“Christianity cannot subsist unless men know what Christianity is; and the fair and logical thing is to learn what Christianity is, not from its opponents, but from those who themselves are Christians. That method of procedure would be the only fair method in the case of any movement. [...] Men have abundant opportunity today to learn what can be said against Christianity, and it is only fair that they should also learn something about the thing that is being attacked.”

“If only there were an inhabited field of discourse where Christians were thinking Christianly about everything, there would be something nutritive for Christian minds to feed on. But Christians are being truncated and deformed by the fact that men and women have to leap about from one tradition of discourse to another as they move in thought and discussion from moral matters to political matters, from ecclesiastical matters, to cultural matters.”

“Henry Scougal, the Scotsman who lived nearly three hundred years ago. He said that Christianity is ‘the life of God in the soul of men’. In other words, what makes us Christian is not primarily what we do, but what God does to us. That is essential Christianity. This rebirth, this being born again is all God’s action; that is not man’s, it is God’s. It is being born from above. It is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Therefore, the essential thing about being a Christian is that one has thus been dealt with by God, and that is an experience. It is not only experience, of course; there is the element of understanding, and so many other things. But the vital thing is just this experience”

“Let him then, who would be indeed a Christian, watch over his ways and over his heart with unceasing circumspection. Let him endeavour to learn, both from men and books, particularly from the lives of eminent Christians, what methods have been actually found most effectual for the conquest of every particular vice, and for improvement in every branch of holiness. Thus studying his own character, and observing the most secret workings of his own mind, and of our common nature; the knowledge which he will acquire of the human heart in general, and especially of his own, will be of the highest utility, in enabling him to avoid or to guard against the occasions of evil: and it will also tend, above all things, to the growth of humility, and to the maintenance of that sobriety of spirit and tenderness of conscience, which are eminently characteristic of the true Christian.”

“The strange thing about Christianity was that it adopted an entirely different method. It transformed the lives of men not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story; not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event.”

“Unfortunately, some Christians don't look much different from non-Christian coworkers. They talk the same, have the same work habits, compromise on the same issues, and entertain themselves in the same ways as those who have never met God personally. In some cases, the only difference between Christians and non-Christians is where they spend an hour or son on Sunday morning.”