Sermon quotes on image

Hannah Arendt

A life spent entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes, as we would say, shallow. While it retains its visibility, it loses the quality of rising into sight from some darker ground which must remain hidden if it is not to lose its depth in a very real, non-subjective sense.

The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 71.

G.K. Beale

What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration.

We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry, InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

“We Wear the Mask,” in Majors and Minors (Toledo: Hadley & Hadley, 1896), https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/identity/text3/dunbar.pdf.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

“I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!”

The Scarlet Letter

John of Damascus

When God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter.

A.A. Milne

“Whatever his weight in pounds and ounces, he always seems bigger because of his bounces.”

Winnie-the-Pooh

Dwight L. Moody

If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me.

Richard Plass and James Cofield

We are masters at creating an image, but we are novices at recognizing and repenting of the image we have created.

Taken from The Relational Soul: Moving from False Self to Deep Connection by Richard Plass and James Cofield, Copyright (c) 2014, p.62 by Richard Plass and James Cofield. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Tony Reinke

In the age of the spectacle, image is our identity, and our identity is unavoidably molded by our media.

Taken from Competing Spectacles by Tony Reinke, © 2019, p.21. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

Fred (Mr.)  Rogers

Things Are Different:

You never know the story

By the cover of the book.

You can’t tell what a dinner’s like

By simply looking at the cook.

It’s something everybody needs to know

Way down deep inside

That things are often different

Than the way they look.

When I put on a costume

To play a fancy part

That costume changes just my looks.

It doesn’t change my heart.

You cannot know what someone’s thinking

By the picture you just took

‘Cause things are often different

From the way they look.”

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers

Mark Twain

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.

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