Category Quotes & Verses

Social Media is Full of Absurdities

Todd R 1 Comment

Social media is a great place to share short bursts of pontification, whether in memes, quips, quotes, or what have you.  Sometimes a little more research may do some good, though.  Several times recently I’ve seen the quote below shared by people protesting what they see as people in power playing loose with information to pompously push pernicious policies that are precariously close to imperious:

“Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire

Since this quote was often posted by Christians, they might be appalled by the context of the quote:

“Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is unjust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God‐given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God‐given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world.”

On the positive side, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”[1]  Being a Christian requires holding on tight to things that seem absurdities to the world, but it also means we have the “God-given sense of justice” that requires we show mercy to those whose absurdities are different from our own.

If I post anything that seems absurd, please let me know, mercifully… ( I think Abraham Lincoln said something similar on his website)

[1] 1 Corinthians 1:25

Is Freedom Good? A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection.  Five somewhat related quotes, but not exactly in agreement.  Hope you find them interesting and thought-provoking.

“To admire mere choice is to refuse to choose” – G.K. Chesterton

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.” – William Allen White

“But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” – Edmund Burke, Irish statesman

“Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering” – Ivan, in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Bible: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 2 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, on the theme of the Bible.  I hope you find these five sayings interesting and thought-provoking.  What quotes about the Bible do you like?

Image by u_zscsfn7pja from Pixabay

“This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book.” – D.L. Moody wrote this in the front of his Bible

“If people treated other books the way they treat the Bible, they would never learn anything.” – Warren Wiersbe

“Do I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it food for my soul, and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the manna which comes down from heaven?” – C.H. Spurgeon

“The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is by the New revealed.” – Saint Augustine

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Courage to Change: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, on the theme of personal responsibility and development.  Please don’t take the last one literally.

“When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the LORD.” – Proverbs 19:3

“People could survive their natural trouble all right if it weren’t for the trouble they make for themselves.” – Ogden Nash

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Common prayer adapted from Reinhold Niebuhr

“Millions of people die every year of something they could cure themselves: lack of wisdom and lack of ability to control their impulses.” -Irving Kahn, investor who died at 109 of natural causes in 2015

“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.” – Matthew 18:8

Christ Embraces the Different – Sunday Share from Tim Keller

Todd R 2 Comments

Today’s Sunday Share comes from pastor and apologist Tim Keller, who died on May 19 after battling pancreatic cancer.  When hearing that news, it seemed appropriate to quote him in the blog, so the Sunday Share for this week is the extended quote below from Keller’s book, Making Sense of God:

“If you believe in Jesus’s message, you believe in a truth, but not a truth that leads to exclusion. Many voices argue that it is exclusionary to claim that you have the truth, but as we have seen, that view itself sets up a dichotomy with you as the heroically tolerant and others as villainously or pathetically bigoted. You cannot avoid truth claims and binaries. The real issue is, then, which kind of truth- and which kind of identity that the truth produces- leads you to embrace people who are deeply different from you? Which truth claims lead you to scorn people who oppose you as fools? Which truth claims lead to community? Which truth claims both humble and affirm you so that you’re not afraid of people who are different than you are, nor can you despise them? If I build my identity on what Jesus Christ did for me and the fact I have an everlasting name in him by grace, I can’t, on the one hand, feel superior to anybody, nor do I have to fear anybody else. I don’t have to compare myself with them at all. My identity is based on somebody who was excluded for me, who was cast out for me, who loved his enemies, and that is going to turn me into someone who embraces the Different.”

Rest in peace, Tim Keller.

Amen.