Important Quotes

"In the beginning, the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. They had a personal and vital relationship with the Lord, and it transformed their lives and the world around them. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Then it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. Now it has moved to America, where it has become an enterprise" (in Dunnam & Moore, pp. 31–32; Larson, p. 50).

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"Contemporary cultures present no tougher challenges to Christianity than did the fall of Rome, the collapse of the medieval synthesis, the breakup of the unity of Christendom in the sixteenth century, or the French Enlightenment. Christian teaching today must be pursued amid a similar collapse of modern assumptions. . . . modernity has more catching up to do with classic Christianity. My passion is in the closest possible adherence to the texts of classic Christian teaching" (pp. viii–xiv).

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"As the historical reality of Jesus comes into clearer focus, so too do his words and his claims. Over the past fifty years, archaeologists and biblical scholars have unearthed important texts and ancient clues to help us understand Jesus better. Indeed, we now have access to information about the first-century Jewish world that theologians in previous centuries hardly dreamed possible. Much of it reaffirms the reliability of the ancient documents, making many biblical scholars less skeptical today about the historical accuracy of the Bible than they've been in previous decades" (in Spangler and Tverberg, p. 212).

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"The disciples had nothing to gain by lying . . . They faced hardship, ridicule, hostility, and martyrs' deaths. In light of this, they could never have sustained such unwavering motivation if they knew what they were preaching was a lie. The disciples were not fools, and Paul was a cool-headed intellectual of the first rank. There would have been several opportunities over three to four decades of ministry to reconsider and renounce a lie" (pp. 171–72).

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"Persecution never did, never could, give any lasting wound to genuine Christianity. But the greatest it ever received, the grand blow which was struck at the very root of that humble, gentle, patient love, which is the fulfilling of the Christian law, the whole essence of true religion, was struck in the fourth century by Constantine the Great when he called himself a Christian and poured in a flood of riches, honors, and power upon the Christians; more especially upon the clergy" (pp. 261–62).

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​​​"History was where Paul looked to see the roots of the story whose climax he believed was Jesus Christ. History is where we have to go if, as we say, we want to listen to scripture itself rather than the venerable traditions of later church leaders or the less venerable footnotes of more recent scholars. For too long, we have read scripture with nineteenth-century eyes and sixteenth-century questions. It's time to get back to reading with first-century eyes and twenty-first-century questions" (p. 37).

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"It would have been virtually impossible for the disciples to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem had the tomb not been empty. The empty tomb is a sine qua non of the resurrection. . . . When, therefore, the disciples began to preach the resurrection in Jerusalem, and people responded, and the religious authorities stood hopelessly by, the tomb must have been empty. The fact that the Christian fellowship, founded on the belief in Jesus' resurrection, could come into existence and flourish in the very city where he was executed and buried seems powerful evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb" (p. 369).

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"Far too often, we have limited the definition of the church. While not in all cases, in many cases, 'church' has become an informational, inspirational weekly gathering rather than the group of people that God has ordained from heaven to operate on his behalf on earth in order to bring heaven's viewpoint into history. There needs to be a recalibrating of many of our churches to the unified purpose of the Kingdom of God."

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