Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community - the people with whom we eat, play, converse, and study.
Interpretation
Our character is influenced significantly by the people we regularly interact with.
In this quote, Timothy Keller emphasizes the idea that our social environment plays a crucial role in shaping who we are as individuals. The relationships we foster through shared experiences such as dining, playing, conversing, and studying not only reflect our character but also actively contribute to its development, highlighting the importance of surrounding ourselves with positive influences.
In practice
During a motivational speech on personal development, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of choosing positive companions.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
The propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals [is] a basic component of human nature
I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life.
Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each otherβs bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love β think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in "family values."
Do you know what the definition of insane is? Yes. Itβs the inability to relate to another human being. Itβs the inability to love.
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