Literal Interpretation of Scripture

Literal Principle of Interpreting Scripture:

• "When the plain sense of a passage makes sense, seek no other sense... lest you come up with nonsense."
  (Larry Taylor)
  

Looking Back - Will Rogers

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

~ Will Rogers

Looking Back - Politicians

"A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation."

~ James Clarke

Looking Back - John Calvin

"Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God... men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God."

~ John Calvin

Looking Back - Work

"He who is looking for opportunities will find them dressed in work clothes."

~ Anonymous

Looking Back - Calvary

"The grace of God reveals One who loves us so much as to have made Calvary possible, but who hates sin so much as to make Calvary necessary."

~ T. S. Mooney

Looking Back - Thomas Brooks

Where one thousand are destroyed by the world's frowns, ten thousand are destroyed by the world's smiles. The world, siren-like, sings us and sinks us.

~ Thomas Brooks

Looking Back - Sola Fide

"Justification by faith only is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide [by faith alone] is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia [by grace alone]; . . for to rely on one’s self for faith is not different in principle from relying on one’s self for works."

Doubting God's Love

Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world

The following quote is written by N. T. Wright from an article entitled The Road to New Creation:

"God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow. God himself, it says, will wipe away all tears from all eyes. One of the great difficulties in preaching the gospel in our days is that everyone assumes that the name of the game is, ultimately, to ‘go to heaven when you die’, as though that were the last act in the drama... Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world; God will make new heavens and new earth, and give us new bodies to live and work and take delight in his new creation. And the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel is that this new world, this new creation, has already begun: it began when Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on Easter morning, having faced and beaten the double enemy, sin and death, that has corrupted and defaced God’s lovely creation"

Looking Back - The Cross

“Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to be saying to us, I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying. Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”

~ John Stott

Looking Back - Doctrine

"Doctrine is the foundation of duty; if the theory is not correct, the practice cannot be right. Tell me what a man believes, and I will tell you what he will do."

~ Tryon Edwards (1809–1894)

Looking Back - The Worldly Church

“Evangelical Christianity is now tragically below the New Testament standard. Worldliness is an accepted part of our way of life. Our religious mood is social instead of spiritual. We have lost the art of worship. We are not producing saints. Our models are successful business men, celebrated athletes and theatrical personalities. We carry on our religious activities after the methods of the modern advertiser. Our literature is shallow and our hymnody borders on sacrilege. And scarcely anyone appears to care.”

~ A.W. Tozer

Looking Back - Eternity

"I only have time for eternity."

~ Thomas Merton

Looking Back - John Owen on Sin

"He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God."

~ John Owen

Looking Back - Eternity

"God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends."

~ Jeremy Taylor (1650)

Looking Back - Money

"Poor people are as much in danger from inordinate desire toward the wealth of the world as the rich from an inordinate delight in it."

~ Matthew Henry

"Money is in truth one of the most unsatisfying of possessions. It takes away some cares, no doubt; but it brings with it quite as many cares as it takes away. There is the trouble in the getting of it. There is anxiety in the keeping of it. There are temptations in the use of it. There is guilt in the abuse of it. There is sorrow in the losing of it. There is perplexity in the disposing of it."

~ J. C. Ryle

"God gave us wealth, not that we should be hoarders but dispensers."

~ Thomas Manton

Looking Back - "Genius"

"If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius."

~ Michelangelo

User-Friendly God

"Step into the average church these days and you will likely see that the services are designed more to remove the fear of God than to promote it."

~ Stephen J. Lawson (Made in Our Image: What Shall We do With a User-Friendly God?)

Looking Back - Evangelism

"There is no true evangelism without the doctrine of sin, and without an understanding of what sin is. I do not want to be unfair, but I say that a gospel which merely says “Come to Jesus,” and offers Him as a Friend, and offers a marvelous new life, without convicting of sin, is not New Testament evangelism. The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the law; and it is because the law has not been preached that we have so much superficial evangelism…evangelism must start with the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man and the eternal consequences of evil and wrong-doing. It is only the man who has been brought to see his guilt in this way who flies to Christ for deliverance and redemption."

~ Martin Lloyd-Jones