Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"Age and experience by themselves don't increase your spiritual maturity. Becoming like Jesus doesn't happen incidentally or automatically with the passing of birthdays. Godliness, as 1 Timothy 4:7 says, requires a deliberate discipline. The Discipline of learning transforms accidental learners into intentional learners" (127-8).

"When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near. The rich, afraid that democracy will bleed them, conspire to overthrow it; or some enterprising individual seizes power, promises everything to the poor, surrounds himself with a personal army, kills first his enemies and then his friends 'until he has made a purgation of the state,' and establishes a dictatorship" (520).

"...vous savez fort bien vous-memes que le jour de Seigneur viendra de facon aussi inattendue qu'un voleur en pleine nuit. Lorsque les gens diront: 'Maintenant regne la paix! Maintenant nous sommes en security!', alors precisement, la ruine fondra subitement sur eux, comme les douleurs saisissent la femme enciente, et aucun n'echappera." - 1 Thess 5:2-3

"'Diversity is strength,' Carter said, fuming. Turnbull, as he clenched his fist in irritation, observed that despite the Split, some Americans still retained their natural inclination to tell other people how they should live. 'Does Germany look strong to you, fraulein?' the mayor replied" (201).

"With animals of all kinds, whenever colour has been modified for some special purpose, this has been, as far as we can judge, either for direct or indirect protection, or as an attraction between the sexes" (424).

"Conduisez-vous avec sagesse dans vos relations avec ceux qui n'appartiennent pas a la famille de Dieu, en mettant a profit toutes les occasions qui se presentent a vous. Que votre parole soit toujours empreinte de la grace de Dieu et pleine de saveur pour savoir comment repondre avec a-propos a chacun." - Colossiens 4:5-6

"Fasting can be a testimony - even one directed to yourself - that you find your greatest pleasure and enjoyment in life from God. It's a way of demonstrating to yourself that you love God more than food, that seeking Him is more important to you than eating, that Jesus - the bread of heaven (see John 6:51) - is more satisfying to you than earthly bread" (111).

"There was a time, she thought, when [Reardon's] mind, his energy, his inexhaustible resourcefulness had been given to the task of a producer devising better ways to deal with nature; now, they were switched to the task of a criminal outwitting men. She wondered how long a man could endure a change of that kind" (844).

"Je sais vivre dans le denuement, je sais aussi vivre dans l'abondance. C'est le secret que j'ai appris: m'accommoder a toutes les situations et toutes les circonstances, que je sois rassasie ou que j'aie faim, que je connaisse l'abondance ou que je sois dans le besoin. Je peux tout, grace a celui qui me fortifie." - Philippiens 4:12-13

"Ahead, it was wooded and hilly, even mountainous. Other signs pointed to Zurich and southeast to Basel, both in Switzerland and both off-limits to most travelers these days. The Swiss, as was their habit - a habit that had kept them free for centuries - was (sic) hunkering down again and largely shutting the world out. Of course, they did not exclude the world's money..." (192).

"The world of science and philosophy is composed not of individual things, but of Ideas; history, as distinct from biography, is the story of man; biology is the science not of specific organisms, but of life; mathematics is the study not of concrete things but of number, relation, and form independently of things and yet as valid for all things. Philosophy is the science if Ideas" (516).

"Pour conclure: puisez votre force dans le Seigneur et dans sa grande puissance. Revetez-vous de l'armure de Dieu afin de pouvoir tenir ferme contre toutes les ruses de diable. Car nous n'avons pas a lutter contre des etres de chair et du sang, mais contre les Puissances, contre les Autorites, contre les Pouvoirs de ce monde des tenebres, et contre les esprits du mal dans le monde celeste." - Ephesiens 6:10-12

"When you consider how God has given you the greatest possible gift in His Son, Jesus Christ, when you recall the mercy and grace He applies to you, when you reflect on how He provides all you have, and when you remember that you are actually giving to God, you should be able to give thankfully and cheerfully" (97).

"The two sexes of another lamellicorn beetle, the Ateuchus cicatricosus, live in pairs, and seem much attached to each other..." (417).

"Maintenant, par la foi en Jesus-Christ, nous etes tous fils de Dieu. Car vous tous qui avez ete baptises pour le Christ, vous vous etes revetus du Christ. Il n'y a donc plus de difference entre les Juifs et les non-Juifs, entre les esclaves et les hommes libres, entre les hommes et les femmes. Unis a Jesus-Christ, vous etes tous un." - Galates 3:26-28

"He sat still and silent, listening. He learned that in the service, the power of listening. At first, the wood seemed silent. But soon he was picking out noises - crickets, wind, bird calls, perhaps a dog, and off in the distance, cars passing in the night. He watched and listened, the weapon on his lap. For hours" (179).

"There, she thought, was the ultimate goal of all that loose academic prattle which businessmen had ignored for years, the goal of all the slipshod definitions, the sloppy generalities, the soupy abstractions all claiming that obedience to objective reality is the same as the obedience to the State, that there is no difference between a law of nature and a bureaucrat's directive..." (838-9).

"...Satan lui-meme ne se deguise-t-il pas en ange de lumiere? Il n'est donc pas surprenant que ses agents aussi se deguisent en serviteurs de ce qui est juste. Mais ils auront la fin que meritent leurs oeuvres." - 2 Corinthiens 11:14-15

"I can understand why the person who serves God in an attempt to earn his way to heaven doesn't serve with gladness. But the Christian who gratefully acknowledges what God has done for him or her for eternity should be able to serve God cheerfully and with joy" (80).

"Compared with the bold advance of the 5th century, & the revolutionary achievements of the 3rd, science in the 4th marked time, & contented itself...with recording its accumulations...The problems of religion, morals, & politics, appearing to be more vital & pressing than the problems of nature, men turned with Socrates from the objective study of the material world to a consideration of the soul & the state" (500).

"Car les armes avec lesquelles nous combattons ne sont pas simplement humaines; elles tiennent leur puissance de Dieu qui les rend capables de renverser des forteresses. Oui, nous renversons les faux raisonnements ainsi que tout ce qui se dresse pretentieusement contre la connaissance de Dieu, et nous faisons prissonniere toute pensee pour l'amener a obeir au Christ." - 2 Corinthiens 10:4-5

"Come now, Louise, we all understand that the socialism we all praise on television is utter nonsense. The People's Republic's flirtation with it will go on the list of the times socialism was tried but was never actually tried. Everyone sentient understands that this country needs reform. I don't propose we return to the pre-Split days. I prefer my capitalism controlled, harnessed, and obedient" (175).

"...insects belonging to this order [Hymenoptera] have the power of recognising each other after long intervals of time, and are deeply attached" (412).

"Nous le savons, en effet: si notre corps, cette tente que nous habitons sur la terre, vient a etre detruit, nous avons au ciel une maison que Dieu nous a preparee, une hatibation eternelle qui n'est pas l'oeuvre de l'homme. Car, dans cette tente, nous gemissons parce que nous attendons, avec un ardent desir, de revetir, par-dessus ce corps, notre domicile qui est de nature celeste..." - 2 Cor. 5:1-2

"Evangelism is presenting Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to sinful people, in order that they may come to put their trust in God through Him, to receive Him as their Savior, and serve Him as their King in the fellowship of His church" (66).

"Sure! I was there with a woman! That's what I did because that's what I felt like doing! Do you think you're going to scare me with your gasps, your stares, your whimpering virtue?...Take it and like it!...I'm sick of having to put on an act for your righteous satisfaction!...I'll do as I please, and you'll keep your mouth shut and go through the right tricks in public like everybody else..." (825).

"Voici, je vais vous reveler un mystere: nous ne passerons pas tous par la mort, mais nous serons tous transformes, en un instant, en un clin d'oeil, au son de la trompette derniere. Car, lorsque cette trompette retentira, les morts ressusciteront pour etre desormais incorruptible, tandis que nous, nous serons changes. En effet, ce corps corruptible doit se revetir d'incorruptibilite..." - 1 Cor. 15:41-53

"The geek took the iPad & punched up Skype, then giggled again as he hit an account on his favorites that had no avatar. It rang. And rang. And it picked up. The video focused. An Arab man in a sunny room. He said something in Arabic, & sounded impatient. Turnbull took the iPad & stared into it. 'Hey, asshole. I'm who your boys were looking for. I smoked their sorry asses...and...your pudgy brother" (166).

"The fifth century had modeled nude men & draped women; the fourth...nude women & clothed men. The fifth century had idealized its types, & had cast...the harassed life of man into an emotionless repose; the fourth century tried to realize in stone something of human individuality & feeling...the head & face took on more importance, the body less; the study of character replaced the idolatry of muscle" (494-5).

"'If anyone does not love the Lord.' That...covers the whole letter. To insist on human wisdom over against the gospel of the Crucified One is to 'not love the Lord'; so with living in incest, attendance at idol feasts, & so forth. The ultimate issue for Paul...is not their obedience to his word, but their love...for the Lord himself. Failure to obey Christ is lack of love for him" (926).