Quotes about Church

Sola scriptura means at least this: that the church's proclamation is always subject to potential correction from the canon. It is for this reason that we resist simply collapsing the text into the tradition of its interpretation and performance.

In sum: the church exists to be a living exhibit of the reality of the gospel.

the twenty-first-century evangelical church is on the verge of selling its Protestant birthright, sola scriptura, for a mess of pottage, sola cultura.

The church has become the theater of the gospel, and in this theater, there are no passive spectators, only engaged participants, acting out what is in Christ.

The church is biblical, therefore, when it seeks to embody the words in the power of the Spirit and so become a living commentary.

The theory-practice dichotomy that still bedevils many a theological curriculum serves neither seminary nor church. There is a debilitating dichotomy between what Christians believe (doctrine) and how they live their lives (discipleship).

Doctrine forms disciples when it helps the church to act out its new life in Christ.

Public theology is first and foremost a reaction against the tendency to privatize the faith, restricting it to the question of an individual's salvation. As we shall see in later chapters, the church is not a collection of saved individuals but the culmination of the plan of salvation: to create a people of God.

Christian doctrine is what the church believes, teaches, and confesses as it prays and suffers, serves and obeys, celebrates and awaits the coming of the kingdom of God. —Jaroslav Pelikan

the church, like television, is always educating; the only question is, What is it teaching?

The church is biblical, therefore, when it seeks to embody the words in the power of the Spirit and so become a living commentary. The church is thus not only the "people of the book" but also "the (lived) interpretation of the book.

when the church responds to the word of God as it ought, the church demonstrates the love of God and the mind of Christ, in word and in deed. Just as the church comes to understand the love of God by attending to the story of Jesus and getting caught up in the gospel story, so the church in turn renders that story intelligible when it lives out the truth of the gospel.