"Because this conception of history allows room for human freedom to choose evil — and, what is more, for the Evil One as a demonic power in history — divisiveness, failure, irreconcilable discord and even catastrophe cannot, on principle, be excluded from history, not even from its average course. Nevertheless, this is not the last word in the apocalyptic prophecy. Its last word, its decisive statement, is in spite of everything: a happy ending infinitely exceeding all expectations; triumph over evil; conquest of death; quenching of thirst from the wellspring of life; resurrection; drying of all tears; the presence of God among men; New Heaven and New Earth."
— Josef Pieper
Source: Hope and History (Eng. trans. 1969), ch. V "The Great Banquet", p. 85
Suffering, hope, darkness
Views: 505
"But it belongs to the center of the Christian message that children are not properties to own and rule over, but gifts to cherish and care for. Our children are our most important guests, who enter into our home, ask for careful attention, stay for a while and then leave to follow their own way. Children are strangers whom we have to get to know."
— Henri Nouwen
Source: Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
Children, parents, trust
Views: 579
"A sense of our own folly is a great step towards being wise, when it leads us to rely on the wisdom of the Lord. The blind man leans on his friend's arm and reaches home in safety, and so would we give ourselves up implicitly to divine guidance, nothing doubting; assured that though we cannot see, it is always safe to trust the all-seeing God."
— Charles H. Spurgeon
Source: Morning and Evening, September 1, Morning (Psalm 73:24)
Thoughts, grace, plans
Views: 557
"We must admit that there is a mystery here. We cannot say why God should have chosen the Jews rather than any other people to be the means of salvation, just as we cannot understand why He should have chosen us and not others to be the witnesses to His gospel in India to-day. But if we reflect a little we can understand why He should work by this way of choosing. It is His purpose to create a new human race in which the divisions caused by sin are overcome, in which men are at one with God, with one another, and with themselves."
— Lesslie Newbigin
Source: Sin and Salvation (SCM Press, 1956), ch. V, "The Preparation for Salvation"
Missionary work, culture
Views: 491
"It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love."
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Source: "A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell" (1943), in Letters and Papers from Prison
Marriage, Family
Views: 490
"The question of the Pharisees about the coming of the Kingdom reflects their rejection of the presence of the Kingdom in Jesus' person and mission. The only manifestation of the Kingdom they would acknowledge was its coming in power to crush evil and vindicate Israel as God's people. Jesus replied that the Kingdom was already in their midst, but in an unexpected form; it was not accompanied by the signs and outward display the Pharisees expected, and without which they would not be satisfied."
— George Eldon Ladd
Source: The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), ch. 9 "The Mystery of the Kingdom," p. 228, n. 25 (on Luke 17:20-21)
What has happened, what will happen, history
Views: 583