Christian Scripture Quotes & Sayings

All Sacred Scriptures is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ. — Hugh Of Saint-Victor

Just like a person has five senses, the Scripture also has Five Senses. First, there is the historical sense of Scripture. Second, there is a doctrinal sense of Scripture. Third, there is a prophetic sense of Scripture, fourth, there is a philosophical sense to Scripture, fifth, and there is a mystical sense to Scripture where events and persons symbolize truth. The Common Man is incapable of coming to the Scriptures and perceiving what is in it. We must have Grace given to us by Christ in order to understand the Bible. — Anya VonderLuft

Study Bibles tend to circulate widely, so they play a disproportionate role in helping Christians and others understand holy Scripture. Further, many of our members have long used one or two other Study Bibles, and it is important that Christians not be tied too tightly to only one option, however good it may be. — D. A. Carson

The preeminent job of the church is to equip Christian for life's challenges. This requires the emphasis on being fitted with tested armor. He is tutored in the Word of God. He is encouraged to rely on the Lord alone through faith in His promises and providence. He is drilled in the doctrines of salvation and is encouraged to allow these truths to work themselves deep into his soul. He is encouraged to live righteously by having within him a righteous mind soaked in Scripture and demonstrated in right living. He is taught how to pray. He is encouraged to share his faith with those who do not have peace with God.
Chapter — John Bunyan

If you're anxious about the state of the world, that's understandable. But trade your anxiety for the blessing of hearing the words of Scripture, keeping them in faith and obedience, and remembering the time is near. — David Jeremiah

All Christian life is to be measured by Scripture; by every word thereof. — John Wycliffe

For such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures that, even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else, from boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and with talents greater than I possess, I would still be making progress in discovering their treasures. — Augustine Of Hippo

I cannot be the only reader who has wondered why God, having given him [St. Paul] so many gifts, withheld from him (what would seem so necessary for the first Christian theologian) that of lucidity and orderly exposition. — C.S. Lewis

The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence - congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it, congruence between what is written in Scripture and our living out what is written, congruence between a ship and its prow, congruence between preaching and living, congruence between the sermon and what is lived in both preacher and congregation, the congruence of the Word made flesh in Jesus with what is lived in our flesh. — Eugene H. Peterson

Everything in Scripture has the force of law. What it teaches we are to believe; what it commands, we are to do. We should take its wisdom to heart, imitate its heroes, laugh at its jokes, trust its promises, and sing its songs. — John Frame

Herman Bavinck explains: On balance, however, the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages. For the denial of the clarity of Scripture carries with it the subjection of the layperson to the priest, or a person's conscience to the church. The freedom of religion and the human conscience, of the church and theology, stands and falls with the perspicuity of Scripture. It alone is able to maintain the freedom of the Christian; it is the origin and guarantee of religious liberty as well as of our political freedoms. Even a freedom that cannot be obtained and enjoyed aside from the dangers of licentiousness and caprice is still always so to be preferred over a tyranny that suppresses liberty.4 — Kevin DeYoung

In the course of expounding a biblical text the Christian preacher should compare and contrast the Scripture's message with the foundational beliefs of the culture, which are usually invisible to people inside it, in order to help people understand themselves more fully. If done rightly it can lead people to say to themselves, Oh, so that's why I tend to think and feel that way. This can be one of the most liberating and catalytic steps in a person's journey to faith in Christ. — Timothy J. Keller

When God picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action. Nowhere in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely mystical vocation. — Jacques Ellul

As we search the Scriptures, we must allow them to search us, to sit in judgment upon our character and conduct. — Jerry Bridges

I began to pay attention to Scripture and meet people who walked the walk, and little by little, I guess you could call me a born again Christian. 1978 is when I found my walk with the Lord. — Tony Orlando

The Christian who is not diligently involved in a serious study of Scripture is simply inadequate as a disciple of Christ. To be an adequate Christian and competent in the things of God we must do more than attend "sharing sessions" and "bless me parties." We cannot learn competency by osmosis. Biblically illiterate Christians are not only inadequate but unequipped. In fact, they are inadequate because they are not equipped. — R.C. Sproul

Some people have been in church for so long, been doing the "be a good Christian" thing for so long, that the very idea that they were chosen and determined for blamelessness before they'd started earning credit is very offensive. In our flesh, we tend to think that our holiness is the result of our spiritual elbow grease. We intellectually may agree to the doctrine of sola gratia, but we tend to live and act like we're saved by what Don Whitney calls "sola boot-strappa." That, however, is not the testimony of Scripture. — Matt Chandler

His [brother in law Jim Hampson] appointment to the Episcopal parish in Wenham, near Gordon College brought them in close touch with leading evangelical faculty members in their pews and church leadership, including Elizabeth Elliot and Addison Leitch. They were instrumental in drawing Jim and and Sarah into the cutting edge of evangelical intellectual leadership, with friendships with Tom Howard and J.I. Packer. My ongoing relationship with Jim Packer, FitzSimons Allison and many other brilliant Anglican evangelicals would not have happened without Jim Hampson. His early influence on me in my transition from modern to classic Christian teaching was immense. While I was trying to demythologize Scripture, he was taking its plain meaning seriously. His strong preaching led him to become one of the founding sponsors and supporters of Trinity School of Ministry in Abridge, Pennsylvania ... — Thomas C. Oden

We take a cavalier approach to Scripture at our own peril. If the scientific and historical accounts are true, then the commandments, promises and penalties are much more so. The Bible is not just a guideline. It is the authoritative Word of God. Disobeying it has consequences. Obeying it has rewards. Yet we fudge. We compromise. We rationalize. We trade away our spiritual integrity for man's approval and as we do, we gradually erode our ability to distinguish right from wrong, to see our own failings, and to turn back in repentance to God. We simply have no idea how this cavalier attitude towards God's Word taints our witness and hinders the kingdom of God. — Craig Olson

Do you want to be safe from the influence, ways, and lusts of the world and the flesh (I John 2:16)? From the sins which so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1)? Then delight in yourself in the Lord, in His provision, in His Word. Faithfully feed on the things that possess true substance and real meaning. When you remember that "all Scripture is given by inspiration by God and is profitable" (2 Timothy 3:16) and partake of such divine substance, then you are fed, you are led and you are safe! — Elizabeth George

The most urgent and demanding question for Christian believers is not whether "a supreme being of some kind" exists, but rather whether this incomparably good and powerful and compassionate source and end of all things truly is as revealed in Scripture — Thomas C. Oden

Those who would argue for the infallibility or the inerrancy of scripture logically should also claim the same infallibility for the churches in the fourth and fifth centuries, whose decisions and historical circumstances left us with our present canon. This is apparently what would be required if we were to only acknowledge the twenty-seven NT books that were set forth by the church in that context. Was the church in the Nicene and post-Nicene eras infallible in its decisions or not?
(Formation of Christian Biblical Canon) — Lee M. McDonald

The Meccan merchants had met Christian monks and hermits during their travels, and were familiar with the stories of Jesus and the concepts of Paradise and the Last Judgment. They called Jews and Christians the ahl al-kitab ("the People of the Book"). They admired the notion of a revealed text and wished they had sacred scripture in their own language. — Karen Armstrong

The statistics reveal a failure of nerve on the part of many Christians. They seem to be simply unable to muster the strength necessary to develop a tenacious commitment to the truthfulness of Scripture. — Douglas Groothuis

I revere the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and creation. In the gospel moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word. — Tertullian

When our intellect has shaken off its many opinions about created things, then the inner principle of truth appears clearly to it, providing it with a foundation of real knowledge and removing its former preconceptions as though removing scales from eyes, as happened in the case of St. Paul (cf. Acts 9:18). For an understanding of Scripture that does not go beyond the literal meaning, and a view of the sensible world that relies exclusively on sense perception, are indeed scales, blinding the soul's visionary faculty and preventing access to the pure Logos of truth. — Maximus The Confessor

The scriptures of Christians, Mussalmans and Hindus are all replete with the teaching of ahimsa. — Mahatma Gandhi

Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same. — Jonathan Edwards

True Christians delight to read the Scriptures, because they tell them about their beloved Savior. — J.C. Ryle

The Offices rerooted me in a tradition where, monk or not, I would always be at home. From long ago I knew the power of their repetition, the incantatory force of the Psalms. But they had an added power now. As a kid, the psalmist (or psalmists) had seemed remote to me, the Psalms long prayers which sometimes rose to great poetry but often had simply to be endured. For a middle-aged man, the psalmists' moods and feelings came alive. One of the voices sounded a lot like a modern New Yorker, me or people I knew: a manic-depressive type A personality sometimes up, more often down, sometimes resigned, more often pissed off, railing about his sneaky enemies and feckless friends, always bitching to the Lord about the rotten hand he'd been dealt. That good old changelessness. — Tony Hendra

There is not one verse of Scripture that indicates you can be a Christian and live any kind of a life you want to. When Christ enters into the human heart, He expects to be Lord and Master. He commands complete surrender. — Billy Graham

It seems like
especially in religious circles and Christian circles, we want to first talk about the things we're opposed to. That means we have to categorize that person. We can call them emergent or neo orthodox or someone who feminizes scripture. There's the category, let's stick them in the category then just blow up the box and him along with it. — William P. Young

Worship plays a major role in the Christian daily life. Throughout Scripture we see worship from David dancing before the Lord to Jesus rejoicing in the Spirit. — T.D. Jakes

Holy Scripture is in such sort the rule of the Christian faith that we are obliged by every kind of obligation to believe most exactly all that it contains and not to believe anything which may be ever so little contrary to it, for if Our Lord himself has sent the Jews to it894 to strengthen their faith, it must be a most safe standard. The Sadducees erred because they did not understand the Scriptures;895 they would have done better to attend to them, as to a light shin ing in a dark place, according to the advice of S. Peter,896 who having himself heard the voice of the Father in the transfiguration of the Son, bases himself more firmly on the testimony of the prophets than on this experience. — Francis De Sales

Fasts and vigils, the study of Scripture, renouncing possessions and everything worldly are not in themselves perfection, as we have said; theyare its tools. For perfection is not to be found in them; it is acquired through them. It is useless, therefore, to boast of our fasting, vigils, poverty, and reading of Scripture when we have not achieved the love of God and our fellow men. Whoever has achieved love has God within himself and his intellect is always with God. — John Cassian

We must be both more conservative and more liberal than most students of Christian worship: conservative in holding exclusively to God's commands in Scripture as our rule of worship, and liberal in defending the liberty of those who apply those. — John Frame

I believe that the writers of Genesis had detected the inherent selfishness in human nature that I propose is in our genes, and invented the myth of original sin to account for it. It's an image. I am not acting as an exegete - I don't interpret scripture. — Christian De Duve

Are you letting culture, not scripture, determine your sexuality, how you date, how you present yourself, how you engage in certain relationships with members of the opposite sex? We need to be very clear that the way we do life is different than the rest of the world. — Mark Driscoll

In my view, it is inappropriate for us to refer to our confession as the Reformed Faith. The reformed churches did not (and do not) believe that they were confessing the Reformed Faith, but that they were confessing the "undoubted Christian Faith" in their confession and catechisms. There is a reason that this wing of the reformation called itself "Reformed." Unlike the Anabaptists, Reformed churches understood themselves as a continuing branch of the catholic church. At the same time, the Reformed wanted to reform everything "according to the Word of God." Not only our doctrine, but our worship and life must be determined by Scripture and not by human whim or creativity. — Michael S. Horton

Despite the obvious emphasis of Scripture (in regard to suffering), we are bombarded by suggestions that the 'successful' Christian living takes place in the realm of constant victory, health, wholeness, and financial prosperity. In response to this we are not to pretend that suffering doesn't exist or that it might be instantly cured. Such notions are the product of empty heads and closed Bibles. — Alistair Begg

Theology is the systematic inquiry into Scripture. Theology is a human attempt to make sense of and draw conclusions from God's special revelation. — Perry G. Downs

The Bible teaches that we are to live in this world, but we are not to partake of the evils of the world. We are to be separated from the world of evil. When I face something in the world, I ask: Does it violate any principle of Scripture? Does it take the keen edge off my Christian life? Can I ask God's blessing on it? Will it be a stumbling block to others? Would I like to be there, or reading that, or be watching that, if Christ should return at that time? — Billy Graham

Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances ... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn. — Saint Augustine

It is no exaggeration to say that without Scripture a Christian life is impossible. — John Stott

He who has the Holy Spirit in His heart and the Scripture in his hands has all he needs. — Alexander MacLaren

This was borne out again in October 1996 when Pope John Paul II, standing in the context of a train of Catholic thought which stretched back to the Church Fathers said, in essence, "Looks like there's some good evidence for some sort of biological evolution."[22] That is, he said, as so many Catholics have already said, that there is nothing in divine revelation that particularly forbids you to believe that God made Adam from the dust of the earth r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y rather than instantaneously (and used other creatures to somehow assist in the process) so long as you bear in mind that God did, in fact, create man and woman (particularly the soul, which is made directly by God and is not a result of the collision of atoms).

--Making Senses of Scripture — Mark Shea

In this framework, although church discipline is being thought through afresh by many Christian groups,44 one of the areas where more thought is still needed is the manner in which churches that draw lines in the moral arenas - however graciously, humbly, gently, sometimes by degrees, but also firmly - are not only taking steps to align themselves with Scripture (and with the main strands of Christian heritage, for that matter), but are taking on the culture. Such steps become not only a matter of nurturing and protecting the faithful, but of showing a pluralistic world what Christian living looks like. This will alienate some; under God's good hand, it will draw others, not least because the freedoms promised by pluralism are tearing society apart. In any case, we have little choice: elementary faithfulness demands it. — D. A. Carson

The literal sense of the author was "creation is the orderly act of a loving Creator God." What the modern reader often hears, however, is "The universe was made in six 24-hour days." This is as wrong-headed as taking me to mean I actually stood in line a million years or that my cardiac tissue has been torn in half or that Christ had delusions of being a grape plant.
-- Making Senses of Scripture — Mark Shea

Holy Scripture is Holy Scripture. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If, therefore, those called to office and leadership roles in the church remain content merely to organize and manage the internal affairs of the church, they are leaving a vacuum exactly where there ought to be vibrant, pulsating life. Of course Christian leaders need to be trained and equipped for management, for running of the organization. The church will not thrive by performing in a bumbling, amateur fashion and hoping that piety and goodwill will make up for incompetence. But how much more should a Christian minister be a serious professional when it comes to grappling with scripture and discovering how it enables him or her, in preaching, teaching, prayer, and pastoral work, to engage with the huge issues that confront us as a society and as individuals. If we are professional about other things, we ought to be ashamed not to be properly equipped both to study the Bible ouselves and to bring its ever-fresh word to others. — N. T. Wright

Scripture would not only solve the individual and family divisions, but it would also solve the ecclesiastical confusion. — Tony Evans

When the honest, sincere Christian is faced with the decision regarding whether a thing is right or wrong, he should ask, does it agree with all that the Scripture has to say on the subject? — Curtis Hutson

Money is emphasized in Scripture simply because our temptation to love it is inexplicably powerful. — Erwin W. Lutzer

This ancient affirmation of Scripture and the Christian tradition provides a teleological hope and direction that gives meaning to life now and moves us toward the future with faith and confidence in God's redemptive purpose and power. — Cynthia Peters Anderson

Because I am a Christian, therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God's Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God. And, as a Christian, I learn to know the Holy Scriptures in no other way than by hearing the Word preached and by prayerful meditation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these - the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure - emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century. — Elaine Pagels

Those who sit in the darkness of passions and whose minds are blinded by ignorance, or, rather, those who have not acquired the 'mind of Christ' (I Cor. 2:16), think that he who has the mind of Christ is foolish, and that he who has it not is sensible. Of these the prophet David rightly states, 'The ignorant and foolish perish together' (Ps. 49:11). Therefore such men twist the whole of Scripture according to their own desires (cf. II Pet. 3:3, 16) and corrupt themselves in their own passions. But it is not divine Scripture that suffers from this, but those who disfigure it! — Symeon The New Theologian

The Christian story proclaims that all the demands of Scripture are ultimately summons, calls, invitations - beckoning us to experience true, beautiful, and good humanness. — Wesley Hill

Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today!
We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. — J. Gresham Machen

John Frame's magnificent work on the Christian life fully endorses the authority of Scripture and practically addresses the need to consider the situations and people involved in ethical decisions. — Richard L. Pratt Jr.

If we read the Scripture, we shall know what God requires of us. — Lailah Gifty Akita

What justifies specifically churchly exegesis of Scripture? Can church doctrine guide our reading? Why should it? Why should we interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac by the passion of Jesus? The answer is bluntly simple: What justifies churchly reading of Scripture is that there is no other way to read it, since "it" dissolves under other regimes. Thus a hermeneutical exhortation from this first perspective. Be entirely blatant and unabashed in reading Scripture for the church's purposes and within the context of Christian faith and practice. Indeed, guide your reading by church doctrine. For if, say, the doctrine of Trinity and Matthew's construal of the passion do not fit each other, then the church lost its diachronic self in the early fourth century at the latest, and the whole enterprise of Bible reading is moot. The question, after all, is not whether churchly reading of Scripture is justified; the question is, what could possibly justify any other? — Ellen F. Davis

No Christian has the right to go around wringing his hands, wondering what we are to do in the face of the present world situation. The Scripture says that in the midst of persecution, confusion, wars, and rumors of wars, we are to comfort one another with the knowledge that Jesus Christ is coming back in triumph, glory, and majesty. — Billy Graham

I must be frank in my feeling that a notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles
the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Saviour and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to ... The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scripture ... Apart from obedience, there can be no salvation, for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

If your starting point for understanding humanity is a racialist viewpoint, with superiority and inferiority projected onto people because of the color of their skin, then it's so easy to take the next step of justifying that point theologically and reading it into the Christian scripture. And that makes it harder to understand what scripture is actually saying! — Allan Boesak

However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars. For the Christian, it is God's Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance. The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ. — D. A. Carson

God's Word is the ultimate beauty treatment for every woman. — Elizabeth George

If there is one Christian left who holds out hope that a God honoring, biblically accurate, mainstream Hollywood movie will emerge, I have some advice for you ... stop waiting, it's not going to happen, move on. If you want authentic Scripture, read the Scripture. — William Branks

Dating is never mentioned in the Bible, not once.
I'm not saying that dating's a sin or that dating's evil. That's not what this book is about. What I am saying is that if we look to Scripture for specific answers on dating we're not going to find any. That's not a problem, though, because it has a lot to say about marriage, and when we figure out why God created marriage, we will figure out a lot about dating in return. — Cole Ryan

The "Word of God" is not simply the Christian Bible but exists in a threefold form: "The Word" incarnate (Jesus Followers' King), the word prophesied and proclaimed (Prophets), and the word in scripture (Bible). All three are the self-disclosure of God, The One & Only ... in three, distinct & unique Persons, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. — Gary Patton

I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment. — John Newton

Pray, read and mediate on the Scripture. — Lailah Gifty Akita

God's approval should be your standard for success. — Jim George

While the Christian message is increasingly becoming less acceptable in fashionable society, we must be always living according to Scripture and prepared to be apologists for Jesus Christ in all aspects of our lives. — Jonathan Falwell

One of the reasons that Christians read Scripture repeatedly and carefully is to find out just how God works in Jesus Christ so that we can work in the name of Jesus Christ. — Eugene H. Peterson

The Bible does not deny that we were various things - addicts, homosexuals, hateful, prideful, pornographic masturbators - but that is what we were (past tense) (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Titus 3:3-5). The emphasis in Scripture is on what we are and what we are called to be. The Christian does not say, Hello, my name is _ and I am an X Y or Z." The Christian says I was dead, but now I am alive. The Christian says I am a struggling sinner, yet I am a saint. The Christians says I am a new creation; I am transformed. — Paul O'Brien

If you read the Scriptures, you know thy Creator and thy soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't neglect your critical faculties. Remember that God is a rational God, who has made us in His own image. God invites and expects us to explore His double revelation, in nature and Scripture, with the minds He has given us, and to go on in the development of a Christian mind to apply His marvellous revealed truth to every aspect of the modern and post-modern world. — John Stott

Christ, as the ultimate Imago Dei is alluded to in scripture as being without external beauty in the Classical sense, and should better be thought of as one who passed through all the slime and mire of a fallen and sinful creation in order to redeem it. His own body is to be remembered for the marks it bears-even in resurrection-of the scars of his sacrificial death. For the Christian, a theory of beauty might better begin at this point. — John Walford

How one views Scripture will determine the rest of one's theology. There is no more basic issue: Every system of thought that takes seriously the claims of the Bible to be the inspired, authoritative Word of God will share a commitment to particular central truths, and that without compromise. Those systems that do not begin with this belief in Scripture will exhibit a wide range of beliefs that will shift over time in light of the ever-changing whims and views of culture. Almost every single collapse involving denominations and churches in regard to historic Christian beliefs can be traced back to a degradation in that group's view of the Bible as the inspired and inerrant revelation of God's truth. Once this foundation is lost, the house that was built upon it cannot long stand — James R. White

I really don't care too much what the different later Christian traditions say. My aim is to be faithful to Scripture. — N. T. Wright

Let us cleave ... to those who cultivate peace with godliness, and not to those who hypocritically profess to desire it. For the Scripture says in a certain place (Mk. 7:6), 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts is far from Me.' — Pope Clement I

I don't know why Christians keep fighting over which is better-singleness or marriage-when it seems rather obvious, both from Scripture and from Church history, that both can glorify God. — Rachel Held Evans

They're called in the Scripture the Beatitudes. You know why they're called the Beatitudes without being prestigious? Because they should be the attitudes of every believer. That's the normal Christian life, not the abnormal Christian life. The normal Christian life is holiness. — Leonard Ravenhill

We need to repent of the haughty way in which we sometimes stand in judgment upon Scripture and must learn to sit humbly under its judgment instead. — John Stott

The Jesus Trajectory Love is recklessness, not reason. Reason seeks a profit. Loves comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed. Yet in the midst of suffering, Love proceeds like a millstone, hard-surfaced and straight forward. Having died to self-interest, she risks everything and asks for nothing. Love gambles away every gift God bestows. The words above were written by the great Sufi mystic Jalalludin Rumi.6 But better than almost anything in Christian scripture, they closely describe the trajectory that Jesus himself followed in life. — Cynthia Bourgeault

Read the Scripture to renew your mind.
Mediate on the Scripture to nourish your soul.
Affirm the Scripture to revive your spirit — Lailah Gifty Akita

In the decade of the 1980s, a massive and comprehensive study of religion in American life was undertaken by the Gallup organization. The results of the study were as terrifying as they were revealing. Americans, even evangelical Americans, are woefully ignorant of the content of Scripture and even more ignorant of the history of Christianity and classical Christian theology. — R.C. Sproul

No truth is more pervasive in Scripture and Christian tradition than this one - that real freedom is found in obedience and servanthood. And yet no truth is more incongruent with modern culture. Here we stand before a stark either-or: the gospel message of true freedom versus the culture's ideal of self-creation, autonomy, and living my way. — Roger E. Olson

The lesson I have learned is that a failure to cultivate the imagination leads to an unintended neglect of the imaginative literature of Scripture, and this in turn leads to some degree of spiritual atrophy. For Christians, the stories of Revelation are not optional reading. Nor are they child's play. Imaginative literature
the kind of literature that invites us to see in our imaginations what we cannot see with our eyes
is an important part of the Christian's literary diet. It challenges our idols. It challenges what is false and trivial in our lives. — Tony Reinke

A lot of churches and church people give God a bad name. There's a scripture in the Bible that says the traditions of men make the word of God of none effect. That's so true. All our religious rituals dilute the reality of who God is and make a lot of people not want to have anything to do with Him. I had to learn to reject 'Churchianity' and not Christianity. — Sherri L. Lewis

Real progress in the Christian life is not gauged by our knowledge of scripture, our church attendance, time in prayer, or even our witnessing (although it isn't less than these things) Maturity in the Christian life is measured by only one test: how much closer to his character have we become? the result of the Spirit's work is more not more activity. No, the results of his work are in in our quality of life, they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Many Christians are either woefully deficient in their knowledge of Scripture or noticeably devoid of any experience of God's power. The Lord never intended this for His people. We have all seen firsthand the joyless intellectual arrogance the absence of spiritual power can produce, as well as the fanatical emotional excess that comes from the lack of theological integrity. — Sam Storms

Ignorance of Scripture is the root of every error in religion, and the source of ever heresy. To be allowed to remove a few grains of ignorance, and to throw a few rays of light on God's precious word, is, in my opinion, the greatest honor that can be put on a Christian. — J.C. Ryle

To trifle with Scripture is to deprive yourself of its aid. Reverence it, and look up to God with devout gratitude for having given it to you. — Charles Spurgeon

How does "Let go and let God" measure up against Scripture? Remember, the test isn't what sounds deep, what sounds holy, or even what makes sense to us. For the Christian, the test is Scripture. — Dan Phillips

It is not the obscure passages in Scripture that bind you but the ones you understand. With these you are to comply at once. If you understood only one passage in all of Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all. It will be this passage God asks you about. Do not first sit down and ponder the obscure passages. God's Word is given in order that you shall act according to it, not that you gain expertise in interpreting it. — Soren Kierkegaard

No power of earth, or hell, men or devils, can possibly stand against the word of God; and hence it is the very height of folly and wild madness for any one to set up his thoughts or reasonings in opposition to the plain statements of Holy Scripture; and, on the other hand, it is the beginning and end of all true wisdom to submit in all things to the absolute authority of that Word which is settled forever in Heaven. — Charles Henry Mackintosh

Scripture is vast, and people can pick and choose what they emphasize, and so for hundreds of years verses that said that you are to welcome the stranger, that with Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, we've broken down the dividing wall with the original church, where Christians were first called Christian was the church of Antioch in which for the first time you had Jews, Gentiles of all different ethnicities come together as one people. That's when they were called Christians. — Michael Emerson

I'm not going askew from the principles on which the United States was built; I'm right there with our founding fathers. I'm a patriot and a Christian, and I'm moving forth with what they started. But now it's gotten to where I'm some kind of nut or Bible beater.
I say, so be it. I'll still go across the country spreading God's Word, like I've done since I was twenty-eight. I may be only one man reading Scripture and quotes, carrying his Bible, and blowing duck calls to crowds, but, hey, it has to start somewhere. It's what makes me happy, happy, happy. — Phil Robertson