Brian Burchell

“Common grace means that nonbelievers often act more righteously than believers despite their lack of faith; whereas believers, filled with remaining sin, often act far worse than their right belief in God would lead us to expect. All this means Christians should be humble and respectful toward those who do not share their faith.”
― Timothy J. Keller, The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God's Mercy

“Now see: By not defaulting to mere exhortation to trust God more but by penetrating to how the text points us to the saving work of Jesus, not only do we have a great picture of the gospel of salvation, but in the end we also have a more powerful, heart-changing motivation to trust God. We also now have a practical application for listeners, grounded in his saving work, not in our efforts. It goes like this: Are you in something like a storm in your life? Have you prayed and felt like God must be asleep? He is not. How do you know? Because he faced that ultimate storm and endured it for you—so you can know he will not abandon you in your infinitely smaller storms. Why not trust the one who did that for you?”
― Timothy J. Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism

“With our own kids, if we are parents, what’s our job? That question could be answered with a hundred valid responses. But at the center, our job is to show our kids that even our best love is a shadow of a greater love. To put a sharper edge on it: to make the tender heart of Christ irresistible and unforgettable. Our goal is that our kids would leave the house at eighteen and be unable to live the rest of their lives believing that their sins and sufferings repel Christ.”
― Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

“The fine arts are one of the most sensitive mirrors of society and culture of which they are an important part. What society and culture are, such will their fine arts be. If the culture is predominantly sensate, sensate also will be its dominant fine arts. If the culture is unintegrated, chaotic and eclectic also will be its fine arts. Since contemporary Western culture is predominantly sensate, and since the crisis consists in the disintegration of its dominant supersystem, so the contemporary crisis in the fine arts must also exhibit a desintegration of the sensate form of our painting and sculpture, music, literature, drama and architecture.”
― Pitirim Sorokin