arts and culture on Paradise

The first garden (Eden) was perfection. In it was the possibility not only for the purest fulfillment of the human race but for all of creation. It was meant to be a paradise, which is, in fact, no di...

Almost any garden, if you see it at just the right moment, can be confused with paradise.

The Sabbath is the link between the paradise which has passed away and the paradise which is yet to come.

The city is the fulfillment of the purposes of the Eden of God. The city is the fulfiller of the paradise of God... which is tied to the future city with the original, sinless past of Eden and its res...

Let us begin with a question. Do you really know how to enjoy the world? Do you know how to enjoy yourself? One of the greatest parables in the New Testament has to do with the search for enjoyment an...

The city is not to be regarded as an evil invention of ungodly fallen man... The ultimate goal set before humanity at the very beginning was that human- culture should take city-form... there should b...

A Great (and Weighty) Work of Literature That Will Delight Like Moby Dick and War and Peace , Les Misérables is a hefty novel. Affectionately known as the ‘Brick’ for its formidable length, it c...

Regarding the average human’s awareness of their own culture, career anthropologist Darrell Whiteman has said that “it is scarcely a fish who would discover water.” This is a reliable statement. Human...

In imaginary works it is difficult to make virtuous characters as believable and attractive as bad characters. The villains of literature and screen–Captain Ahab, the boys who go bad in Lord of the Fl...

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.

The Garden of Eden, literally the “garden of delight,” is humanity’s original and perpetually originating home, the place of our collective nourishment, inspiration, instruction, and hope.

The New Jerusalem… is the Garden of Eden, remade. The City is the fulfilment of the purposes of the Eden of God. We began in a garden but will end in a city; God's purpose for humanity is urban! “...

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

I think when we go looking for fun what we are actually looking for is home. We are looking for peace. We are looking for simplicity, something to fill that spot that has been left by growing up or gr...

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult...

The garden itself was more than an agricultural project. It was a meeting place for God and man, where God “walked” among humanity (Gen. 3:8). It was the first temple, the first sacred space, set apar...

What is clear on all accounts is that a garden was an enclosed area designed for cultivation... [so] what we have, then, rather than an image of primitivism, is one of an area that is bounded, probabl...

The Country is both the Philosopher's Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

God’s garden, made “in the beginning,” does not lie behind us, but ahead of us, in hope, and, in the meantime, all around us as our place of work. History without gardens would be a wasteland. What th...

In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair...the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothi...

Think back over your life and try to remember a place where you felt safe and at peace, a time when you felt relaxed and okay. It could be an outdoor place—like on a beach or sitting in a tree. Maybe ...

God gave all men all the earth to love but, since our hearts are so small, ordained for each, one spot to be beloved over all.

Whenever I am traveling, I constantly look forward to the moment when I will return home. Even if I’m very busy and preoccupied, in the back of my mind one thought is always present: “Soon I’ll be goi...

Sing for joy, heavens and earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! Our Creator has comforted the people and will have compassion for the ones who are suffering. Come out! The imprisoned shall h...

For me the appropriate metaphor for the inner spiritual centre is a garden, a place of potential peace and tranquility. This garden is a place where the Spirit of God comes to make self-disclosure to ...

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

Praise is the rehearsal of our eternal song. By grace we learn to sing, and in glory we continue to sing. What will some of you do when you get to heaven, if you go on grumbling all the way? Do not ho...

In all our pilgrimages, we begin by going back to our roots. When Christians go to the Holy Land today, we do not go because God is present there in a way in which he is not in New York or Nottingham,...

The city is the place where there are more people...and since] God loves people… [few can be assured that] He loves the city.