I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.
John Gresham MachenRead
What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of knowledge over mere encouragement, seeking understanding of salvation rather than just directions to attain it.
John Gresham Machen expresses a deep desire for actual knowledge and facts about salvation rather than motivational advice or encouragement. He indicates that understanding how one is saved is far more valuable than simply being told to save oneself, highlighting the need for concrete truths over inspirational rhetoric in spiritual matters.
In practice
In a religious discussion about faith and salvation, to emphasize the need for concrete understanding rather than just encouragement.
I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.
Faith is indeed intellectual; it involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowledge. But although faith is intellectual, it is not only intellectual. You cannot have faith without having knowledge; but you will not have faith if you have only knowledge.
The more we know of God, the more unreservedly we will trust him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more child-like will be our faith
Vastly more important than all questions with regard to methods of preaching is the root question as to what it is that shall be preached.
I see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend
Christ died"--that is history; "Christ died for our sins"--that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity.
I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.
I've found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing.
If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today.
You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well.
All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala.
Don't become too narrow. Live fully. Meet all kinds of people. You'll learn something from everyone. Follow what you feel in your heart.
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