Love the church because Jesus loves it.

The aim is never to become a master of the Word, but to be mastered by it.

It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father's will-and it was his love for sinners like me.

The New Testament writers I think conceive of their inspired Scripture writings as flushing out, bringing to articulation, expounding and so on the climactic revelation in the son, but this in self-conscious fulfillment of the promises and covenants that were already made to God's chosen people in Old Testament times.

It's not as if the New Testament writers came along and said, "The culmination of Old Testament books is more books, New Testament books." In some ways they thought instead of the culmination of Old Testament books being Christ himself, the word incarnate as the opening verses of Hebrews 1 put it. In the past God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son and the son is revelation.

The Bible does not tell us that life in this world will be fair. Evil and sin are not Victorian gentlemen; they do not play fair.

The person who prays more in public than in private reveals that he is less interested in God's approval than in human praise. Not piety but a reputation for piety is his concern.