Jay E. Adams Quotes & Sayings

We are to vigorously and violently demolish all the fortifications of the foe, winning the battle and talking him captive for Christ. The Church is not to assume a defensive posture, but may take aggressive action to overcome evil by means of good. — Jay E. Adams

When is a train most free? Is it when it goes bouncing across the field off the track? No. It is free only when it is confined (if you will) to the track. Then it runs smoothly and efficiently, because that was the way that its maker intended for it to run. It needs to be on the track, structured by the track, to run properly. You too need to be on the track. God's track is found in God's Word. — Jay E. Adams

So then, the command "Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good" is a clear witness to the fact that you can be a winner in the battle against evil. No matter where or when it occurs, regardless of it's impact or force, there is no attack that can be made that you cannot withstand if you do so by using God's weapons, according to God's revealed strategy and are energized by His powerful Spirit. — Jay E. Adams

The best way to be a good father to your children is to be a good husband to their mother. — Jay E. Adams

Mankind was designed to function as a worshipper of God for eternity, and the intent was for all aspects of his life to be acts of worship to the living God. — Jay E. Adams

Love is not first a feeling. Though the feelings come later and grow thick in the basic loam of love, they don't constitute the sum and substance of love. Love is doing whatever good God says you must do for another, to please God, whether (at first) it pleases you or not. You must do so because He says so; and you don't wait until you feel like doing so. Love begins with obedience toward God in which one gives to another whatever the other needs. Love is not a gooey, sticky sentimental thing; it is hard to love. Often it hurts to love. Love meant going to the cross through the garden of Gethsemane. Christ did not feel like dying for your sins, Christian, but He did so nonetheless. The Scriptures teach that he endured the cross while focusing on the subsequent joy that it would bring. — Jay E. Adams

I don't care what problem you face; it has no power to defeat the cross of Christ. — Jay E. Adams

Evil is powerful, but good is more powerful. In fact, evil is so powerful that only good has the power to overcome evil. Darkness can be driven away only by light. — Jay E. Adams

Man was created as a being whose very existence is derived from and dependent upon a Creator whom he must acknowledge as such and from whom he must obtain wisdom and knowledge through revelation. The purpose and meaning of his life, as well as his very existence, is derived and dependent. He can find none of this in himself. Man is not autonomous. — Jay E. Adams

As his counterpart, the woman completes or fills out a man's life, making him a larger person than he could have been alone, bringing into his frame of reference a new feminine dimension from which to view life that he could have known in no other way. Then, too, he also brings to his wife a masculine perspective that enlarges her life, making her a fuller, more complete person than she could have been apart from him. This marriage union by covenant solves the problem of loneliness not merely by filling a gap, but by overfilling it. More than mere presence is involved. The loneliness of mere masculinity or femininity is likewise met. — Jay E. Adams

In my opinion, advocating, allowing and practicing psychiatric and psychoanalytic dogmas within the church is every bit as pagan and heretical (and therefore perilous) as propagating the teachings of some of the most bizarre cults. The only vital difference is that the cults are less dangerous because their errors are more identifiable. — Jay E. Adams

The Christian is free from all other human beings. He does not have to live over against others, controlled by their actions and responses. Rather, he lives according to Christ's commands. This is Christian freedom. It is a freedom unknown by others. It is not just when others do the things that we like that we act properly toward them; we are free to do good even when they don't because our actions are not dependent on their responses. It is the Lord Christ when we serve! — Jay E. Adams

A vital Christian, radiating that hidden beauty of the heart, is more attractive to the right sort of Christian man (the only kind you want) than the raving beauty who is hollow within. A woman who is developing her domestic abilities, who is reasonably attractive, and who is a vital Christian in her own right is an irresistible person. — Jay E. Adams