Best 4545 quotes in «christianity quotes» category

It’s not a bad thing, if you’re responsible about it. Just don’t start having boyfriends. Wait until you’ve found your husband.” “And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can’t have a boyfriend until then?” I asked ironically.

It's one thing to say so in a prayer, but it's a whole other thing to match those prayers in obedience.

It’s perfectly understandable, in my opinion, to find good things in the teachings of Jesus Christ or any other figure, mythical or otherwise. But to base your life on the teachings of Jesus as they are portrayed in the Bible and claim that you are not religious is disingenuous.

It’s only when we acknowledge God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we can receive His love for us.

It sounds to me, dear, as if your satirist is a bit like a monk. They both take a rather dim view of the world, and both try to do something about it." "Thank you, Father Joe! I think I knew that once, but I'd forgotten. Contemptus mundi. We both have contempt for the world." "You p-p-persist in your error, my son. Contemptus does not mean 'contempt.' It means 'detachment.' Are you detached from the things you satirize?

It's so much more than a child's story. - Matt Chandler on LIFE Today.

It's through the cross that we reach the resurrection. We should be absolutely sure of this truth, and we should keep this cross hidden and not place it on the shoulders of others. It is our cross we have to carry. It is the one God has given us to go through into His resurrection. This is the one we should keep hidden. But there are crosses and crosses, some of our own making. These we should immediately discard. Some permitted by God for our sanctification. These we can share for they are also for the sanctification of others. True, we can help to carry other people's crosses and they can help to carry our crosses, but the operative word is "hidden." The Lord said, "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men," and "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Mt 6:16-18) Our very hiddenness becomes a light if we do not complain, if we carry our cross manfully, ready to help in the carrying of other people's crosses. Then we become a light to our neighbour's feet because we become an icon of Christ—shining!

It's the church's responsibility to thoughtfully, intentionally, and respectfully engage everyone - because God loves them all. That's the gospel being lived out for all to see and experience.

It’s tough to be a Christian in our world. We need to be willing to take on Jesus’ unpopularity and the scorn that is often heaped on Him.

It's unlimited what we can do through Christ.

It's time to demand that the faithful keep their personal choices, preferences and beliefs in irrational and sometimes dangerous things strictly private. Everyone is absolutely free to believe what they want, provided they do not harass others (or force, or kill them) .. But nobody has the right to insist on privileges simply because they are supporters of one or other of the world's many religions." From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god" ('Scourges of an imaginary god')

It struck me as particularly suspicious that Yahweh was described as being remarkably human. I mean, seriously; this God is, at times, almost too human.

«It's true, Christian-like or not; and is about as Christian-like as most other things in the world,» said Alfred.

It takes a stronger person to restrain from retaliation, then opposing to someone who's filled with vengeance

It’s when your plans look dead that God’s resurrection power begins to operate in your life in greater measure

It takes a love as that of the heavenly to move from places like; Sympathy to empathy Success to Significance Care to Sacrifice #Maxwell'sQuotes

It’s when you humble yourself as a servant that people want to follow you as a leader.

It takes courage to share your gifting, but when you do, you have authority and a life changing attitude

It took a couple of months before we were both convinced there were no rules about sexual activities in Hell and our spouses were not going to show up out of the blue. It was hard to start a sexual relationship in circumstances of such bizarre uncertainty, especially for an active Mormon and a good Christian, both lost in a Zoroastrian Hell. We were like virgin newlyweds. All my life I’d been raised to believe this kind of thing was wrong. All my life I had lived with a strong sense of morality. How do you give it up? How do you do things you thought you’d never do? Where do all the things you believed go, when all the supporting structure is found to be a myth? How do you know how or on what to take a moral stand, how do you behave when it turns out there are no cosmic rules, no categorical imperatives? It was difficult. So tricky to untangle.

I turned and beheld seven rows of plasma screens, each bearing seven vivid scenes, each flickering, each pulsing with a light revealing distant terrors, conflagrations, sufferings - and all thereby brought so close, and all thereby kept far away.

It was a music of the spirit, seeking peace, not emotional release, expressing the hunger of the soul rather than the heart. A way of sequencing notes so ancient it might be music's mother lode, its Fertile Crescent. It wouldn't have grated, I felt, on the ears of ancient Greeks or Egyptians or Mesopotamians or Sumerians—or even on the august auditory equipment of the Buddha or Lao-tzu.

...it was born out of habits of mind produced by Christianity: that if you sacrificed yourself you would somehow attain the object of your desires. It was a knife of an idea, a cruel instrument of sacrifice...

It was evangelicals' sense of rudderlessness - their desire for an authority to guide them in questions of dogma, life, and worship - that led them to rediscover liturgy and history in the first place. The irony was that in their smorgasbord approach to non-Protestant tradition, in their individualistic rejection of the rules of any one church in favor of a free run of the so-called church universal, in their repudiation of American nationalism in favor of cosmopolitanism, young evangelicals were being quintessentially evangelical and stereotypically American, doing as they pleased according to no authority but their own. The principle of sola scriptura was far clearer in theory than in practice. No matter evangelicals' faith that, with the 'illumination of the Holy Spirit,' 'Scripture could and should interpret itself,' too many illuminated believers came to different conclusions about what the Bible meant. Inerrantists who asserted their 'literal' interpretation with absolute certainty could do so only by covertly relying on modern, manmade assumptions. Other evangelicals were now searching for similar assurance in the authority of church history and the mystery of worship.

It was Hypatia’s fault, said the Christians, that the governor was being so stubborn. It was she, they murmured, who was standing between Orestes and Cyril, preventing them from reconciling. Fanned by the parabalani, the rumours started to catch, and flame. Hypatia was not merely a difficult woman, they said. Hadn’t everyone seen her use symbols in her work, and astrolabes? The illiterate parabalani (‘bestial men – truly abominable’ as one philosopher would later call them) knew what these instruments were. They were not the tools of mathematics and philosophy, no: they were the work of the Devil. Hypatia was not a philosopher: she was a creature of Hell. It was she who was turning the entire city against God with her trickery and her spells. She was ‘atheizing’ Alexandria. Naturally, she seemed appealing enough – but that was how the Evil One worked. Hypatia, they said, had ‘beguiled many people through satanic wiles’. Worst of all, she had even beguiled Orestes. Hadn’t he stopped going to church? It was clear: she had ‘beguiled him through her magic’. This could not be allowed to continue. One day in March AD 415, Hypatia set out from her home to go for her daily ride through the city. Suddenly, she found her way blocked by a ‘multitude of believers in God’. They ordered her to get down from her chariot. Knowing what had recently happened to her friend Orestes, she must have realized as she climbed down that her situation was a serious one. She cannot possibly have realized quite how serious. As soon as she stood on the street, the parabalani, under the guidance of a Church magistrate called Peter – ‘a perfect believer in all respects in Jesus Christ’ – surged round and seized ‘the pagan woman’. They then dragged Alexandria’s greatest living mathematician through the streets to a church. Once inside, they ripped the clothes from her body then, using broken pieces of pottery as blades, flayed her skin from her flesh. Some say that, while she still gasped for breath, they gouged out her eyes. Once she was dead, they tore her body into pieces and threw what was left of the ‘luminous child of reason’ onto a pyre and burned her.

It was like magic, but so much of magic is about misdirection, whereas so much of redemption is straightforward and ordinary, piercing true and lit with surprise.

It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason ... because man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: "The eye has not seen, O God...what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee" (Is 66:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their ... actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths about God which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation.

It was now eighty years since a Christian had first sat on the throne of Rome and in the intervening decades the religion of the Lamb had taken an increasingly bullish attitude to all those who refused it. Since taking control in Alexandria, Theophilus had lived up to his early promise as a statue-smashing scourge. A little earlier, he had stolen the most sacred objects from two temples and paraded them through the streets for Christians to mock. The worshippers of the old gods were shocked and enraged: this was a gross and unprompted act of sacrilege and Christians afterwards were attacked and even killed by outraged worshippers.

It was the afternoon in the city of Orlando, Florida. Amid the hustle and bustle, the cafe next door to a strip mall played popular music out loud. Children and families with familiar cartoon characters on their shirts and hats walked past; vacationers took pictures of the palm trees and the ducks passing by, shouting, "Look! Florida ducks!

It was William who would climb out of his carriage unafraid and help a farmer drive a herd of cattle or sheep across a road when necessary.

It were better that we were not at all, than that we should live still in wickedness, and to suffer, and not to know wherefore.

It would be unjust toward children to introduce them to Christian teaching and existence only as little pagans and catechumens, in order to leave it up to them to choose the Faith on their own responsibility at a point in time difficult to determine.

I've been a Christian since I was a little girl. But my Christianity is a muddy mess of thoughts and opinions and making God into what works for me-like going shopping at the mall and picking out whatever I want, putting together faith like I would an outfit. Somehow I don't think the Creator, the I AM, the savior of the world is something we can mix and match to out liking.

It will not, however, affect one tiny bit the question of whether the text has a literal meaning because—mark this—every biblical text has a literal meaning. Many people are stunned to hear this. That is because many people think a "literal meaning" can only be conveyed by literal language. They make the mistake of assuming that an author who uses metaphor, fiction, hyperbole, or various other figures of speech does not have a literal meaning. Thus, for instance, if I say "my heart is broken", some people mistakenly imagine that I "meant nothing literally." But, of course, I do. I literally mean I am deeply grieved and I am expressing that grief via a metaphor. Likewise, if I say "I stood in line for a million years" I am using an exaggeration to communicate another literal meaning: I waited a long time. Indeed, more often than not, metaphor is exactly the right vehicle for conveying a literal meaning and is far better than nonfigurative language. The shortest distance between two minds is a figure of speech. -- Making Senses of Scripture

I used to be afraid of the dark until I learned that I am light and the dark is afraid of me.

I've heard of such a legend!' I gasped. 'A child descended from a union between Christ and Mary Magdalene!' 'Don't be so fucking stupid,' snorted Mons. 'There's hundreds of those!

I’ve heard so many people, particularly people of faith, say they could look past his wrongdoings. When they’re pressed further, the reply is always some variation of “He doesn’t mean what he says,” “It’s just to get a rise out of people,” or “It’s all for show.” When you turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and say nothing, you are in fact saying everything. You are telling others you approve of immorality and injustice. You are telling them you support the marginalization and vilification of those who are different from you. You are telling them that fear reigns supreme and that you will tolerate nefarious behavior. As President John F. Kennedy said in a speech: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality.” - Amy Erickson

I've learned that sometimes during these lengthy times of waiting on God to show up, we can gain comfort by looking at the bigger picture because history proves that the bigger the suffering, the bigger the opportunity for God to really show off.

I’ve never much liked the whole setup of Christianity, with its emphasis on being saved, thereby acknowledging a debt that can only be paid by a lifetime of sacrifice and devotion. Must God’s love have strings attached? People who crave salvation should think about how they’re going to feel if it turns out that this God who saved them is, upon closer acquaintance, completely alien. He, possibly she (or, more likely, it), is not now and never has been one of us. Jesus clearly was not one of us, with his crypto-stories about the prodigal who is more beloved by the father than the dutiful son and the sliding pay scale for field hands, with his magic powers that run the gamut from improving the wedding beverage to blasting trees to raising the dead. These days we have born-agains everywhere, even in the White House, carping about how clear and meaningful everything is now that they’ve seen the light and accepted Christ as their Savior. There they were, just sinning along aimlessly, drinking and fornicating down that slippery slope lined with good intentions and ending you know where, when suddenly Jesus reached out and down or across and saved them. And now they feel grateful all the time, every day. It things go wrong, that’s God’s way of testing their faith, and if they are successful and make lots of money, that proves they have been chosen by God. It's supposed to be all about free will, but there’s not much freedom in it. And if God is really so eager to save the desperate from themselves, where was he when my mother was knocking back the Seconal with her lunatic girlfriend from hell.

I’ve seen a disobedient client simply turn his attention toward The Adversary and ask “Are You still there?” and suddenly all was made well between them.

I’ve realized, though, we can either choose to be vulnerable or have moments of vulnerability sneak up on us. Like when you’re happily alone, strutting around your house naked, but then hear a sound. Suddenly, the comfort and confidence you felt in your own skin evaporates. You run to the nearest room, hurrying to shut the door. Then you wait, and listen quietly for an opportunity to make an escape. Your mind races trying to think of an excuse for your current nude state. You’re embarrassed. But, if you live your life listening for the Lord, obeying when He asks you to be vulnerable, you never have to worry about being walked in on. Your soul is ready to be seen. And, He won’t allow your life to be marked by shame or embarrassment.

I've never fully understood how Christianity became quite so tame and respectable, given its origins among drunkards, prostitutes, and tax collectors....Jesus could have hung out in the high-end religious scene of his day, but instead he scoffed at all that, choosing instead to laugh at the powerful, befriend whores, kiss sinners, and eat with all the wrong people. He spent his time with people for whom life was not easy. And there, amid those who were suffering, he was the embodiment of perfect love.

I’ve tried everything else, I’ll try God.“- Cherie.

I wanna be so consumed with the love of Christ that it flows into every aspect of my life.

I want to affirm that thinking and living, knowing and doing, theory and practice intersect.

I ville, at vi skal være Christne, og I ville selv ikke være det. Men, hvis I ville ikke være Christne, saa værer i det ringeste Mennisker. Handle med os i det ringeste ligesom I ingen anden Religion havde end den, som Naturens Lys dicterer.

I wanted to stand on the kind of holy ground that wasn't curated by church professionals, where a burning bush could blaze forth in defiance of safety regulations and outside of regular office hours.

I want to commune with Christ and live in His fullness or I don't want anything to do with Christianity. I want all God has to offer.

I want you to wrestle with the Bible. Do it. Wrestle until, Jacob-like, you walk with a limp ever after, and you receive the blessing of the Lord.

I want to grow old with you. I want your face to be the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. I want to feel my children growing inside you. Sarah, my love. I want to worship the Lord with you, and hear your laughter until the day I die.

I was always exceedingly delighted with that saying of Chrysostom, "The foundation of our philosophy is humility"; and yet more pleased with that of Augustine: "As the orator, when asked, What is the first precept in eloquence? answered, Delivery: What is the second? Delivery: What is the third? Delivery: so if you ask me concerning the precepts of the Christian religion, I will answer, first, second, and third, Humility.