truth on Firm Belief

One day when George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher and writer, was talking with his son, the conversation turned to heaven and the prophets’ version of the end of all things. “It seems too goo...

Assurance grows by repeated conflict. . . . When we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again . . . and when these things have been repeated to us an...

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

“I know” seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, “I thought I knew.”

Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for his dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.

Give us, Lord, a clear vision of the truth, faith in your power, and confident assurance of your love.

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

80 percent of Americans agree with the statement “an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent of any church or synagogue.”

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Trust is built on telling the truth, not telling people what they want to hear.

If man tries to grasp at truth of himself, he tries to grasp at it a priori . But in that case he does not do what he has to do when the truth comes to him. He does not believe. If he did, he wou...

Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text James, the brother of Jesus, the leader of the earliest Christian church in Jerusalem, writes this letter to scattered Jewish believers who are going throug...

Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.

One of the gifts John Wesley left the church is the Quadrilateral. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral refers to the four ways we come to know something as true: Scripture (what the Bible teaches), tradition (...

What we need to realize, however, is that there is no such thing as autonomous or “self-grounding” knowledge. All systems of interpretation and all claims to true knowledge are ultimately grounded out...

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.

A false religion fears the progress of all truth; a true religion seeks and recognizes truth wherever it can be found.

A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

An important representative of the pluralist position has been the British Protestant theologian John Hick, an unusually prolific and articulate writer. Hick has hit on a very graphic metaphor: He cal...

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.

The final thing leaders will need is courage … the willingness to tell the truth, to say what is not politely or politically acceptable. … The most common expression of the courage to tell the truth i...

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless.

Pragmatism may be defined simply as the approach to reality that defines truth as “that which works.” The pragmatist is concerned about results, and the results determine the truth. The problem with t...

But to deviate from the truth for the sake of some prospect of hope of our own can never be wise, however slight that deviation may be. It is not our judgement of the situation which can show us what ...

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

One of my favorite movies is Hoosiers (1986). It tells the story of a small-town basketball team from Hickory, Indiana, that finds greatness under the leadership of their coach, Norman Dale. The...