Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren KierkegaardRead
When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me".
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the personal relevance of spiritual texts and encourages readers to engage introspectively with the teachings.
Soren Kierkegaard encourages individuals to approach religious texts, specifically the Bible, with a mindset of personal reflection and self-application. By viewing the words as directly speaking to them, individuals can derive deeper insights and foster a meaningful connection with their faith and understanding of themselves.
In practice
In a sermon, the pastor could quote this to encourage congregants to personally engage with Scripture.
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Men think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes--and your enemy looks just like your neighbor.
How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the managerβI have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?
A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.
And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not.
I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.
No amount of manifest absurdity... could deter those who wanted to believe from believing.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.
We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.
It is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of all human suffering.
I believe that before anything else I'm a human being -- just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.
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