The Week in Words

Kevin DeYoung, speaking of the notion of “churchless Christianity”:

“It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance.”

From the same article:

“Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church.”

Stuart Schneiderman on modesty:

“Intimacy is not very intimate, it’s not even yours, when you offer it to everyone.”

and…

“I hate to use the word, but micro-minis seem to disempower women while maxi skirts seem to produce heightened self-respect. As the Times suggests, they seem to give women back their swagger.”

I can certainly attest to that. It seems that women have an innate desire for modesty–and when they wear clothing that flaunts it, they are supremely uncomfortable. At least among my students, the girls who are dressed in what I consider a completely inappropriate manner are just as prone (and more likely, in fact) to be self-conscious of the amount they’re exposing. These girls contort their bodies, fruitlessly attempting to not give the whole world a view up their skirt as they pick up a dropped pencil; they yank and pull at the backs of their shirts, trying not to show their backs and butt-cracks in the short tees and uber-low-rise pants. The modestly dressed girls, on the other hand, have a confidence that lets them do whatever they want. They’re not afraid of exposure–they know that they’re covered.

Billy Sunday, from Tim Challies:

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and tootheless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!”

Oh to be so gloriously…unrefined…about the fight against sin. Too often, I think I choose a more “debonair” approach–I’ll reason with sin, maybe even argue against it–but rarely do I fight sin with the intensity of a street-fight.

Tim Challies on longing for the immediate (without a mediator):

“We rejoice that God has accepted the mediation of his Son. We rejoice that we can approach the throne of God. But still we realize that there is a mediator. To speak to the Father, we speak through the Son. To hear from the Father, we rely on the Spirit. Still we need someone to stand between. Still we long for the im-mediate. We long to see God as he is. We long to approach him directly. We long to have the relationship fully and finally restored. We look in that dim mirror, always wishing we might see face-to-face.”

Oh, how I long for that day when I shall know fully even as I am fully known, when the mirror that illuminates but still obscures is taken away and I have opportunity to see Him face to face (I Cor 13:12). And the Spirit and the bride cry, “Come!”… Even so, come, Lord Jesus (Rev 22:17, 20)

From Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest:

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

I’ll admit that I didn’t just “come across” this quote in my reading. Instead, I’ve been thinking of it as I come to the end of a journal I’ve been using for about 5 months. I deliberately looked up the quote in order to include it here. But it does reflect where I’m at. Unlike Cecily Cardew, I don’t fabricate incidents for my journals, but sometimes I still manage to look back in amazement at the “sensational” stories they tell. This last five months has certainly been an adventure–trying, testing, trusting–but I must say I’ve had little time to read it as I’ve had few boring train trips. Instead, I am still amidst my adventure, still learning, and just about ready to start filling the pages of a new journal with the next installment of this thrilling story God is writing with my life.

Collect more quotes from throughout the week with Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”.

Every week, Barbara H. hosts a meme “The Week in Words”, in which bloggers list some of their favorite quotes read throughout the week. Since I’m definitely a reader and somewhat of a quote junkie, I figured I’d jump in to the melee!

Read at Justin Taylor:

“Lust is the craving for salt of a person who is dying of thirst.”

—Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, revised and expanded (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 65.

The Vodka Pundit explains why the concept of “state’s rights” is mistaken:

“In other words, individuals have rights, and governments are instituted with powers to protect those rights, and are (or ought to be) restricted from abusing them.

With me so far? Individuals have rights; governments have powers.”

Azam Kamguian speaking of Sharia law in Canada:

“We cannot let multiculturalism become the last refuge of repression. To accept religion as a justification for human rights abuses is to discriminate against the abused and to send the message that they are undeserving of human right protection.”
(Read in Opposing Viewpoints: Human Rights, page 78)

From Tim Keller’s Prodigal God:

“When a newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ the Catholic thinker G.K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: “Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G.K. Chesterton.'”

From Richard B. Gaffin’s essay in Are the Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views:

“Theology that ceases being swept up more or less spontaneously in doxology, like that of Romans 11:33-36, needs to reexamine itself.”

Check out some more Week in Words posts at Stray Thoughts