If we think the main mission of the church is to improve life in Adam and add a little moral strength to this fading evil age, we have not yet understood the radical condition for which Christ is such a radical solution.

The proper focus of holiness is not on being set apart from something (i.e., the world), but on being set apart for something.

Eternal joy can never be taken from God's people. Therefore ambition, restlessness, and avarice can be put away for the first time as we rest more and more in the work of the Son of God.

Our society trains us to think of marriage as a contractual arrangement. If one party fails to fulfill his or her end, the contract is null and void. Increasingly children are raised in a contractual environment. When contractual thinking dominates our horizon, we can even make Jesus or the church an asset we think we can manage.

The gospel of submission, commitment, decision, and victorious living is not good news about what God has achieved but a demand to save ourselves with God’s help. Besides the fact that Scripture never refers to the gospel as having a personal relationship with Jesus nor defines faith as a decision to ask Jesus to come into our heart, this concept of salvation fails to realize that everyone has a personal relationship with God already: either as a condemned criminal standing before a righteous judge or as a justified coheir with Christ and adopted child of the Father.

When salvation is viewed as man's program, it is left up to man as to whether he will let God do this or that, but when it is viewed as God's program, there is a confidence and a certainty that no one whom God regenerates will be a carnal Christian.

God’s Word does not merely impart information; it actually creates life. It’s not only descriptive; it’s effective too, God speaking is God acting.