People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.
Edmund ClowneyThere is a calamitous difference between a people who have been immersed in paganism for centuries and a post-Christian society. While the culture of the latter may carry a deep tradition influenced by Christian values, its posture of rebellion will give it a direction that is more explicitly and consciously anti-Christian.
Edmund ClowneyThe stairway to the ministry is not a grand staircase but a back stairwell that leads down to the servants’ quarters.
Edmund ClowneyNever before has the world been so desperately asking for answers to crucial questions, and never before has the world been so frantically committed to the idea that no answers are possible.
Edmund ClowneyThe holiness of the church means that life, as well as truth, marks Christ’s church; the behavior of Christians in the world must be remarkable enough to cause grudging admiration, astonished curiosity or threatening hostility.
Edmund ClowneyWorship is a meeting at the centre so that our lives are centred in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God.
Edmund ClowneyChristians in community must again show the world, not merely family values, but the bond of the love of Christ.
Edmund ClowneyWorship is a meeting at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or deluded lethargy as we are, in turn, alarmed by specters and soothed by placebos. If there is no center, there is no circumference.
Edmund ClowneyAs Christian feel the changing winds of political climate, the blasts against their values in the media, the exclusion of the Christian faith from educational institutions, they begin to sense the dangers of complacency and of pietistical world flight.
Edmund ClowneyTrials should not surprise us, or cause us to doubt God's faithfulness. Rather, we should actually be glad for them. God sends trials to strengthen our trust in him so that our faith will not fail. Our trials keep us trusting; they burn away our self confidence and drive us to our Savior.
Edmund Clowney