'Discipleship' as a term has lost its content, and this is one reason why it has been moved aside. I've tried to redeem the idea of discipleship, and I think it can be done; you have to get it out of the contemporary mode.
God gave men and women work to do in the Garden before the Fall.
Interest is the invention of Satan
Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.
Modern science developed in the context of western religious thought, was nurtured in universities first established for religious reasons, and owes some of its greatest discoveries and advances to scientists who themselves were deeply religious.
Asceticism without religion is just another way of cultivating peculiar sensations.
Jesus is the most normal Christian in the Bible.
I have always felt that if I am very personal and connected with what I myself am living, my writing will transcend ecclesial boundaries.
When I come before these men I do not have to explain that we are all sinners. They have committed every sin there is. All I have to tell them is that I, too, am a sinner.
What are we saying when we say now, something is holy? That means you should take a different attitude to what you are doing than if you were, for example, doing it for kicks.
Your personal testimony, however meaningful it is to you, is not the gospel.
The notion of a contemporary epiphany to me is very exciting, because it's a sort of biblical thing. It's something that has happened to people in other centuries or in the context of religious experience.
Paul spoke about the root of faith (Eph 2:8). James spoke about the fruit of faith (Jm 2:17-18).
Many of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time.
Read the Bible for the salvation of your soul, not the solution to your problem.
Frankly, you need to get over yourself. It might sound harsh, but that's seriously what it means [1 Corinthians 10:31].
We shall never understand the ethical system taught by Jesus unless we realize that he was a Jew, not only by birth, but that he lived and taught as a Jew; the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to his distracted fellow nationals.
Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.
I think God has chosen to use this as a tool.
If you want to know why you were jplaced on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
In the Muslim-majority countries you can't do without Islam, we can't do without their culture, in which way they are going to come back to this Islamic reference to find a way to deal with the true challenges and not the superficial political questions.
'Secularism' is the most misused word in the country. Its misuse should come to an end.
In the beginning, God placed a woman in a companion role with the priesthood.
The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I'm here.
The Bible, taken as a whole, can be used to praise or condemn practically any human activity, thought, belief, or practice.
