Quote 2745
A Christian without a Bible is a soldier without a weapon.
Wilhelmus a Brakel
The Christian\'s Reasonable Service 1:762.6K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
How easy it is to read the Scriptures and give a kind of nominal assent to the truth and yet never to appropriate what it tells us!
O my soul, is it possible for thee to hear the excellency of Scripture thus opened to thee, and not to burn in love to it? Hast thou been all this while in such a host bath, and still cold and shivering?The Christian Man\'s Calling
God will condemn those by his Word, who will not judge themselves by it.
The body of Scripture is a doctrine sufficient to live well. It comprehends many holy sciences of which one is principal, and the others are handmaids or attendants.https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/perkins/A%20Golden%20Chain%20-%20William%20Perkins.pdf
One should entertain no notions about justification if he does not at the same time possess the principle of sanctification.
Christians need to remember that the sufficiency of Scripture gives us a comprehensive worldview that equips us to wrestle with even the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our time.
We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
In short, I will preach it [the Word], teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
The collapse in evangelical doctrinal consensus is intimately related to the collapse in the understanding of, and role assigned to, Scripture as God's Word spoken within the church.Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
The Scriptures of God are written for all believers; all believers have the Spirit of Christ, by whom one understands the Scriptures. https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Bucer-Grounds-and-Reasons-from-Scripture-for-the-Changes-about-the-Lords-Supper-called-the-Mass-Baptism-Feast-Days-and-Images.pdf
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
Other books may belong to a people, an age, a stage of human development; this book belongs to all peoples, all ages and all stages of growth, whether of the individual or of the race - unifying them all and wielding them into one vitalized and vitalizing whole. The Bible is, by way of eminence, the book of humanity.
He who is lazy in temporal matters will be lazy in spiritual matters, and he who is diligent in spiritual matters will be diligent in temporal matters.
When we say that the Scriptures are the judge of controversies, we mean it in no other sense than that they are the source of divine right, and the most absolute rule of faith by which all controversies of faith can and
should be certainly and perspicuously settled—even as in a republic, the foundations of decisions and of judgments are drawn from the law. So a judge may be taken widely and by metonomy of the adjunct for a normal
and not a personal judge. Hence he must not be confounded with the subordinate judge who decides controversies according to the rule of the law and applies the authority of the law to things taken singly. This accords with the Philosopher's rule, 'The law must govern all, but the magistrates and the state must decide as to individuals' (Aristotle, Politics 4.4.33–34).
The ignorance and blindness of man are not to be compounded with the obscurity of the Scriptures. The former is often pressed upon the Scriptures, but it is not so, nor can the latter be legitimately inferred from the former no more than that the sun is obscure because it cannot be seen by a blind man. Hence if David and other believers desire their eyes to be opened that they may see wonderful things out of the law, it does not therefore prove the obscurity of the Scriptures, but only the ignorance of men. The question here is not Do men need the light of the Holy Spirit in order to understand the Scriptures? (which we willingly grant); but Are the Scriptures obscure to a believing and illuminated man? Again, illumination may be either theoretical or practical, in its first stage or in its increase. David does not properly seek the former, but the latter
The question is not whether things essential to salvation are everywhere in the Scriptures perspicuously revealed. We acknowledge that there are some things hard to be understood and intended by God to exercise our attention and mental powers. The question is whether things essential to salvation are anywhere revealed, at least so that the believer can by close meditation ascertain their truth (because nothing can be drawn out of the more obscure passages which may not be found elsewhere in the plainest terms). As Augustine remarks: 'Admirable and healthily the Spirit has so arranged the Scriptures that by the plainer passages he might meet our desires and by the obscurer remove our contempt' (CI 2.6); and, 'We feed in the open places, we are exercised by the obscure; there hunger is driven away, here contempt' (Sermon 71, 'De Verbis Domini,' 7.11.)"
Is the Bible the Word of God? Then mind that you do not neglect it. Read it: read it! Begin to read it this very day. What greater insult to God can a man be guilty of than to refuse to read the letter God sends him from heaven? Oh, be sure, if you will not read your Bible, you are in fearful danger of losing your soul! You are in danger, because God will reckon with you for your neglect of the Bible in the day of judgement.Old Paths, 17
The Word written is not only a rule of knowledge, but a rule of obedience; it is not only to mend our sight, but to mend our pace. Reading without practice will be but a torch to light men to hell.
God's story is our ontology: it explains our nature, our essence, our beginnings and our endings, our qualities, and our attributes. When we daily read our Bibles, in large chunks of whole books at a time, we daily learn that our own story began globally and ontologically. God has known us longer than anyone else has. The Bible declares that he knew us from before the foundations of the world.
The Scriptures are the transcript of the Father's will, and that was ever His delight.
Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.
When there's something in the Word of God that I don't like, the problem is not with the Word of God. It's with me.
The Scriptures are the lifeline God throws us in order to ensure he and we stay connected while the rescue is in process.
Every view of Scripture proves, on analysis, to be bound up with an overall view of God and man.
Command, promise, Messiah—the basic terms of the Bible's message are ineradicably verbal and cannot be communicated in isolation from words. Bin the words and whatever else you are left with; it is not Christianity, biblical, historical or otherwise. We do need to think about how such a word-based religion can be communicated in this day and generation; we do need to avoid at all costs becoming a middle-class ghetto for frustrated academics. But we also need to be faithful to the Bible's own form and matter, both of which involve words at their very centre. Let us not despair: the Word is not just the Word; it is the Word of, in, and through the Spirit. It is powerful in its very essence. Our task is ultimately to communicate it; the power of the communication resides in God alone. Let us remember the words of Isaiah and concentrate not so much upon technique as upon the moral attitude we should adopt: This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2)."
Top Authors
1. Charles Spurgeon (115)
2. J.C. Ryle (111)
3. Thomas Watson (108)
4. John Calvin (83)
5. John Piper (82)
6. J.I. Packer (76)
7. George Swinnock (69)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (48)
12. Gerald Bray (47)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. John Owen (44)
15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
16. Tim Keller (42)
17. Joe Boot (42)
18. Abraham Kuyper (40)
19. John Flavel (38)
20. Thomas Brooks (36)
2. J.C. Ryle (111)
3. Thomas Watson (108)
4. John Calvin (83)
5. John Piper (82)
6. J.I. Packer (76)
7. George Swinnock (69)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (48)
12. Gerald Bray (47)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. John Owen (44)
15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
16. Tim Keller (42)
17. Joe Boot (42)
18. Abraham Kuyper (40)
19. John Flavel (38)
20. Thomas Brooks (36)
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5. Faith (94)
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8. Suffering (63)
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11. Truth (47)
12. Salvation (40)
13. Love (36)
14. Theology (36)
15. Grace (34)
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17. Children (31)
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