Ouch!

"According to the Left Behind website, between 1995 and 2008 the series sold sixty million copies. On February 4, 2002, its authors appeared on CBS popular program 60 Minutes and on July 1 of the same year the Left Behind series appeared on the cover of Time magazine as a cultural phenomenon" (Kenneth L. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion (3rd. ed), 39).

Central Pillar of Pentecostalism

"The central doctrine of pentecostalism, according to one of the movement's best known leaders, is 'the abiding possibility and importance of the supernatural element . . . particularly as contained in the manifestation of the Spirit'" (David Edwin Harrell, Jr., All Things Are Possible: The Healings and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America, 11).

Luther the Preacher

"Reformer, scholar, teacher, pastor, husband, father, composer, prayer warrior--all these labels depict Martin Luther. Yet Luther was also a preacher--and a prolific one at that. . . . Generally, he averaged three sermons per week throughout his adult life, but often preached four or more. Luther was, to state it mildly, a homiletical force" (Eds. Keith Willhite and Scott M. Gibson, The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, 31).

Ecstatic American Roots

"The roots of American pentecostalism reach deep into the history of ecstatic Christianity. Pentecostal leaders trace their origins through George Fox and the Quakers, John Wesley and early Methodism, the Plymouth Brethren, William Booth and the Salvation Army, and other similar men and movements. More recently, American pentecostalism grew out of a deepening of spiritual life associated with the holiness movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Participants in this nebulous movement, both in America and abroad, looked beyond the conversion experience to continual personal encounters with God for the Christian" (David Edwin Harrell, Jr., All Things Are Possible: The Healings and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America, 11).

Augustine the Preacher

"Having been trained in the art of rhetoric, Augustine knew well all the strategies of communication. Yet what made him such an outstanding preacher was his emphasis on communicating God's truth in familiar and ordinary ways. The aim of the sermon, he stressed, should be to instruct, to please, and to move the will to action" (Eds. Keith Willhite and Scott M. Gibson, The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, 29-30).

Bible-Vision

"[T]he biblical text is what truly governs our seeing of the world. If all the world is a text to be interpreted, then for the church the narrative of the Scriptures is what should govern our very perception of the world. We should see the world through the Word" (James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?, 55).

Regenerate Information, Regenerate Reading

"Revelation informs our horizon. However, even the (objective) provision of a revelatory interpretation does not guarantee that everyone will read the event in this way. One must (subjectively) accept this revelatory interpretation, which requires faith--and such faith requires the regenerating working of the Holy Spirit. . . . the objective provision of revelation in the Scriptures is ineffectual as revelation (i.e., to communicate) without the regeneration of the heart and mind in order to dispel blindness" (James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?, 48).

Ubiquity of Interpretation

"Thus [Derrida] is not a linguistic idealist who denies the material existence of cups and tables; rather, in the line of Martin Heidegger (of Being and Time), he is what we might call--for lack of a better term--a comprehensive hermeneuticist who asserts the ubiquity of interpretation: all our experience is always already an interpretation" (James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?, 39).

"Ideas have legs."

"But I want to follow Francis Schaeffer's footsteps by taking philosophy very seriously precisely because it does impact everyday life. 'Ideas have legs,' and even in a culture of amusement, there is thought that shapes it" (James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?, 20).

Potent Preaching

"If preaching is to be transformational, it must address the needs, hurts, temptations, and trials of listeners" (Eds. Keith Willhite and Scott M. Gibson, The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, 26).

Handling the Pomo With Your "Nice Gloves"

"If we are going to do justice to postmodernism, our engagement with it needs to be characterized by charity--and charity requires time" (James K.A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?, 36).

Give Hope

"[I]f you tell a Christian, 'Your problem is that you have been sinning,' you give him hope, because he knows that Jesus Christ came to die for sin" (Jay E. Adams, Christian Living in the Home, 17).

Life Together

"The Christian home, then, is a place where sinful persons face the problems of a sinful world. Yet, they face them together with God and His resources, which are all centered in Christ (cf. Col. 2:3). Sinners live in the Christian home, but the sinless Savior lives there too. This is what makes the difference (Jay E. Adams, Christian Living in the Home, 13).

Sanctification As Presupposition

"A fundamental presupposition of the Christian faith is that there will be growth out of sin into righteousness" (Jay E. Adams, Christian Living in the Home, 12).

Thematic Unity

"Well-crafted speeches are like good jazz music--variations on a rich theme. They relate all content and delivery to one major thesis. . . . Listeners deserve to know the main point of any presentation. Therefore, we speakers ought to ask ourselves, What's the principle point of my speech? That point is the speech's main idea or thesis" (Quentin Schultze, An Essential Guide to Public Speaking, 56-57).

Preaching

"Expository preaching is text-centered and audience-focused" (eds. Keith Willhite and Scott M. Gibson, The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching: Connecting the Bible to People, 14).

Understand the Problem and Know What To Do About It

"A truly Christian home is a place where active sinners live; but it is also a place where the members of that home admit the fact and understand the problem, know what to do about it, and as a result grow by grace" (Jay E. Adams, Christian Living in the Home, 11).

Glorify God

 All of redemptive history works toward the goal of glorifying God. As Paul says in Romans 11:36: For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. As the Westminster Divines stated in the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man? 

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God,and to enjoy him forever.

Past Crises, Future Hope

From the Preface to the Second Edition of John Witte Jr.'s From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition.

Statistics tell the bald American story, which has parallels in other Western cultures. Since 1975, roughly one-quarter of all pregnancies were aborted. One-third of all children were born to single mothers. One-half of all marriages ended in divorce. Two-thirds of all African American children were raised without a father present. Children from broken homes proved two to three times more likely to have behavioral and learning problems than children from two-parent homes. Single mothers faced four times the rates of bankruptcy and eviction. More than two-thirds of juveniles and young adults convicted of major felonies came from single- or no-parent homes. So much is well known. Though these numbers have improved over the past decade, they bring little cheer. 

What is less well known, and what brings more cheer, is that the Western tradition has faced family crises on this scale before. And apocalyptic jeremiads about the end of civil society have been uttered many times before. What brings cheer is that the Western tradition of marriage has always found the resources to heal and reinvent itself, to strike new balances between orthodoxy and innovation, order and liberty, with regard to our enduring and evolving sexual, marital, and familial norms and habits.

First Fact

"Is it [a Christian home] an idyllic place where peace and quiet, tranquility and joy continuously reign? Definitely not! The first and most important fact to remember about a truly Christian home is that sinners live there" (Jay E. Adams, Christian Living in the Home, 10).