“The Gospel is good news not good advice. Advice = what we should do. News = report of what was done for us.”

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.

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.

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

The sin that is most destructive in your life right now is the one you are most defensive about.

Christians need the gospel as much as non-Christians do.

We instinctively tend to limit for whom we exert ourselves. We do it for people like us, and for people whom we like. Jesus will have none of that.

The great basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.

I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.

In religion, you obey because God is useful. In Christianity, you obey because God is beautiful.

All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.

New Year’s Eve, we’re going to be doing a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Symphony Hall. It makes me feel good, because of all the people they could have had, they wanted me! We do have to do a little work with the rhythm section.

Maybe the new me will be different.

This is the Middle East, where every week you have something new; so whatever you talk about this week will not be valuable next week.

By the way, I follow the American elections, and I have never seen someone who is that offensive. I have seen people who are stupid. But stupid and offensive, that’s new.

Our new watches are made entirely of double super gold. They are just a piece of gold that you can wear to the left, right, or directly on top of the other gold you own.

Even they are competing with the same type of problem that I’m competing with.

It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.

The infinity of All ever bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter.