The victory of the Church over the power which was embodied in the Roman imperial system was not won by seizing the levers of power: it was won when the victims knelt down in the Colosseum and prayed in the name of Jesus for the Emperor.

Our confidence...is not in the competence of our own knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability of the one who is known.

Do things that will get people asking questions, the answer to which is the Gospel.

...our societies appear to be intent on immediate consumption rather than on investment for the future. We are piling up enormous debts and exploiting the natural environment in a manner which suggests that we have no real sense of any worthwhile future. Just as a society which believes in the future saves in the present in order to invest in the future, so a society without belief spends everything now and piles up debts for future generations to settle. "Spend now and someone else will pay later."

A society which believes in a worthwhile future saves in the present so as to invest in the future. Contemporary Western society spends in the present and piles up debts for the future, ravages the environment, and leaves its grandchildren to cope with the results as best they can.

It is less important to ask a Christian what he or she believes about the Bible than it is to inquire what he or she does with it.

The missionary calling has sometimes been interpreted as a calling to stem this fearful cataract of souls going to eternal perdition. But I do not find this in the center of the New Testament representation of the missionary calling.