The minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man.
J. C. RyleRead
The cross is the foundation of the Bible: If you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume, you have hitherto read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a heaven without a sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without a spring or weights, a lamp without oil. It will not comfort you; it will not deliver your soul from hell.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that understanding the crucifixion of Christ is essential for truly comprehending the Bible's teachings.
J.C. Ryle's quote stresses the importance of recognizing Christ's crucifixion as the central theme of the Bible. He explains that without this understanding, one's engagement with the scriptures is unfulfilling and lacks depth, similar to having essential elements missing from different objects or tools. The analogy highlights that just as certain things cannot function properly without their key components, faith and the scriptures cannot provide true comfort or salvation without a proper understanding of Christ's sacrifice.
Themes
CrossBibleChristCrucifixionFaithComfortSalvation
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing the core message of Christianity, one might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of Christ's sacrifice.
More from J. C. Ryle
All quotes →Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church. They train people for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations.
J. C. RyleRead
When I speak of a man growing in grace, I mean simply this - that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual mindedness more marked.
J. C. RyleRead
Those who confine God's love exclusively to the elect appear to me to take a narrow and contracted view of God's character and attributes....I have long come to the conclusion that men may be _x000D_ more systematic in their statements than the Bible, and may be led into grave error by idolatrous veneration of a system
J. C. RyleRead
Never be satisfied with the world's standard of Christianity!
J. C. RyleRead
Sunday morning, before we go to hear the Word of God preached...let us not rush into God’s presence careless, reckless, and unprepared, as if it mattered not in what way such work was done. Let us carry with us faith, reverence, and prayer. If these three are our companions, we will hear with profit, and return with praise.
J. C. RyleRead
Similar quotes
If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.
Philip YanceyRead
I was raised in an evangelical Methodist church. Evangelical meant that though you had been baptized and made a member of the church on Sunday morning, you still had to be 'saved' on Sunday night. I wanted to be saved, but I did not think you should fake it.
Stanley HauerwasRead
The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.
Elisabeth ElliotRead
The devotion which God sends to the succor of His Church and of the nations at the present time is the devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. It is the highest of all devotions.
Pope Leo XiiiRead
The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.
Leonard RavenhillRead
The facts tell us that no religious Faith releases - or ever has released at any moment in History - a higher degree of warmth, a more intense dynamism of unification than the Christianity of our own day - and the more Catholic it is, the truer my words.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead