To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
Interpretation
The quote critiques modern Christianity and its commercialization.
R. C. Sproul reflects on how, if Jesus were to return today, He might not direct His anger at the obvious sins in society but rather at the way Christian bookstores prioritize profit over genuine faith and spirituality. This thought-provoking statement invites readers to consider the integrity and purpose of their religious practices in contemporary culture.
In practice
During a sermon on materialism, I quoted R. C. Sproul to illustrate the pitfalls of commercialized religion.
To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
Prayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing it changes is us. As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly.
It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven.
Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it
We have to get out of this mindset that the rich will do the business and the poor will have the charity.
We are a continent of refugees, and if you say we can't integrate refugees, that's not consistent with our values, even if borders cannot be wide open.
After the fighting is done, and even when it's still happening, apologies are often needed for the recounting of bare facts. Sometimes bare facts feel unpatriotic.
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