan Edwards A New Biography, p.70

Saving Faith

The first two elements of saving faith, notitia and assensus, are matters of the mind. That is, they are cognitive, involving awareness of information and intellectual assent to the truth of that information.

- R.C. Sproul, Faith Alone- The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification,p.82

Saving Faith

The element of fiducia includes a dramatic change in our values. It involves a radical shift in perceived value. …biblical concept of repentance is expressed by the word metanoieo, which literally means a “changing of the mind.”

For saving faith to occur there must be a real change in the person. The change is rooted in a transformation of one’s perception of Christ.

- R.C. Sproul, Faith Alone- The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification,p.87

Worship

The deepest and best corporate worship takes place when the forms are so familiar you never see them and can penetrate the reality. But try explaining that at your next church meeting.

-D.A. Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry,p.130-131

Eternal Importance of the Church

The church, of course, is the only institution with eternal significance. If anyone ought to transcend the limitations of merely temporal allegiances, then those who constitute the church should.

-D.A. Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.117

Gospel and Leadership

The Christian leader today not only must teach the gospel, but also must teach how the gospel works out in daily life and conduct. And that union must be modeled as well as explained.

-D.A. Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry, p.111

Leadership by Example

The Christian leader must not only preach the message of the cross and live life in the light of the cross, but must foster genuinely Christian living. Mere orthodoxy is not enough; Christians must live out their creed. The gospel of the crucified Messiah must transform not only our beliefs but our behavior.

-D.A. Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry, pp. 108-109

Seeing God's Glory

The bottom line is this: The problem is not that God is not here or that he is inactive; the problem is that we don’t see him. Our perspective on life is often tragically godless. We miss the one thing worth seeing, the glory of the ever-present God. When this happens, our lives are not built on the foundation of God’s glory, which was intended to give our lives a starting point and a destination, a reason to get up and the strength to go on. Every aspect of my existence was meant to be filled with the glory of God. Everything I think, every decision I make, every word I speak was meant to be shaped by a humble acknowledgement of his claim on my life. I was created to live for his glory.

- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, 98.