Here are some quotes from Twitter that I like. Most of these were Retweeted by people I follow (not a lot) and were originally Tweeted by the author except the book quote. I’ve filled out words that were truncated. I hope you don’t mind some commentary.

Comments always welcome.

Jesus Christ is greater than the Bible. But diminishing the Bible for the sake of Christ always loses Christ.

–John Piper

Why does it take so much stuff (lights, instruments, good singers) for us to be excited about Christ?

–David Platt

Our willingness to make others a success is a great measure of the purity of our ambitions.

–Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition – Looks like a good book; interview with author at link. I have a friend who has this attitude towards me. When he first expressed it I was at a loss. This is a good model for our marriages.

We know it’s wrong to worship immorality—but it’s also wrong to worship morality.

–Tullian Tchividjian

Resting on God’s grace does not relieve us of our holy obligations; rather it should enable us to fulfill them.

–Bryan Chapell

So many pastors guilt their congregation into doing good (like “tithing” 10% to the church they attend, which I just heard Charles Stanley say), which only makes for a temporary commitment, and always making the right decisions (which he also said, but it is part of being obedient) but leave out the grace part which is the work of the Holy Spirit helping us to want to do good in the first place (Phil 2:13) whether it’s serving or spiritual disciplines, and then enabling us to do it (2 Cor 9:8). It’s our job to pray for this (John 16:24) and to be obedient (1 Pet 1:15-16). (I’m sure there’s a better one than John 16:24 for this application.)

The pursuit of holiness must be anchored in, and motivated by, the grace of God; otherwise it is doomed to failure.

–Tullian Tchividjian, quoting Jerry Bridges?

To say something good about Charles Stanley–I heard him explain the Gospel in a very straightforward, Biblical way and was mesmerized. It was great.

Many Churches:

“Oh, please, approve of me”–the usual message of modern Christian churches

–William Murchison, retired senior columnist for the Dallas Morning News and committed churchmen, writing in Mortal Follies

HT: Kevin DeYoung

This goes along with “accepting Christ”. We don’t accept Him, He accepts us! We may accept the gospel, but as we believe and boldly turn away from the world and to Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit and Jesus becomes our Lord and Savio[u]r. God is sovereign over salvation and Jesus is the only way to Him. We are are wholly devoted to that or not.

Especially relevant for bloggers.

The wise do not react rashly out of heated passion but speak and act deliberately in full control of their emotions, aiming to restore the erring friendship, not to defend themselves.

Bruce Waltke, Proverbs

Proverbs 17:27-28 HCSB
The intelligent person restrains his words,
and one who keeps a cool head is a man of understanding.
28 Even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent,
discerning, when he seals his lips.

Job 13:5
If only you would shut up and let that be your wisdom!

I can’t find any politicking or anything political in a societal sense in the New Testament yet I read people writing about how Jesus was political. Maybe their definition of political is different than mine.

Here is part of the description of David Black’s (yes, our dear Greek professor and blogger friend) book, Christian Archy.

In Christian Archy, Dr. David Alan Black examines the New Testament to find the truly radical and all-encompassing claims of God’s kingdom. In doing so, he discovers that the character of this kingdom is widely different from what is commonly contemplated today. Its glory is revealed only through suffering[—]a point that Jesus’ disciples, then and now, have been slow to understand. This truth has tremendous implications for church life. The kingdom of God is in no way imperialistic. It has no political ambitions. It conquers not by force but by love. It is this humble characteristic of the kingdom that is a stumbling block to so many today. Christ’s claim to our total allegiance is one we seek to avoid at all costs. But there is only one way to victory and peace, and that is the way of the Lamb.

Hopelessness is the doorway to hope. You have to give up on you before you will be excited about the hope that is yours in Christ Jesus.

–Paul Tripp, via Twitter

1 Cor 15:19-22 HCSB
If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone. 20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. 22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

As the evangelical community turns to CBMW for trusted counsel on contemporary Bible translations that are faithful and accurate in their rendering of gender-language,

–CBMW

Really? Are you sure?

1. Many don’t know what translation they’re reading.
2. Those who do don’t know much at all about translations/translation philosophy etc. or other translations (which is fine)
3. Hardly anyone knows who the CBMW is.

There is an error to avoid, the danger of seeing the loving obedience of Christ as primarily and exclusively for the sake of man, when in fact, it was primarily out of love for God that He accepted the cross.

–Frederick S. Leahy, The Cross He Bore

“We rise from the Bible …with a knowledge of the character of God. There is a real analogy here to our relation with an earthly friend. How do we come to know one another? Not all at once, but by years of observation of one another’s actions… So it is, somewhat, with the knowledge of God that we obtain from the Bible… by what we see we learn to know Him.”

–J. Gresham Machen, via Randy Alcorn on Facebook

“The fear of the Lord” is closely equivalent to what R. Otto labeled “the idea of the Holy.” Upon encountering the Holy One, one is filled with both fear and trust and gives expression to that awe by submitting to the ethics entailed in the purity of the Holy One. Wisdom consists in transcending the fallen human world and participating in the divine, the holy.

–Bruce Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, pg. 441-442

Proverbs 9:10 HCSB
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

St. Augustine writing to St. Jerome:

“For, I admit to your Charity that it is from those books alone of the Scriptures, which are now called canonical, that I have learned to pay them such honor and respect as to believe most firmly that not one of their authors has erred in writing anything at all. If I do find anything in those books which seems contrary to truth, I decide that either the text [particular copy] is corrupt, or the translator did not follow what was really said, or that I failed to understand it.”

This simplifies things which I think is helpful and describes what I’ve always believed and still do after reading other points of view.

Zacharias Ursinus, principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism, commenting on Q/A 21, describes “the man who truly believes,” the man with “justifying faith,” saying:

He believes that every thing which the Scriptures contain is true, and from God. (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, 111 [pagination may not be the same]).

In a nutshell, this is what I mean by inerrancy. There is nothing false in Scripture, no errors in fact or doctrine, no mistakes in history or theology. Everything in the Scriptures is true, because it is all from God. This is what our confessions teach, the Reformers taught, and how the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout history have understood the Scriptures. It’s also how Jesus and the apostles approached the Old Testament.

–Kevin DeYoung, Inerrancy and the Reformers (blog post)

I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.

–Charles Spurgeon

HT: Randy Alcorn via Facebook

As an aside, for what it’s worth, I think the “doctrine of election” should be narrowed down because everyone believes in it unless they don’t believe the Bible. It’s what type of election. Spurgeon of course is talking about Calvinism’s/Reformed limited atonement type, which I agree with.

I feel the same way about what Calvinists refer to as “the doctrines of grace” as if they have it cornered. Everyone except maybe Pelagians believe that we are saved by grace in some fashion whether prevenient (sp?) or just grace alone without the person relying on their own ‘decision’ to be saved. I wonder if Calvin used that term in his language.

I must sound like a curmudgeon.

Our biggest problem comes from the inside; the only solution comes from the outside. To get it the other way around is to miss the gospel.

–Tullian Tchividjian

Truth necessitates application.

–Eric Carpenter, Ligonier 2010: A Review

In his excellent review of the conference, Carpenter laments the fact that speakers spent little time on application. The only thing I can say in their defense is that John MacArthur has spoken at length about how he exposits Scripture and let’s the listener apply it. He doesn’t know everyone’s individual situation and there could be 100 ways of applying something either in insight or in practice.

I think preachers could give a personal application as an example. This helps people to know their pastor better and gives them an idea of how something written in an ancient text still applies to us. (Like the same powerful God who created the earth in six literal days abides in us. Ha.)

But the quote stands on its own and is clear in meaning.

This is what I’ve believed for a long time and it’s nice to see someone put it into words. The is Tim Challies summarizing what Al Mohler said at Ligonier Ministries’ annual conference.

When it comes to the confrontation of evolutionary theory and the gospel we have a head-on collision. It is our responsibility to give an answer to this question of why the universe looks old, but the most natural understanding comes to this: the universe looks old because the Creator made it whole. When he made Adam, Adam was not a fetus but a man. By our understanding this would have required time. But for God it did not. He put Adam in the garden, which was not merely seeds, but a fertile, mature garden. God creates and makes things whole.

Read the whole article.

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge is to love Him and imitate Him.

–John Milton, from PuritanQuotes on Twitter

Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ.

–John Calvin, via Puritan Quotes on Twitter

Colossians 3:1-3 NLT
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.

From the book Ryken’s Bible Handbook:

DID YOU KNOW?
The judges did not “judge.” They were charismatic military leaders whose chief function was to deliver the nation from its enemies. Various translations and commentators render the Hebrew word sophet as “heroes,” “leaders,” “chieftains,” “deliverers,” and “warrior rulers.”

…

Because some of the judges overlapped, no exact chronology is possible, but the period of the judges spanned approximately three hundred years.

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.

–John Calvin, via Puritan Quotes on Twitter

Many people think Calvin de-emphasized the Holy Spirit which isn’t true.

1 Corinthians 3:18 HCSB
No one should deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, he must become foolish so that he can become wise.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 HCSB
Don’t stifle the Spirit.

God gives me no task except that which requires my dependence on Him to do it. Therefore, there is nothing I should regard as automatic. No conversation should be on auto-pilot—I need to ask His guidance, ask His wisdom and empowerment that I will say words pleasing to Him, not careless words I will have to give account for in the Day of Judgment. Matt. 12:36

–Randy Alcorn via Facebook

I think some might say, “Yes but I’m a Christian so even though I want to please God it’s not like I’m in trouble on judgment day.” We aren’t in trouble but I firmly believe we will be rewarded according to what we’ve done and this reward is praise from God which is something many of us don’t highly value but I believe we very much will at that time.

Ephesians 4:29-30 HCSB
No rotten talk should come from your mouth, but only what is good for the building up of someone in need, in order to give grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit, who sealed you for the day of redemption.

I need to be more dependent on God in my conversation whether speaking or writing which means I need to be more aware of God more of the time which is a good thing.

With chronic suffering, pain is always there. This is an opportunity to rely on God more and think about Him more. This is something I always striven for and still do. I never thought this would be one of the ways that would come about. Just set your watch to beep every hour and say a prayer. It’s much easier.

Also see:
“Signs of Living to Please God” by Richard Baxter