Christian Duty Quotes

“A soft luxurious course of habitual indulgence, is the practice of the bulk of modern Christians: and that constant moderation, that wholesome discipline of restraint and self-denial, which are requisite to prevent the unperceived encroachments of the inferior appetites, seem altogether disused, as the exploded austerities of monkish superstition...

But the persons of whom we are now speaking, forgetting alike the duties they owe to themselves and to their fellow-creatures, often act as though their condition were meant to be a state of uniform indulgence, and vacant, unprofitable sloth...

To multiply the comforts of affluence, to provide for the gratification of appetite, to be luxurious without diseases, and indolent without lassitude, seems the chief study of their lives. Others again seem more to attach themselves to what have been well termed the ‘pomps and vanities of this world.’ Magnificent houses, grand equipages, numerous retinues, splendid entertainments, high and fashionable connections, appear to constitute, in their estimation, the supreme happiness of life.”
― William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious Systems

“If I were emperor, king, or prince in a campaign against the Turk, I would exhort my bishops and priests to stay at home and mind the duties of their office, praying, fasting, saying mass, preaching, and caring for the poor, as not only Holy Scripture, but their own canon law teaches and requires.”
― Martin Luther, On War Against the Turk

“How much less, then, is the disorder to be tolerated that arises when a Christian leaves his office and takes upon him a temporal office, or when a bishop or pastor leaves his office and takes upon him the office of a prince or judge; or, on the other hand, when a prince takes up the office of a bishop and lets his princely office go? Even today this shameful disorder rages and rules in the whole papacy, contrary to their own canons and laws.”
― Martin Luther, On War Against the Turk

“[,,,]he saw it as his Christian duty. Jesus had given his life for others, and a knight must do the same, and nothing was nobler than saving a young woman.”
― Melanie Dickerson, The Golden Braid

“But this distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty. He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“If we go to church or share our faith or read our Bibles or serve the poor out of a sense of mere duty or in order to achieve our own righteousness, then we lose the satisfaction God intended for us to experience when we willingly offer ourselves to His Glory. This is a tragedy of tremendous proportion and steals from the joy of our salvation.”
― John Oakes, Golden Rule Membership

“The neighbor...has never been presented as an object of admiration; Christianity has never taught that one shall admire the neighbor--one shall love him.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love