Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.

The church arises only from the gospel. And a distorted church usually coincides with a distorted gospel.

Sadly, there are some fine Christian people who believe that the only way to advance the gospel is to pray for revival and nothing else. You don't know if they have any non-Christian friends or if they have ever shared the gospel with anybody in the last 30 years. It's depressing going to prayer meetings like that. I don't want to pray like that.

Correct division should be preferred over corrupt unity.

If you say that the gospel lays a claim upon people, then you are invading their personal space, and they feel as though you have no right to be there. Now we don't even begin preaching the gospel until we get into their personal space and they feel the demands of God upon them.

The more you come to know the Bible - both in reading it extensively and also meditating on it deeply - the more integrated your understanding of all of life will be. And this means that there will be fewer steps between what you are doing at work and sharing your faith in Christ.

Let's say that you want to do everything out of the joy that comes from knowing the Lord. Well, a lot of people aren't built like that emotionally. If they think that some sort of feeling is the basis for their action, they are going to feel justified sitting around, although they are going to feel bad that they have never taken one step of obedience because their heart is cold.