Some tell me Preach the pure gospel! This reminds me that the Communist secret police also told me to preach Christ, but not to mention communism. Is it really so, that those who are for what is called a pure gospel are inspired by the same spirit as those of the Communist secret police?
Interpretation
The quote questions the alignment of ideologies that seek purity in expression while silencing opposing beliefs.
Richard Wurmbrand's quote prompts profound reflection on the nature of truth and freedom of expression. It highlights the irony in being urged to preach a 'pure gospel' while other powerful entities, like the Communist secret police, demand selective speech that omits key truths, suggesting that the push for an untainted version of any belief system may paradoxically resonate with oppressive ideologies aimed at controlling narratives and stifling dissent.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of free speech in society.
There was once a fiddler who played so beauitully that everybody danced. A deaf man who could not hear the music considered them all insane. Those who are with Jesus in suffering hear this music to which other men are deaf. They dance and do not care if they are considered insane.
Christians are meant to have the same vocation as their King, that of cross-bearers. It is this conscience of a high calling and of partnership with Jesus which brings gladness in tribulations, which makes Christians enter prisons for their faith with the joy of a bridegroom entering the bridal room.
It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their [the communists' ] terms. It was a deal; we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching. They were happy beating us, so everyone was happy.
God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love
A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith.
A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.
But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God's creation embraces me.
Everything must be free to be written and published without restraint.
It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.
It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems ... This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry-or laugh.
Hippy is an establishment label for a profound, invisible, underground, evolutionary process. For every visible hippy, barefoot, beflowered, beaded, there are a thousand invisible members of the turned-on underground. Persons whose lives are tuned in to their inner vision, who are dropping out of the TV comedy of American Life.
Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.
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