George Ladd Quotes & Sayings

The mission of Jesus brought not a new teaching but a new event. It brought to people an actual foretaste of the eschatological salvation. Jesus did not promise the forgiveness of sins; he bestowed it. He did not simple assure people of the future fellowship of the Kingdom; he invited them into fellowship with himself as the bearer of the Kingdom. He did not merely promise them vindication in the day of judgment; he bestowed upon them the status of a present righteousness. He not only taught an eschatological deliverance from physical evil; he went about demonstrating the redeeming power of the Kingdom, delivering people from sickness and even death. — George Eldon Ladd

The presence of the messianic salvation is also seen in Jesus' miracles of healing, for which the Greek word meaning "to save" is used. The presence of the Kingdom of God in Jesus meant deliverance from hemorrhage (Mk 5:34), blindness (Mk 10:52), demon possession (Lk 8:36), and even death itself (Mk 5:23). Jesus claimed that these deliverances were evidences of the presence of the messianic salvation (Mt 11:4-5). They were pledges of the life of the eschatological Kingdom that will finally mean immortality for the body. The Kingdom of God is concerned not only with people's souls but with the salvation of the whole person. — George Eldon Ladd

The righteousness of God's Kingdom is the product of God's reign in the human heart. God must reign in our lives now if we are to enter the Kingdom tomorrow. — George Eldon Ladd

Jesus' words are inseparable from his person. He himself is the message he proclaims. — George Eldon Ladd

Jesus' message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them to enter into the messianic blessing; he is demanding of them a favorable response to his gracious offer. God has again spoken. A new prophet has appeared, indeed one who is more than a prophet, one who bring to people the very blessings he promises. — George Eldon Ladd

It appears likely that there was no normative pattern of church government in the apostolic age, and that the organizational structure of the church is no essential element in the theology of the church. — George Eldon Ladd

It is instructive, although somewhat disheartening, for the ardent advocate of a purely scientific psychology to contrast the practice and theories of his colleagues with those of the students of the principal physical sciences. — George Trumbull Ladd

I learned more about acting from George Stevens in a few months than I had in my entire life up until then. — Alan Ladd

Without the ontological assumption which goes with it, what is called science, is nothing but the dreamer's well-ordered dream. — George Trumbull Ladd

Jesus is now the Lord; He is enthroned at the right hand of God; He is reigning in His kingdom. But this is a Lordship and a kingly reign which is known only to believers. It must be confessed by faith. His Second Coming will mean nothing less than the Lordship which is His now will be visible to all the world. When we pray, 'Thy kingdom come,' this is what we are praying for: the effectual and universal rule of Christ in all the world, not only over believers. — George Eldon Ladd

Education is so much of an organic unity that, if any of the stages or elements of it be defective, the deficiency is felt throughout all the subsequent growth of the organism. — George Trumbull Ladd

Psychology assumes that "things" are and "minds" are; and that, within certain limits determined by the so-called "nature" of both, they act causally upon each other. — George Trumbull Ladd

To accept with unquestioning faith, or to refuse to reconsider any particular view held by the Church in the past, is as unreasonable as it is unsafe. The faith of the Church is a progressive affair. — George Trumbull Ladd

The miracles of healing, important as they were, were not an end in themselves. They did not constitute the highest good of the messianic salvation. This fact is illustrated by the arrangement of the phrases in Matthew 11:4-5. Greater than deliverance of the blind and the lame, the lepers and the deaf, even than raising of the dead, was the preaching of the good news to the poor. This "gospel" was the very presence of Jesus himself, and the joy and fellowship that he brought to the poor. — George Eldon Ladd

The life and fellowship of the church is to be a foretaste of life in the Kingdom of God. — George Eldon Ladd

What God did, however, was subject his written word to the same historical process as he did with his incarnate Word, Jesus. The Bible is both a divine and human entity: divine in its inspiration and preservation, human in the sense of God's subjecting it to the historical process and entrusting it to the church. In this way, writes George Eldon Ladd, "the Bible is the Word of God given in the words of men in history. — Arthur G. Patzia

A high place of honor, although doubtless one to be obtained only after enduring the pangs of a prolonged crucifixion, awaits that philosophical biologist, or that philosopher sufficiently acquainted with scientific biology, who subjects the modern doctrine of evolution to a thoroughly critical analysis, with a view to detect and to estimate its metaphysical assumptions. — George Trumbull Ladd