“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr. December 11, 1964, when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. John Bartlett, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, p. 909.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! January 16, 2023
“You don’t need to be known outside your town. You don’t need to write a book. You don’t need to be on a conference platform. If you are faithfully preaching the word, the Father knows who you are. And the Father is pleased.”
-Juan Sanchez, 2022 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Sermon on Wednesday, June 15.
You can watch the whole thing here. Pastors, it will encourage your soul and is well worth 40 minutes.
“Gather up a group of men and women, young and old, black and white, Asian and African, rich and poor, uneducated and educated, with all the diverse talents and gifts and offerings. Just make sure all of them know they’re sick, sinful, and saved by grace alone. What do you have? You have the makings for a church!”
“We are not to speculate as to whether our unconverted friends are elect or not (that is none of our business): we are to look simply to their need of Christ, and to do all we can in honest Christian compassion to meet that need by our witness and our prayers.”
This is one of the most beautiful statements I’ve ever read on God’s sovereignty in our salvation. Just chew on it awhile like a good bite of steak…
“Original sin renders all human beings naturally dead (unresponsive) to God, but in effectual calling God quickens the dead. As the outward call of God to faith in Christ is communicated through the reading, preaching, and explaining of the contents of the Bible, the Holy Spirit enlightens and renews the heart of elect sinners so that they understand the gospel and embrace it as truth from God, and God in Christ becomes to them an object of desire and affection. Being now regenerate and able by the use of their freed will to choose God and the good, they turn away from their former pattern of living to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to start a new life with him.”
-J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1993).
Pinch Of Clay 