The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
Philip YanceyRead
Parents learn the uses of power and its limits. They can insist on certain outward behavior but cannot change inner attitudes. They can require obedience but not goodness - and certainly not love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Parents can enforce rules but cannot control their children's feelings and true nature.
This quote reflects the complex dynamics of parenting, emphasizing that while parents have the authority to impose rules and expectations on their children, they cannot dictate their emotional responses or moral character. True goodness and love stem from within an individual, which cannot be mandated or forced through authority.
Themes
ParentingPowerObedienceAttitudesLove
In practice
Example use cases
In a parenting workshop discussing the limits of parental control.
More from Philip Yancey
All quotes →If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus’ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.
Philip YanceyRead
In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.
Philip YanceyRead
Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.
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We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.
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I once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times. Instead, he responded with a different question, a story, or some other indirection. Evidently Jesus wants us to work out answers on our own, using the principles that he taught and lived.
Philip YanceyRead
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