Quote 310
Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself. 
Tim Keller
The Reason for God (8)8.4K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
To pursue union at the expense of truth is treason to the Lord Jesus.
The question to be asked of all teaching is not, 'Is it new?' but 'Is it true?
Without absolutes revealed from God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas.
we live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization. "Burning Hearts Are Not Nourished by Empty Heads", Christianity Today (Sep 3 1982)
Bad theology kills. So get rid of the adjective, not the noun. Ditch the bad. Keep the theology. Proclaiming A Cross-Centered Theology (26)
Brothers, for the sake of the truth, and for the good of your people, and for the glory of God in the world, don't confuse timid uncertainty with truthful humility. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (166)
We cannot know like God knows (archetypal), but we can know as God wants and allows and helps us to know (ectypal). Proclaiming A Cross-Centered Theology (32)
Truth must be spoken, though the greatest on earth be offended.Drink Deeply: Meditations from the Fountain of Life
The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. The Reason for God (181)
We do not owe the truth to those who want to use it for evil.
There is nothing more unloving than to be silent in the face of lies that will ruin another person.Dug Down Deep (221)
Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out and believing what truth is despite what you feel.
The covenant is "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God" (Exodus 6:7). The question is this: In light of the constant failures of the people to live up to their covenant promises to serve God, is the covenant conditional or unconditional? Will God say that it is conditional? ("Because you broke the covenant, I will cut you off, curse you, and abandon you forever.") Or will he say it is unconditional? ("Though you have rejected me, I will never wholly abandon you, but I will remain with you.") Which is it?....then Jesus comes, and as we see him crying "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" we realize the answer. Is the covenant between God and his people conditional or unconditional? Yes. Yes. Jesus came and fulfilled the conditions so God could love us unconditionally.Preaching, 72
In our culture, divine judgement is one of Christianity's most offensive doctrines. The Reason for God (69)
When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn't be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods. He would relate to us the way a playwright relates to the characters in his play. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright, but only to the degree the author chooses to put information about himself in the play. The Reason for God (122)
We are all in such a hurry, we want everything at once. We believe that all truth can be stated in a few minutes. The answer to that is that it cannot.
moralistic application doesn't work in the long term. I'm afraid a sermon that just tells people they should be generous because they have to is not dealing with the fears, false hopes, and lusts for approval and control that make people unwilling to give more. So they might give more once or twice but not actually become more generous... Unless you get to Jesus, you are just beating on their willsPreaching, 240
Without the help of the Holy Spirit, I believe all of us tend naturally toward being mainly warm and gentle or mainly forceful and authoritative in the pulpit. We must recognize our imbalance and seek the Lord for growth into the fullness of his holy character.Preaching, 200
the Achilles' heel of [the harm principle] is the assumption that we all know what "harm" is or that it can be defined without recourse to deep beliefs about right and wrong. One person says that it harms no one for a man to consume pornography privately in his own home. Others counter, however, that pornography will shape how he talks and acts with others, especially with women.Preaching, 141
Western secularists insist that their view of equal rights is simply self-evident to any rational person, but non-Western cultures do not agree... Because truly secular people can't admit the source of their main moral values in their Christian history, it makes them imperialistic.Preaching, 151
Another important grace-event pattern is the "order" of the Exodus and the lawgiving. God did not first give the law and then deliver the people. He first delivered the people and then he gave them the law. Thus we are not saved by the law but saved for the law.Preaching, 83
Mark is intentionally recapping the Jonah episode in Mark 4. He uses nearly identical words and phrases. Both Jesus and Jonah are in a boat. Both are in storms described in similar terms. Both boats are filled with others who are terrified of death. Both groups wake the sleeping prophets angrily, rebuking them. Both storms are miraculously calmed and the companions saved. And both stories conclude with the men in the boats more terrified after the storm is stilled than they were before.Preaching, 78
Hughes Old shows us that the original preaching of the church in its first five centuries used the lectio continua method - consecutive, verse-by-verse exposition through whole books of the Bible, taking years to bring the congregation through great swaths of biblical material.Preaching, 39
[Hughes Oliphant Old] names five basic types of sermons that he discerns over the centuries, which he calls expository, evangelistic, catechetical, festal, and prophetic.Preaching, 29
In the course of expounding a biblical text the Christian preacher should compare and contrast with the foundational beliefs of the culture, which are usually invisible to people inside it, in order to help people understand themselves more fully. If done rightly it can lead people to say to themselves, Oh, so that's why I tend to think and feel that way. This can be one of the most liberating and catalytic steps in a person's journey to faith in Christ.Preaching, 19-20
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