Quotes about Meaning

An interest in souls divorced from an interest in Scripture leaves us without a text that shapes these souls. In the same way, an interest in Scripture divorced from an interest in souls leaves us without any material for the text to work on.

Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of this text is not, 'What does this mean?' but 'What can I obey?' A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances.

All serious and good writing anticipates precisely this kind of reading-ruminative and leisurely, a dalliance with words in contrast to wolfing down information.

Gabriel Marcel wrote that life is not so much a problem to be solved as a mystery to be explored.

It is wicked to tell a person a lie about God because, if we come to believe the wrong things about God, we will think the wrong things about ourselves, and we will live meanly or badly.

To live no tight, neat role is truly sacrificial, it is also truly creative because it leaves us open and free (dare we say) like God himself.

I do not have more information after reading a poem; I have more experience.

We have discovered in these psalms beautiful lines, piercing insights, dazzling truths, stimulating words. We have found that the world in which these psalms are sung is a world of adventure and challenge, of ardor and meaning. We have realized that while there are certainly difficulties in the way of faith, it cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called dull.

The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is "What is the chief end of man?" What is the final purpose? What is the main thing about us? Where are we going, and what will we do when we get there? The answer is "To glorify God and enjoy him forever".

The exact meaning of Jeremiah is not certain: it may mean "the LORD exalts"; it may mean "the LORD hurls." What is certain is that "the LORD," the personal name of God, is in his name.

Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives and morals but by believing in God's will and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our enthusiasms. It is out of such a reality that we acquire perseverance.

We believe that this human life is a great gift, that every part of it is designed by God and therefore means something, that every part of it is blessed by God and therefore to be enjoyed, that every part is accompanied by God and therefore workable.