A TEST OF REAL FRIENDSHIP

'...a friendship which, like all real friendships, has passed through the fire of violent disagreements.'

Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, p.xvii.

SCRIPTURE & TRADITION

'The history of the church is a history of debate in which the truths of the Bible have been been successively defined so as to exclude the opinions of those who have questioned, obscured or denied them.'

John Stott, But I Say To You...Christ the Controversialist, p.35.

CHURCH IS FAMILY

'A church true to Jesus will organize congregational life around the family of believers and order domestic life toward God's kingdom.'

Darrin W Synder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church, p.83. 

LOOOKING WITH JESUS AT MARRIAGE

'When we look back with Jesus to creation, we see marriage established: God's purpose at creation's beginning for marriage as man-woman monogamy. And we look forward with Jesus to resurrection, we see marriage surpassed: God's promise at creation's completion of life-beyond-marriage in life-beyond-death. When we look with the vision of Jesus in the Gospels - whether from the beginning or toward the end - same-sex union does not appear on either horizon.'

Darrin W Synder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church, p.78.

WHAT IS MARRIAGE?

'Theologically, marriage is a living icon of the divine economy - an embodied and enacted reflection of God's design in creation and plan of salvation.'

Darrin W Synder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church: Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-sex Union, p.51.

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.

DIVINE REVELATION THROUGH CREATION

'The God of the Sahara must be vast, boundless, and expansive. The God of quarks must have an unimaginable eye for detail. The God of wombats must have a sense of humor. Everything in creation has theological implications, and one of the joys of being human is figuring out what they are.'

Andrew Wilson, God of All Things: Rediscovering the sacred in an everyday world, p.3.

HOW READING BREEDS EMPATHY

'One great beauty of literature in its difference from everyday life is that you may be brought to a point of identifying with characters would never get to know in real life because you wouldn't spend nearly as much time with them.'

Matthew Mullins, Enjoying the Bible, p.98.

THOUGHT NEEDS EMOTION

'Thinking without emotion is impoverished thinking.'
Matthew Mullins, Enjoying the Bible, p.71.

THE NEED FOR A LIMITED RANGE OF MEANINGS

'If a work of literature can mean anything to anyone then its's not very meaningful at all. But if a work of literature has a limited range of meaning that cannot be boiled down to a single idea, then it can be meaningful for many readers.'

Matthew Mullins, Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures, p.64.