John Owen Quotes

When I was a teenager, I read the bible cover-to-cover, and I found the Old Testament, it's a pretty bloody history book.

It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian.

I will now teach my son Increase (and others of my children) the way of raising a lesson out of every verse in his reading of the Bible; and of turning it into a Prayer; and engage him (and them) unto a daily Course in reading the Bible in such a way

The New Testament is a commentary on the Old Testament, in the light of the new revelation given by Christ and the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but, if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that.

He who is anxious to attain a true understanding of holy Scripture, will discover the spiritual truths which are spoken by it to those who are called "spiritual," by comparing the meaning of what is addressed to those of weaker mind with what is announced to such as are of acuter understanding, both meanings being frequently found in the same passage by him who is capable of comprehending it.

Go through John's Gospel, and study the "believes," the "verilys," the " I ams; "and go through the Bible in that way, and it becomes a new book to you.

Be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself. Talk to Christ.

Always pull back-and see how silly we must look to God.

I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished...I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it.

In order to enjoy the Word, we ought to continue to read it, and the way to obtain a spirit of prayer, is, to continue praying; for the less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.

Understanding the knowledge and wisdom of the Qur'an is by far, higher than memorizing.

If you do not put a difference between justification wrought by the Man Christ without, and sanctification wrought by the Spirit of Christ within, you are not able to divide the word aright; but contrariwise, you corrupt the word of God.

You may go on reading any number of books on Meditation. They can only tell you ‘Realize the Self’. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself in yourself.

Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.

Whoever sees Christ as a mirror of the Father's heart, actually walks through the world with new eyes.

[On the New Testament:] I ... must enter my protest against the false translation of some passages by the men who did that work, and against the perverted interpretation by the men who undertook to write commentaries thereon. I am inclined to think, when we [women] are admitted to the honor of studying Greek and Hebrew, we shall produce some various readings of the Bible a little different from those we now have.

To believe a thing is to see the cool crystal water sparkling in the cup. But to meditate on it is to drink of it. Reading gathers the clusters; contemplation squeezes forth their generous juice.

Pride looks down, and no one can see God but by looking up.

The value of the Old Testament may be dependant on what seems its imperfection. It may repel one use in order that we may be forced to use it in another way-to find the Word in it...to re-live, while we read, the whole Jewish experience of God's gradual and graded self-revelation, to feel the very contentions between the Word and the human material through which it works.

Everything that happens in the Old Testament is a "type" or adumbration of something that happens in the New Testament, and the whole subject is therefore called typology, though it is a typology in a special sense.

Paul spoke about the root of faith (Eph 2:8). James spoke about the fruit of faith (Jm 2:17-18).

Be constantly committed to prayer or to reading [Scripture]; by praying, you speak to God, in reading, God speaks to you.

The constant habit of perusing devout books is so indispensable, that it has been termed the oil of the lamp of prayer. Too much reading, however, and too little meditation, may produce the effect of a lamp inverted; which is extinguished by the very excess of that ailment, whose property is to feed it.

I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month, than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.