Quotes Tagged "preaching"

Why should I give up revenge? On behalf of what? Moral principles? And what of the higher order of things, in which evil deeds are punished? For you, a philosopher and ethicist, an act of revenge is bad, disgraceful, unethical and illegal. But I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who has it and grants access? The Gods, in which you do not believe? The great demiurge-creator, which you decided to replace the gods with? Or maybe the law? [...] I know what evil is afraid of. Not your ethics, Vysogota, not your preaching or moral treaties on the life of dignity. Evil is afraid of pain, mutilation, suffering and at the end of the day, death! The dog howls when it is badly wounded! Writhing on the ground and growls, watching the blood flow from its veins and arteries, seeing the bone that sticks out from a stump, watching its guts escape its open belly, feeling the cold as death is about to take them. Then and only then will evil begin to beg, 'Have mercy! I regret my sins! I'll be good, I swear! Just save me, do not let me waste away!'. Yes, hermit. That is the way to fight evil! When evil wants to harm you, inflict pain - anticipate them, it's best if evil does not expect it. But if you fail to prevent evil, if you have been hurt by evil, then avenge him! It is best when they have already forgotten, when they feel safe. Then pay them in double. In triple. An eye for an eye? No! Both eyes for an eye! A tooth for a tooth? No! All their teeth for a tooth! Repay evil! Make it wail in pain, howling until their eyes pop from their sockets. And then, you can look under your feet and boldly declare that what is there cannot endanger anyone, cannot hurt anyone. How can someone be a danger, when they have no eyes? How can someone hurt when they have no hands? They can only wait until they bleed to death.

When God breaks in, the only thing you can do is believe it or not. YOu cannot ask for a receipt of the transaction or a sign for the dubious. God does not offer to cover your backside.

When you are posessed by evil spirits, it is crafty manipulations that you follow; but when you are posessed by the Holy Spirit of God, it is wise discretions you pursue!

I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

To be biblical a sermon must be rooted in the particularities of a passage of Scripture, in the immediate and wider context of the passage and in the cosmic sweep of the Christian gospel as a whole. Only thus can I be sure that I have heard an authentic proclamation of the Word--not just that I have admired the silver-tongued eloquence of the King's herald or even the splendor of his robes, but that I have caught a fresh glimpse of the face of the King himself. The preacher cannot guarantee that this will happen. The preaching event, that moment of royal meeting, is something we cannot create or command. Only God can do that.

At the heart of it, preaching is the telling and retelling of Christ's story and our stories from creation to parousia. It is the remembering of the stories with a special kind of remembrance of which the Bible speaks (Old Testament zakar, New Testament anamnesis), a remembrance that does not merely call to mind the thing remembered, but that makes it real, present, potent, and demanding here and now.

There is a difference between criticizing people and criticizing a people's uninformed ideals. That is, unless one defines himself or others by their ideals, then he is offended, and usually offended secretly. Because oddly enough, this person is the same person quickest to resort to dismissive name-calling, such as 'bigot' or 'zealot'. And oddly enough, he is always the one, the 'open-minded' one, who adamantly protests for, not only himself, but others not to listen to any type of scholarly theological truth inherently for the sake of his own personal, moral beliefs.

Smartass Disciple: Master, you keep preaching the truth. They don't listen. Master of Stupidity: Oh that's not bad. That attitude keeps us in the business.

You have to believe what you're saying if you're going to convince me. I just can't break that rule, even if I want to.

Most who preach carry the illusion of knowledge. Those who are wise and actually have some amount of real knowledge keep learning and sharing. They don’t preach.

I would rather my descendants have greater abilities and a greater knowledge of the love of Christ than I do, much like standing on one's shoulders in order to get a clearer view of the valley.

What is preaching? It is proclamation, not just moralizing. It is Good News, not just good advice; it is gospel, not just law. Supremely, it is about God and what he has done, not just about us and about what we ought to do.

It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.

Preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life.

Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

I've done admin work, preaching and teaching, youth ministry, marital counseling, etc.

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.

I was imprisoned in Missouri in 1854 for preaching the gospel to Negroes, though I was never subjected to violence.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

Painless preaching is as good a term as any for what we do.