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From the beginning Christianity has been a proclamation, not a thesis supported by various logical arguments. The Doctrine of God (109)
Our faith in God is not just a philosophical belief in a supreme being; it is a life-changing experience of the one who has made us what we are.God is Love
With a perversity as pathetic as it is impoverishing, we have become preoccupied today with the extraordinary, sporadic, non-universal ministries of the Spirit to the neglect of the ordinary, general ones. Knowing God (The Love of God, 130)
The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them. Answers to Prayer (11)
there are those who say that the language of election is figurative. In Christ, everyone has been chosen, whether they know it or not. This view, or variations of it, has been popular in modern times, when it has became associated with Karl Barth and his followers, but there are at least two problems with it. The first one is that the Bible never says anything like this. From the beginning to the end, it is clear that God has chosen some people and not others... The second one is that it denies human freedom, even as it claims to be asserting the worth of every human being. What if I do not want to go to heaven?God Has Spoken 895
it is not true to say that Christians capitulated to the mind-set of the surrounding philosophical culture. On the contrary, the philosophers whom they are accused of imitating were the last people in the ancient world to accept the gospel message. SO reluctant were they, in fact, that in 529 the emperor Justinian closed the remaining philosophical schools and exiled their members to Persia. If Christianity had been little more than another philosophy, it is hard to see why resistance to it would have been that strong.God Has Spoken, 311
Your flesh is a square peg, and the Spirit is a round hole. The two don't go together!
It may be too much to attribute the rise of modern scientific thought exclusively to the influence of Christianity, but it is hard to deny that the two are connected. Belief in an orderly universe preceded the discovery and application of that order, and for that belief the teaching of the Bible was largely responsible. Many early Christian writers examined the world around them in great detail, and by claiming that everything they observed went back to the providence of a good Creator they were able to make sense of the universe to a degree that had not been achieved before.God Has Spoken, 165
The supreme work of the Holy Spirit is to focus attention on, and to point to, the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the Father works all things by the Spirit. By him God creates, sustains, moves, gives life, strengthens, and preserves all things. By the self-same Spirit, he regenerates his faithful people, sanctifies them, and endues them with diverse kinds of graces. Thus, in the description of him mentioned above, his principal powers and effects which show themselves by their working in men, are comprised in four members. I said that he illuminates, regenerates, sanctifies, and fulfils the faithful with all good graces.The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
the Holy Ghost in man increases or fills, and diminishes or departs: not that there is any change to be found in God (who, as commonly and truly said, neither receives more or less); but because man, according to his capacity, either receives the Spirit plentifully and liberally, or else measurably and sparingly, even as it pleases the Holy Ghost.The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
The Holy Ghost is the third person in Trinity, to be worshipped, very God, proceeding from the Father and the Son. He enlightens, regenerates, sanctifies, and fulfills the faithful with all good graces. The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
they changed the day of rest from the seventh to the first day of the week. The Jewish Sabbath was the logical culmination of the creating work of God, who rested on the seventh day, but the first (or eighth) day symbolized the beginning of the new creation that had been established and fulfilled in Christ.God Has Spoken, 80
Christians rejected the almost superstitious reverence that some Jews had for the Sabbath, insisting that although it was meant to be a day of rest and worship, it could not be so hedged about with legalism that the weightier matters of the law had to be ignored out of deference to it.God Has Spoken, 80
Unlike the Jewish Sabbath, which was confined to this world, the Christian Sabbath pointed to the eternal rest of the people of God, which was promised to all believers but that could not be fulfilled in this life.God Has Spoken, 80
What makes the Scriptures holy is not their historical accuracy or even their content, but the presence of God in them.God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology (p. 43). Crossway
the Holy Ghost generally works on the heart of man through the use of means. The Word of God, preached or read, is generally employed by Him as an instrument in the conversion of a soul. He applies that Word to the conscience: He brings that Word home to the mind. This is His general course of procedure.Old Paths, Chapter X
We cannot explain how and in what way the Almighty Spirit comes into man, and operates upon him; but neither also can we explain a thousand things which are continually taking place in the natural world.Old Paths, Chapter X
The early Christians understood the scope for misunderstanding on this point and were uncomfortable about identifying God too closely with the supreme being of the philosophers. A small (but telling) difference shows us what the root of their problem was and how they reacted to it. The philosophers spoke of their supreme being as to on (the thing that is) but Christians changed the neuter participle to the masculine ho ōn, which to them was the equivalent of Yahweh ("he who is").3 By doing this, they made it clear that the supreme being is a person who relates to us in personal ways, not an abstract deity—a vital difference that distinguished and still distinguishes Christianity from any kind of philosophy.God is Love, 136
should be common to the faith of every believer. The love of God reaches out to each of us individually, and no one person's experience will be exactly the same as another's. But we all have a great deal in common because we know and love the same God. Theology does not focus on us and our feelings but on God and the way he has revealed himself to us.God is Love, 81
Many other examples of the misuse of a text can be cited, but it is remarkable how they usually all boil down to one of two things. Either the hermeneutical method being used is faulty, or the issues being discussed are not in the text to begin with.God is Love, 59
What do the genealogies reveal about God? They tell us that he is a faithful Lord, who keeps his covenant from one generation to another. Whoever we are and however far we may have descended from the source of our human life in Adam, we are still part of God's plan. Over the centuries we have developed differently, we have lost contact with one another, and we have even turned on each other in hostility, but in spite of all that, we are still related and interconnected in ways that go beyond our immediate understanding or experience.God is Love, 59
"Infallibility" emerged as a way of saying that the Scriptures do not teach error, and "inerrancy" makes it more precise by insisting that they do not contain it either.God is Love, 28
True theologians are sheep who hear their Shepherd's voice and interpret his words for the benefit of the rest of the flock. In this task, theology will continue until the time comes when it will no longer be needed. When that happens we shall know all things, and be enfolded forever in the unchanging and all-encompassing love of God.God is Love, 28
What we call "theology" is a work in progress. It is not a fixed body of knowledge that can never grow or develop; it continues to expand as our relationship with God deepens. At the same time, it does not change, because God does not change. Theologians may have to express themselves in new ways when challenged by fresh discoveries that raise questions our ancestors never dreamed of.God is Love, 28
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