CHARACTER TRUMPS POLITY

'Considering God's immense love for the church, it may come as a surprise to some that Scripture provides few details on how the church should be governed. Scripture does, however, tells us a fair amount about the character of church leaders. This disparity highlights a key axiom for church government: great character overcomes the weakest polity, and poor character undermines the strongest polity. In either case the character of church leaders trumps governing structure.'

Brad House & Gregg Allison, MultiChurch: Exploring the Future of Multisite p.143.

JESUS WORDS AND ACTIONS DEFINE TRUTH

'...anything that does not look like God incarnate is not truth...'
Diane Langberg, Redeeming Power, p.41.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMANITY

'People are more important and more enduring than things. In an unstable and perishable universe the one stable and imperishable factor is human personality. It is with this that God is primarily concerned. A man's character is the only thing he can take out of this life with him.' 

Michael Green, 2 Peter and Jude, p.152. 

THE REVELATIONS OF OLD AGE

'If you want to know what a person is like "deep down," observe them in their still-functioning old age, where they finally express everything they have held back for so long, often in terms of bitterness and resentment. Or sometimes it may be even the display of generosity and joy. One of the truths emphasized by the "ages of life" tradition is that each stage is related to another. How we have navigated and been formed by one stage orders the next. And, conversely, our older selves will shape our younger brethren as well as illumine our own pasts. In a sense, then, old age - senectus - is the time when we are shown for we are, in terms of our responsible selves, as we prepare to stand before God. The old teach the young; but they teach the young only in a way that exposes their own form. The old are thereby judged.'

Ephraim Radner, A Time to Keep, p.150. 

VIRTUES

'...a virtue is a disposition that inclines us to achieve the good for which we are made.' 

James KA Smith, You Are What You Love, p.89. 

CHARACTER & FRIENDSHIP

'Character is like style: that some artists have a distinct style doesn't mean that we predict what the works they produce in the future will be like. Once they are produced, however, we will recognize that they were made by the same hand and perhaps delight in seeing how a particular style is manifested in a distinct and, for that reason, engaging work. Just so, one of the great pleasures of friendship is recognizing our friends' character in all sorts of new situations and actions that, although we could never have predicted them, make perfect sense once they have been performed.' 

Alexander Nehamas, On Friendship, p.151. 

TEMPTATION

'Vices are potholes in the landscape of the character, but no one is compelled to fall into them. The great thing is to keep an eye on one's feet, and watch where one is going.' 

J Budziszewski, On the Meaning of Sex, p.99. 

CHARACTER

'It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by a scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.'

Abigail Adams in David McCullough, John Adams, p.226.