Joe Rigney > Quotes

“The written, authoritative word of God is what keeps us on the right path. It keeps our metaphors and analogies in check. The law of the Lord revives the soul, makes us wise so we don’t say foolish things about God, enlightens our eyes so we see God everywhere, and guards us from error.”
― Joe Rigney, Strangely Bright: Can You Love God and Enjoy This World?

“the reason that order and structure exist in the world is so that good things can run wild.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“We ought not think of all magic as simply sleight of hand or eye-tricking illusions. Magic is a real feature of the world that God has made.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Our lives are to be a long obedience in the same direction, and our direction is far more important than our pace.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Therefore, there can be no godly masculinity where feminine virtue is not celebrated. Godly men love the glory of women, because her glory is his glory.”
― Joe Rigney, Good: The Joy of Christian Manhood and Womanhood

“This desire for “something beyond” does not empty the real world, but actually gives it new depths. “He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.”10”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“For manners, whether in the court or at the dinner table, are simply love in the little things, love in the trifles.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“But more than just awakening my hunger, breathing Narnian air awakens a desire for a particular type of meal, one with tasty food, good conversation, lots of joy and laughter and revelry and strategizing about how to defeat the White Witch. It makes me want to eat my bread with joy and drink my wine with a merry heart, because God approves (Eccles. 9:7).”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“We are, all of us, en-storied creatures, living our lives in a narrative, which means our lives have directions, trends, and trajectories. And these trajectories are guided by an Author who teaches us that we will reap what we sow.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Good music excellently played beautifies the world, calling people out of the prison of themselves to something greater and grander. Literature, both writing and reading it, is strategic. How many people have been primed to receive the gospel because they read The Chronicles of Narnia as children? And how much medieval philosophy and classical poetry and fantastic fiction did C. S. Lewis have to read before he was equipped to write those precious books?”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“The challenges we face are Narnian challenges. The victories we win are Narnian victories. But our time in Narnia is not an end in itself. We go there so that we then can live better here. By taking us out of this world, Lewis enables us to become something that we weren’t before, something greater and grander, so that, when we return out of the wardrobe, we face our own Giants of Despair differently. We face them as true Narnians.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“A child (or adult) who lives in such stories will have developed the patterns of thought and affection that will be well-prepared to embrace the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (that is, to embrace Jesus Christ) when he finally encounters them (Him!). Like John the Baptist, Lewis and his cast of Narnians will have prepared the way.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Growing up doesn’t mean replacing old loves as much as it means adding new ones.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Indeed, the Witch provides two meals to Edmund: the enchanted candy and stale bread and water. The Witch and her evil are the origins of both gluttony and asceticism, of sinful indulgence and sinful austerity.”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“False guilt kills true joy and ruins us for fruitful ministry. Impossible obligations lead to constant failure and incurable guilt, which only serve to breed greater sin. Read that again. Impossible obligation. Constant failure. Incurable guilt. Greater”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“Be the smile of God to your children.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage… Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.”11”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“The difference between the dark magic of the Egyptian magicians and Elymas on the one hand, and Moses and Paul on the other was not what they were doing, but the source of their power. Indeed, what distinguishes sorcery, witchcraft, and black magic from godly miracles, signs, and “white magic” is the source of power (God or demons) and the purpose of the power (worshiping the true God and serving people, or worshiping idols and dominating people).”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Idolatry begins with a false separation of gift and giver. Rather than a momentary comparison for the sake of testing our affections, idolatry is a permanent separation for the sake of false worship. God divides things in order to gloriously reunite them. Heaven and earth, male and female, Trinitarian glory and its created beams—all of these are separated in order to bring about a more perfect and glorious union. On the other hand, sin just separates. It divides in order to destroy. It tears asunder and leaves the fragments scattered on the ground. The separation of gift from giver ruins our enjoyment of both.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“Jesus did not die on the cross to deliver me from the sin of being born in America.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“While we often recognize the need to learn how to face hunger and need, we aren't always aware that we need similar help to face wealth and abundance. It's not easy to face affluence every day without committing idolatry or succumbing to ingratitude. In fact, church history is filled with stories of sincere believers facing lowness, hunger, need, suffering, persecution, hardship, and death with Christ-honoring joy and faithfulness. But the stories of Christian fidelity in the midst of overwhelming abundance, provision, plenty, and wealth are fewer and farther between. This is why Jesus says that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23). One of the chief challenges for Christians in the West is to learn to face our unprecedented abundance with the strength supplied by Christ and not by the wealth.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“Lewis’s hero George MacDonald once put it (and as the children’s journey to Aslan behind Lucy’s leadership demonstrates), “Obedience is the opener of eyes.” Or in the words of Jesus, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God” (John 7:17).”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Scripture is the grammar textbook for the language of God, instructing us clearly in the patterns of meaning and the rules by which we are enabled to read everything else.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts by Joe Rigney

“In Christ, God is restoring what has been lost and reintegrating our love for him and our enjoyment of his gifts so that they do not compete with each other but instead mutually serve and enhance each other for his glory and our joy.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“I cannot count the number of times I’ve been reading Lewis and felt as though someone had given him a map of my heart—a”
― Joe Rigney, Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God

“The heavenly mind-set is profoundly earthy, but it is fundamentally oriented by the glory of Christ.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“My one-year-old walks up to me with arms outstretched. I can see it in his eyes. He is searching for something: approval, affirmation, acceptance. The kind that only a father can give. He is hungry for a father's love, for the Father's love.
Either the laughter in my eyes, the smile on my face, and the strength and tenderness of my arms will tell the truth about God, or their absence will blaspheme the Father of lights.
My son is reaching for me, and looking for God.
My son, the theologian.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“All stories in which children have adventures and successes which are possible, in the sense that they do not break the laws of nature, but almost infinitely improbable, are in more danger than fairy tales of raising false expectations.”9”
― Joe Rigney, Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles

“Our efforts at beauty—whether in art, music, homemaking, or anything else— can serve similar purposes in nourishing our souls,in encouraging and blessing others, and in honoring the beautiful and beauty-making Creator”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“one of the main things I’ve learned from Lewis is the importance of guileless and self-forgetful enjoyment. In other words, enjoying something simply because you enjoy it—losing yourself in some activity or hobby because it was made for you and you were made for it.”
― Joe Rigney, Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God