Justin > Justin's Quotes

“People converted by fear-mongering are people converted from evil, not to the truth.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“In this vale of sorrows, we should be careful about allowing abundance to con us out of hunger.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

“Jesus didn't shy away from sinners, so why should the church? And don't tell me the church welcomes sinners. I know better. It welcomes only sinners who repent and then never seriously need forgiveness again.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“And the sad fact is that the church, both now and at far too many times in its history, has found it easier to act as if it were selling the sugar of moral and spiritual achievement rather than the salt ofJesus' passion and death.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“At the very worst, all you can be is dead - and for him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you his cup of tea.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“Only when you are finally able, with the publican, to admit that you are dead will you be able to stop balking at grace.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life

“Often when people try to say what the Bible is about, they let their own mindset ride roughshod over what actually lies on the pages. For examples: convinced in advance that the Bible is about God or Morals or Religion or Spirituality or Salvation or some other capital-letter Subject, they feel compelled to interpret everything in it in a commensurate way. To a degree, of course, that is a perfectly proper approach, but it has some catches to it. For one thing, it puts their notion of what God, or Morals, or Religion, or whatever is all about in the position of calling the tune as to what Scripture may possibly mean - or even of being the deciding factor as to whether they can listen to what it is saying at all. Jesus, for example, was rejected by his contemporaries not because he claimed to be the Messiah but because, in their view, he didn't make a suitably messianic claim. "Too bad for God," they seemed to say. "He may want a dying Christ, but we happen to know that Christs don't die.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“God’s program is grace, not scorekeeping; free gift, not reward and punishment in this world.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Light Theology and Heavy Cream: The Culinary Adventures of Pietro and Madeline

“The notion that people won't sin as long as you keep them well supplied with guilt and holy terror is a bit overblown.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“What is good is difficult, and what is difficult is rare.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection