This quote is from C. S. Lewis, from a sermon titled “The Weight of Glory,” contained in a book by the same name. But before you dispense with modesty altogether, bear in mind that he was referring to the perfect humility that we will have in age to come.
“The Quest of the Inner Ring Will Break Your Hearts Unless You Break It”
C. S. Lewis gave this warning to a class of college students in an address in 1944. The message was included in the book, The Weight of Glory. The students Lewis addressed were preparing for a variety of careers, and he gave general advice that he thought would be helpful in whatever their eventual jobs were to be.
4 Things You Might Not Realize about the Old Testament Concept of Judgment
If we understood what the Biblical word “judgment” meant, we would probably use it a lot more. If we focus on just one aspect of the word, we miss the fullness of its Biblical meaning. If the word “judgment” makes us think only of condemnation and punishment, we are using it much more narrowly than the Biblical writers did.
Leon Morris, in his 1960 study, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment, did much to unpack the word, both as it is used in the Old Testament and the New. Below are four lessons we can learn from Morris’ study of the Old Testament word shaphat, and the related word, mishpat.
“Transformed by a Piece of News” – J. Gresham Machen on the Gospel as History
“The strange thing about Christianity was that…it transformed the lives of men not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story” – Machen, 1923
The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts: Two Parts of an Unfinished Trilogy?
What If Luke Had a Third Book in Mind All Along?
A lot of people have found the ending to the book of Acts strangely unsatisfying. It’s not an unhappy ending, but it leaves Paul under house arrest in Rome, and it leaves the reader wondering what happened to him.
Hannah Whitall Smith on Cheerfulness and Discouragement
Encouragement Is Part of God’s Plan
Overcoming temptation is a battle, and one’s attitude in the midst of battle is critical. In The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith stressed the importance of cheerfulness. It’s more than a gift or a blessing. It’s a weapon.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Communing with God by Suffering His Absence
In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer wrote that the fellowship of Christ’s suffering means communion with God even in separation from Him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Following Jesus into the World (and Why Martin Luther Left the Monastery)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote his 1937 classic, The Cost of Discipleship, as a call to return to the original vision of the Protestant Reformation. According to Bonhoeffer, “When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace.”
“Unless He Obeys, a Man Cannot Believe”
When Jesus calls you to follow Him—and He never stops calling you to follow Him—He is calling you to take a step of faith. He doesn’t wait until you already believe before He calls you. He speaks to you where you are, in unbelief, just as He invited Peter to step out of the boat and walk to Him on the water.
When Jesus said, “Come,” Peter was still in the boat and still could not believe that he was looking a Jesus. The command of Jesus enabled Peter to step out of unbelief and into faith, just at it had done and would continue to do over and over again throughout his life.
This is an argument that Dietrich Bonhoeffer made in chapter two of The Cost of Discipleship. That first step of obedience is critical, he explained, and you can’t wait for faith to motivate you to take it because it itself is a step into faith.
“When Christ Calls a Man, He Bids Him Come and Die”
A watered-down gospel produces watered-down Christians. When we read, in the Gospels, about Jesus calling disciples, we see that He didn’t make it easy to follow Him, but He made it worth it. We also see that there was a difference between the crowd and the disciples. Jesus didn’t call crowds, He called disciples.
In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that the grace of salvation is also the call to discipleship. “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow,” he wrote, “and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.”