Jesus did not spend the same amount of time with everyone. He chose twelve and spent a majority of his time with them. There were toxic people that he spent hardly any time with. For example, the Pharisees were against him from the outset of his ministry. He engaged them only when he needed to....

Followers of Jesus do well to spend more time engaging him than explaining him.

A Christian understanding of the world sees a child’s character not as genetically determined but as shaped to a significant degree by parental discipleship and discipline.

There’s a difference, you know, between faith and playing make-believe. One will make you grow. The other one will make you sleep.

Growing up is a ritual, more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.

Jesus’ simple poetic words are delivered casually and gently. Jesus prefers to explain a difficult concept over time, never talking down to His followers, patiently letting the words soak in until they understand them fully.

At Gethsemane: “Jesus is subordinating His loudest desires to His deepest desires.

I am lost and found in You.

If I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest;

Giving up everything must mean giving over everything to kingdom purposes, surrendering everything to further the one central cause, loosening our grip on everything. For some of us, this may mean ridding ourselves of most of our possessions. But for all of us it should mean dedicating everything we retain to further the kingdom. (For...

After a sharp inward struggle, he concluded to stay and see it out. He should despise himself, more than he cared to face, if he gave in now.

I hated the flashcards and I hated the multiplication tables, but I did enjoy the fact that my dad took time out of his schedule to help me in the areas in which I needed it.

Lord, I am willing to break MY heart that I might satisfy THY heart.

Spiritual disciplines answer the shallow world.

True service is a lifestyle. It acts from the ingrained patterns of living. It springs spontaneously to meet human need.

Thomas Merton writes that if we have meditated on the events of the Passion but have not meditated on Dachau and Auschwitz, our perception of God at work in present times is incomplete.

Any believer who has not encountered the Cross is not yet a follower of Christ

‎Those who aren’t following Jesus aren’t his followers. It’s that simple. Followers follow, and those who don’t follow aren’t followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.

It’s exciting to work with the kids so devoid of irony, so unguarded. And also terrifying.

If I am to have faith when I pray, I must find some promise in the Word of God to rest my faith on

I’m of the opinion and quite certain that our ‘personal histories’ with God are meant to be well informed by the Scriptures

There’s no such thing as a mistake, really. It’s just an opportunity to do something else.

By giving us control, our new technologies tend to enhance existing idols in our lives. Instead of becoming more like Christ through the forming and shaping influence of the church community, we form, and shape, and personalize our community to make it more like us. We take control of things that are not ours to...

People who have been initiated “broke through in what felt like breaking down”.

The way to transmute the pain of life is to reveal the wounded side of things, evil, even, and then place the wound inside of sacred space. The Bible is about naming, facing, and then forgiving the wounds of history.

We have been shown how to fight hate without becoming hate ourselves. We have been given a Companion and a Friend and not just a good idea. We have been given joy in the midst of failure, and not just a way of winning or being right.

You cannot contain evil by shaming it, or making people feel guilty, but only by revealing it toward it is, and then seeing the good as better.

If we know our original blessing, we can easily handle our original sin. If we rest in a previous dignity, we can bear insults effortlessly. If you really know your name is on some eternal list, you can let go of the irritations on the small lists of time. Ultimate security allows you to suffer...

When I am not king, then THE Kingdom has its best chance of breaking through.

Chaucer, like Homer, writes about a journey, but as a Christian he has a different goal. Homer wanted to go home, but Chaucer’s pilgrims want a place of man’s true home: paradise

In the time of to Augustine, the conversation in the West mostly had been a Christian reaction to outside ideas. After Augustine, the Great Conversation would be about his ideas for centuries.

It takes practice to stand with others facing pain of death, and it helps if you don’t have to do it all alone. We should practice on the small stuff so that we will be better able to stand together for what we believe and for what we love, who may someday need our support.

The Resurrection is most clearly needed and most clearly revealed in those communities that are constantly seeking to correct and transform the world through the wisdom and power of the Word of God made flesh in their lives and actions in history.

Jesus is dangerous to society, to the status quo, and to contemporary piety. This clarity of preaching cannot be allowed to continue. It is like a cold, a virus that infects all who suffer and who love under conditions that only worsen, in a world that blames those who are poor and do not live...

Any serious reading of the Bible means personal involvement in it, not symbol mental agreement with abstract propositions. And involvement is dangerous, because it leaves one open to unforeseen conclusions.

Any religious person who says he does not really need human friends because God is his Friend is calling God a liar because He’s the One Who says we also need human friends.

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.

Because of the Resurrection, our natural reaction must be to get past our emotional reactions as quickly as possible and reflect on what happened in light of the cross and the resurrection and our own baptisms into that defining reality – to the life-giving and life-affirming waters of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Character is the main object of education.

We have to grow into Scripture, like a young boy inheriting his older brother’s clothes and flopping around in them, but he gradually builds out and grows up. Perhaps it’s a measure of our maturity when parts of Scripture that we found odd or even repellent suddenly come up in a new light. Our sense...

The power of the bleeding love of God is stronger than the power of Caesar, of the law, of Mars, Mammon, Aphrodite and the rest. This is the point that Paul grasped. And that is the reason for the Colossians’ gratitude. The battle has been won.

The problem with spiritual procrastination is the uncertain time of the deadline.

Correction badly undertaken creates distance.

I suppose it’s unfair, tricks of argument that leave wounds, but with this sort of thing that (C.S.) Lewis does, what I feel is a craftsman’s joy at the sight of a superior performance.

We sucked in atheism with our canned milk.

I was determined to get them away from the idea that their education is a private experience.

The “show business,” which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord’s conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we have not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be...

Lee was a born pedagogue, never happier than when his children were learning to do something the right way. It is a testament to Lee’s affection and patience that his children did not rebel. In fact, they appear to have thrived.

The line between spontaneity and stupidity can be very thin.

We are to be generous not just in the results of our work, but also IN our work.