“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.
“A largely immoral and godless society is startling testimony to the effect that embracing evolution has on people.” -Steven Boyd, “The Genre of Genesis” from the book Coming to Grips with Genesis.
Ideas have consequences. When people say there is no God, and that this world came into existence over time and random chance, they remove any standard for moral absolutes. But if there is a creator, then he is also lawgiver and judge.
“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!”
[In 2 Timothy 3:16-17], Paul is telling Timothy that the Scriptures are able to equip him totally for each ministry he will ever have to perform. Counseling is clearly one of those good works Paul had in mind when he wrote these assuring words to Pastor Timothy.
“Yes, but aren’t some problems too deep for a pastor to handle?”
Those problems are usually too deep for a pastor not to handle: ‘For the Word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even the division of soul and spirit …’ (Heb. 4:12). You cannot get to a deeper part of human personality than the division of soul and spirit. ‘… and it (Scripture) is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’ You cannot get to a deeper level of human motivation than the thoughts and intents (or motives) of the heart. Only a man of God equipped with Scripture is capable of discerning those deeper thoughts and motivations. All that is necessary to equip the pastor to fulfill his ministry of changing people is found in the Bible.
-Lou Priolo on “Presupposition Four: The Bible and Psychology,” The Journal of Modern Ministry 2.1, p. 65.
Pinch Of Clay 