Reformed Quotes & Sayings

It is better to lose your life than to waste it. — John Piper

As God delights in his own beauty, he must necessarily delight in the creature's holiness which is a conformity to and participation of it, as truly as [the] brightness of a jewel, held in the sun's beams, is a participation or derivation of the sun's brightness, though immensely less in degree. — Jonathan Edwards

Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed. — Evan Bayh

What can a state institution teach us? In what way can I be reformed by a penal colony and you by, say, Russian TV Channel 1? In his Nobel lecture, Joseph Brodsky said, 'The more substantial an individual's aesthetic experience is, the sounder his taste, the sharper his moral focus, the freer - though not necessarily the happier - he is.' We in Russia once again find ourselves in a situation where resistance, especially aesthetic resistance, becomes the only viable moral choice as well as a civic duty." Nadya — Masha Gessen

Agents need to be free to pursue investigations in ways that they haven't. There have been restraints that a reformed FBI needs to make sure we don't impose. — John Ashcroft

In the mainstream of evangelicalism, where female senior pastors were often unwelcome, most leaders and laypeople had adopted the conservative Reformed view of gender and had forgotten (or never knew of) women's leadership in the moral crusades of the nineteenth century, or even their prominence as Bible teachers, relief workers, and missionaries prior to the 1930s. — Molly Worthen

I take it to be from the greatest extremes, both in virtue and in vice, that the uniformly virtuous and reformed in life can derive the greatest and most salutary truths and impressions. — Deborah Sampson

A reformed bitch is going to cost a fortune in stamps. — Caitlin Moran

The death penalty issue is obviously a divisive one. But whether one is for or against, you can not deny the basic illogic - if we know the system is flawed, if we know there are innocent people on Death Row, then until the system is reformed, should we not abandon the death penalty to protect those who are innocent? — Richard LaGravenese

If the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist churches in continental Europe came about due to theological or ecclesiastical issues, the Church of England came about (at least in one sense) due to hormonal issues, namely, lust. — Daryl Aaron

When I was a little girl, if someone asked me why I was a Christian, I said it was because Jesus lived in my heart. In high school, I said it was because I accepted the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross for my sins. My sophomore year of college, during a short-lived Reformed phase, I said it was because of the irresistible grace of God. But after watching Zarmina's execution on television, I decided that the most truthful answer to that question was this: I was a Christian because I was born in the United States of America in the year 1981 to Peter and Robin Held. Arminians call it free will; Calvinists call it predestination. I call it the cosmic lottery. — Rachel Held Evans

The common Calvinist experience of life as a refugee, or of being part of a host community that received refugees, led to lasting international connections between individuals and communities...As churches became established in Switzerland, the Palatinate, Scotland, England and Bearn, and the churches in the Netherlands, France, Hungary and Poland battled for legal recognition and survival, princely courts, noble houses, universities and colleges also became locations for interactions between many Calvinists. Theologians, clergy, students, booksellers, merchants, diplomats, courtiers and military officers became involved in networks of personal contacts, correspondence, teaching and negotiation. — Graeme Murdock

Patriarchy, reformed or unreformed, is patriarchy still: its worst abuses purged or foresworn, it might actually be more stable and secure than before. — Kate Millett

Many in our world today want us to believe that we can except Christ simply as a Savior from sin, but not the Lord of our lives. They teach essentially that a person can perform an act of believing on Christ once, and after this, they can fall away even into total unbelief and yet still supposedly be "saved". Christ does not call men in this way. Christ does not save men in this way. The true Christian is the one continually coming, always believing in Christ. Real Christian faith is an ongoing faith, not a one-time act. If one wishes to be eternally satiated, one meal is not enough. If we wish to feast on the bread of heaven, we must do so all our lives. We will never hunger or thirst if we are always coming and always believing in Christ. He's our sufficiency. Christ the bread from heaven. We must feed on all of Christ, not just the parts we happen to like. Christ is not the Savior of anyone unless He is their Lord as well. — James R. White

I believe that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be reformed. We must improve the American public's confidence in, and perception of, our national security programs, by increasing transparency, strengthening oversight, and safeguarding civil liberties. — Dutch Ruppersberger

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. — John Piper

I'm really enamored with the idea of a reformed society, and I've always been fascinated with the Dark Ages as well as the power vacuum that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. — Victoria Aveyard

Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel. — John Piper

Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics. — Susan Sontag

Ending mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen. Yet while we have reformed this one program, many others remain. — Edward Snowden

We must realize that the Reformation world view leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist world view with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, must put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state. — Francis A. Schaeffer

I own I never really warmed
To the reformer or reformed.
And yet conversion has its place
Not halfway down the scale of grace. — Robert Frost

The readiness with which women are apt to forgive the men who have deceived other women; and that inconsiderate notion of too many of them that a reformed rake makes the best husband, are great encouragements to vile men to continue their profligacy. — Samuel Richardson

There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.
[This quote illustrates the reformed spelling advocated by Webster.] — Noah Webster

Certainly Social Security needs to be reformed. — Kent Conrad

to have a physical body and to work with it and to work with the forces of nature to mold it into the highest expression of joy, and to keep it always by using it to learn how to overcome disease, impairment and as today's cutting edge, non-funded, objective, purposeful science says, one day, even death? What if short-term excitement and intensity created by the overblown desire to win at all cost could be replaced by a more durable excitement in an intensity springing from the heart of the physical athletic experience itself? It would soon be discovered that sports and physical activities reformed and refurbished with integrity, not buy-offs are the best possible path to personal enlightenment and social transformation for this new millennium. — Don Tolman

Repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed. — Thomas Watson Jr.

Sometimes it seemed that one of the stars came loose from the firmament and sailed off with dizzying speed to a far corner of the night. In the dark hours before sunrise, constellations came apart and reformed and fell in burning streaks. — Joe Hill

The Gospel does not say, "you must do good works." Rather, it fashions us into human beings, into creatures who cannot help serve God and fellow human beings. Without a doubt, a precious effect! — C.F.W. Walther

It is astonishing that Monod's Les Adieux are not better known. This courageous French Reformed pastor was both passionate in his care for people and singular in his devotion to God. — William Edgar

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

We are a great country, and whatever choice we make we will still be great. But I believe the choice is between being an even greater Britain inside a reformed EU or a great leap into the unknown. — David Cameron

It's not about terror or anything else, it's about politics, and so it becomes more about politics than it does about faith. Orthodox rabbis - that is about faith. There's not a single Orthodox rabbi on this list. This is all Reformed rabbis that were - that made this list. — Glenn Beck

The light which we have gained, was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitering of a bishop, and the removing hum from the Presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy nation; no, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule of life both economical and political, be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zwinglius and Calvin have beaconed up to us, that we are stark blind. — John Milton

These Reformation wars involved the biggest population movements in Europe between the 'barbarian' upheavals which dismantled the western Roman Empire and the twentieth century's First and Second World Wars. Hundreds of thousands of people decided to follow the example of the English, quit Europe and brave the terrors of the Atlantic to find a new life in north America. As early as 1662 some of the Duke of Savoy's Waldensian victims in the Alpine valleys took ship for a sympathetic Dutch Reformed colony; they found a new safe home on Stateri Island, amid the great natural haven which would become New York.3 — Diarmaid MacCulloch

What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation. — Thomas Carlyle

Reformed theology isn't a sledgehammer with which to hit people, it's a pillow on which they can lay their weary heads. — Burk Parsons

The phrase 'Founding Fathers' is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group: the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other important players not in attendance, but these fifty-five made up the core. Among the delegates were twenty-eight Episcopalians, eight Presbyterians, seven Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Dutch Reformed, two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, one unknown, and only three deists- Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin. This took place at a time when church membership usually entailed "sworn adherence to strict doctrinal creeds." This tally proves that 51 of 55 -a full 93 percent- of the members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political underpinnings of our nation were Christians, not deists. — Gregory Koukl

In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument. An age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows, — Anthony Trollope

I consider that a most ignoble endeavor. The only way I would like to 'help' the great majority of people is the same way Carl Panzram 'reformed' people who tried to reform him. It would be most merciful to help them by relieving them of the life they seem to hate so much. People should be happy I'm not a humanitarian-or I'd probably be the most diabolical mass murderer the world has ever known. — Anton Szandor LaVey

It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit because there is no winter there. — John Bunyan

They say a reformed roue makes the best husband, but, Oh! Didn't they tell you? Monsters can't be reformed ... — John Geddes

Just as soon as the uplifters get a country reformed it slips into a nose dive. — Don Marquis

I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child's character. — Edward J. Flanagan

I?m not even sure I?d go into a reformed House of Lords. But let?s put it like this, the decision would have been easier had there been not even complete reform but a substantial stride. — Neil Kinnock

Reformed rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like Islam, radicalized Islam in a way, to where it is just radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics. When you look at the Reform Judaism, it is more about politics. — Glenn Beck

When I talk to teachers they tell me the things they'd most like from any government are a reduction in bureaucracy, support to help ensure good discipline and a reformed Ofsted. — Michael Gove

Till men have faith in Christ, their best services are but glorious sins. — Thomas Brooks

Duty itself is supreme delight when love is the inducement and labor. By such a principle the ignorant are enlightened, the hard-hearted softened, the disobedient reformed, and the faithful encouraged. — Hosea Ballou

Reformed theology is ALWAYS being reformed in each new generation. And reformed theology as it is usually reported today is NOT the whole story. — Oliver D. Crisp

No one book of scripture can be understood by itself, any more than any one part of a tree or member of the body can be understood without reference to the whole of which it is a part. — Charles Hodge

The beginning of questioning well is to seek to question well, which may mean laying down our questions and allowing them to be reshaped and reformed by the answers given us by God. — G.K. Chesterton

Reform suggests that you have already been solidified into a self. You were not. You were barely fifteen. You learn that the brain is not fully formed until you're twenty-five years old, and you wonder, then, what becomes of the mind commandeered before it has learned to follow paths of logic. You were soft as clay straight from the earth. You were reformed before you were formed. — Addie Zierman

My concern with this is not about who owns the trademark. If a label is used chiefly to lionize "us" and demonize "them," we'd be better off without it. Rather, my concern is that the richness and breadth of Reformed faith and practice are being reduced to a few doctrines. In the process, even those doctrines lose much of their supporting rationale. In fact, their meaning changes at crucial points. For example, I believe that the doctrine of election is inextricably bound up with covenant theology and with the covenantal life that is shaped in the New Testament by the means of grace. As I have argued, even "eternal security" is different from the doctrine of perseverance. — Michael S. Horton

In typical Washington fashion, nothing gets reformed until a disaster happens. — Ronald Kessler

Now, my dear Tuppy, don't be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good. — Oscar Wilde

Franklin thought that if he could maintain his devotion to one virtue for an entire week, it would become a habit; then he could move on to the next virtue, successively making fewer and fewer offenses (indicated on the calendar by a black mark) until he had completely reformed himself and would thereafter need only occasional bouts of moral maintenance. The — Mason Currey

Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better. — Rebecca Goldstein

In the Reformed tradition, a good deal of our stoicism and apathy rides like a parasite on the back of the doctrine of God's sovereignty and providence. — Toby J. Sumpter

He who reforms himself, has done much toward reforming others; and one reason why the world is not reformed, is, because each would have others make a beginning, and never thinks of himself doing it. — Thomas Adams

Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity. — John Piper

The emerging church, reformed according to the needs of self-esteem-starved-souls under the Lordship of Christ ... will help us to affirm the concept that 'While god's ideas may seem humanly impossible, he will give us these ideas which will lead to glorious, self-esteem-generating success. — Robert H. Schuller

You and I live at a moment of history that is simultaneously terrible and wonderful. Terrible because of the condition of the society in which we are destined to live out our lives. Wonderful because of the unprecedented opportunities to make a difference in the destiny of a nation and the world. — Philip Lancaster

There can be no compromise with war; it cannot be reformed or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense. — Jeannette Rankin

I've reformed. The kissing is sort of a holdover."
"Don't reform. I like you bad. — Ruthie Knox

In my dream, all of the collapsed ceilings reformed above us. The fire went back into the bombs, which rose up and into the bellies of planes whose propellers turned backward, like the second hands of the clocks across Dresden, only faster. — Jonathan Safran Foer

This notion of the centrality of the church ... could hardly be more pertinent to the perennial question of "Christian culture" and our evaluation of the great figures such as Calvin and Kuyper. Hearing the words "Christian culture" may evoke visions of godly emperors, medieval Madonnas, or Bach cantatas. None of which are really about the church. Or perhaps the phrase "Christian culture" resonates with contemporary Reformed buzzwords like "world and life view," "transformation," and "kingdom vision"
all of which, I fear, are often enlisted in the service of convincing Reformed youth that it is a mistake to think of the church as central to the Christian life. — David VanDrunen

There is a breeze blowing. I see it in the deep discontent that is being voiced with the threadbare state of the evangelical world, with its empty worship, its market-driven superficiality, and its trivial thought. It is a breeze blowing toward better, deeper, more honest things. I suspect that it is the Holy Spirit who is blowing, that this is his breeze, and that these leaves that are shaking are the signs of better things to come within an evangelical faith that is thus being reformed. Let us all pray that it is so! — David F. Wells

Theologically, from the very beginning of his Christian life, he was a Calvinist. This was the doctrinal conviction, no doubt of his home church in Nottingham. Pink does show a change in the basic framework of his theology in the passing of time (from dispensationalism to Reformed theology), but there is no evidence of any change in the matter of his Calvinistic convictions. — Richard P. Belcher

He knows that kind of love. It is what he feels for Gallicina. It is the world reformed, made new, each time the lover sees the beloved's face. It is the miracle which makes the cosmos dance, which keeps the planets in their courses, which fuels the fire of the stars. It is salvation. — Susan Palwick

It is in my heart that I believe most strongly that our future is within a reformed E.U. - not least because we now live in a global marketplace. — Andrew Lansley

Punishment and judgment don't create a reformed heart; they create - at best - a heart full of fear, and - at worst - a heart full of rebellion. — Tullian Tchividjian

Reformed rakes often make the best husbands. — Judith McNaught

When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. — John Milton

There are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness. — Frank Herbert

Uh, hello? I prefer recently reformed promiscuous reprobate. I'm just sayin', if we're gonna name call, let's just make sure we get 'em straight — Jenn Cooksey

The only person more cynical than a drunk is a reformed drunk. — James Crumley

there is nothing so bad as a reformed anything, be it gambler, drunkard, or lecher. They are aye harder on folks wi' their vices than someone without them would be." Sir — Marion Chesney

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose. — John Piper

All that is deformed ought to be reformed. The Word of God alone teaches us what ought to be so, and all reform effected otherwise is vain. — Francis Lambert

While opponents label (Howard) Dean a throwback liberal, The New York Times recently noted that as governor, Dean cut income taxes, reformed welfare and balanced Vermont's budget - all traditionally conservative policies. Dean also received an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association, which I think you can't get unless you've killed a guy. — Jon Stewart

Antiheroes
Aren't just black and white; they exploit the mystery and allure of shadow, of shades of grey. For the writer, they offer more story possibilities than heroes. They could tip either way, either supporting or fighting him. Reformed antiheroes could revert to bad ways, and even on the side of good, but they cab still use methods that would make a true hero blush or flinch. The only problem is that the characteristics that make them antiheroes can, if use for good, transform them into heroes; and then life tends to be much less entertaining. — Helen McCarthy

Reformed, Poetic Ministry for an Opium Addict — Anonymous

People came at me with all sorts of offers, wanting to make me into a hard-core Cher. I had no desire for any amount of money to be reformed for someone's vision, because in the end, that's what you got: your clay in someone else's hands. — Patti Smith

My feeling is that if all Catholics or Reformed Christians had been deported to Germany, the Dutch government in London would have instructed the population in the occupied Netherlands to help them. — Els Borst

Reagan was president and had Democrats control the House and Senate, and they reformed the tax code. Clinton was president, and he had Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole; they reformed welfare and balanced the budget. — Kevin McCarthy

The English Church, it was claimed, was Catholicism purified and reformed. And what was the nature of this reform? The truth was that nobody, least of all Henry himself, had much idea. — Edward Rutherfurd

[Concerning the Word preached:] Do we prize it in our judgments? Do we receive in into our hearts? Do we fear the loss of the Word preached more than the loss of peace and trade? Is it the removal of the ark that troubles us? Again, do we attend to the Word with reverential devotion? When the judge is giving the charge on the bench, all attend. When the Word is preached, the great God is giving us his charge. Do we listen to it as to a matter of life and death? This is a good sign that we love the Word. — Thomas Watson

The gospel brings tidings, glad tidings indeed,
To mourners in Zion, who want to be freed,
From sin and Satan, and Mount Sinai's flame,
Good news of salvation, through Jesus the Lamb.

What sweet invitations, the gospel contains,
To men heavy laden, with bondage and chains;
It welcomes the weary, to come and be blessed,
With ease from their burdens, in Jesus to rest.

For every poor mourner, who thirsts for the Lord,
A fountain is opened, in Jesus the Word;
Their poor parched conscience, to cool and to wash,
From guilt and pollution, from dead works and dross.

A robe is provided, their shame now to hide,
In which none are clothed, but Jesus' bride;
Though it be costly, yet is the robe free,
And all Zion's mourners, shall decked with it be. — William Gadsby

The chaos and the confusion of all possible outcomes penetrated every pixel of computer generated light, and the waves of all sub-existential normality flooded by, creating an atmosphere of peaceful eventuality. I felt that a gradual restoration was in place, and that piece by piece, universes were being reformed and restored. — Joel Julian

Perhaps art criticism cannot be reformed in a logical sense because it was never well-formed in the first place. Art criticism has long been a mongrel among academic pursuits, borrowing whatever it needed from other fields ... — James Elkins

What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one's duty to be a lover of evil or to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear to like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one's friends are incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he was a friend; when his friend changed, therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up. — Aristotle.

No the cat we had to leave. It was not Protestant. But the dog, seeing no future for the Reformed Religion in France, was happy enough to go. — Judith Merkle Riley

Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him? — John Piper

We were all changing. We didn't have to be changed, to be re-educated, to be reformed. Thad been done, already. — Mbella Sonne Dipoko

People who have been in and around government and politics their entire lives may not be able to see the truth. Our government must be fundamentally reformed. The system has to be changed. Our politics can no longer tinker on the edges. — Carly Fiorina

My parents are definitely reformed hippies. — Alison Brie

Our most pressing obligation is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. Each generation of Christians is the seed of the next, and degenerate seed is sure to produce a degenerate harvest. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

What drives me mad in evangelical circles, including some young Reformed circles, is that there is often a sit-on-the-couch-and-wait-for-God-to-do-something mentality that is unbiblical and wicked. It's probably been true of every generation, but I can see it most clearly in the younger crowd. There seems to be so little war when it comes to sin. — Matt Chandler