Eric

“Without an understanding of common grace, Christians will believe they can live self-sufficiently within their own cultural enclave. Some might feel that we should go only to Christian doctors, work only with Christian lawyers, listen only to Christian counselors, or enjoy only Christian artists. Of course, all non-believers have seriously impaired spiritual vision. Yet so many of the gifts God has put in the world are given to nonbelievers. Mozart was a gift to us—whether he was a believer or not. So Christians are free to study the world of human culture in order to know more of God; for as creatures made in His image we can appreciate truth and wisdom wherever we find it.”
― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

“Here Calvin is appreciating the way God blesses all those who are made in his image. Yet just prior to this, Calvin also writes that while “in man’s perverted and degenerate nature some sparks still gleam, [the light is nonetheless] choked with dense ignorance, so that it cannot come forth effectively. [His] mind, because of its dullness . . . betrays how incapable it is of seeking and finding truth.”173”
― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

“Luther argues that when we fail to believe that God accepts us fully in Christ, and look to some other way to justify or prove ourselves, we commit idolatry.”
― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

“Why do the Ten Commandments begin with a prohibition of idolatry? It is, Luther argued, because we never break the other commandments without breaking the first.”
― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work