“The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.”

The cross is the place where the Judge takes the Judgment.

Success and suffering will either darken your heart or make you wise, but they won’t leave you where you were.

The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.

The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life.

When Job was prospering, he prayed. When he was suffering, he still prayed.

Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, ‘My life for your life.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

If you love anything in this world more than God, you will crush that object under the weight of your expectations.

The reason the stone was rolled away on Jesus’s tomb was not so that Jesus could get out, but so that we could get in.

Christians tend to motivate others with guilt. We tend to say: You would do this if you were really committed Christians, indicating that we are committed and all that is needed is for others to become as good as we are!

The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life.

Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community – the people with whom we eat, play, converse, and study.

There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile.

How do you change your behavior? Change what you worship

The gospel is not only the way to enter the kingdom; it is the way to live in the kingdom.

There is a joy available that the deepest grief cannot put out. No circumstance or person can take away the joy God gives.

I think confronted with the modern world or with the rest of the world, I think people are becoming aware that the Western and Islamic civilizations have more in common than apart.

Nothing spoils human nature more than false zeal. The good nature of a heathen is more God-like than the furious zeal of a Christian.

Refugees of all kinds were constantly fleeing from Christendom to the Islamic lands. Jews of course and Muslims of course, but even some Christians and the movement of refugees went overwhelmingly that way.

With her for guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear.

When we talk about the Judeo-Christian or the Judeo-Muslim tradition, it’s important to remember that we are speaking of a Jewish component of civilization, but not in itself a civilization.

Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom, a musician who came from an incredible Christian background, and where there was a lot of love, which is really inspiring in a feminist way.

The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions. It remains the most published and most read book in the world of literature.

To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam.