Quotes from Josh McDowell

Where I once believed people were there to be used, I started thinking of other people first.

I thought Christians were walking idiots.

People naturally have questions. They always have and always will. One of the key functions of apologetics, then, is to respond to questions and clear away objections people have that hinder their trust in Christ.

Do not underestimate the role you may play in clearing the obstacles in someone's spiritual journey.

Influential theologian J. Gresham Machen perhaps said it best: False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation to be controlled by ideas which prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. (Machen, CC, 7)

I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ. (1 John 2:26—27)

Thomas Aquinas writes: "There is within every soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.

Most important of all, individual believers can experience the power of the risen Christ in their lives today. First of all, they can know that their sins are forgiven (see Luke 24:46-47; 1 Corinthians 15:3). Second, they can be assured of eternal life and their own resurrection from the grave (see 1 Corinthians 15:19-26). Third, they can be released from a meaningless and empty life and be transformed into new creatures in Jesus Christ (see John 10:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Only when people genuinely disagree does tolerance become necessary. Claiming that someone is wrong for holding a different viewpoint, then, isn't itself intolerant; the attitude that accompanies the claim may, however, be intolerant.

Ng??i ta s? ch?t vì nh?ng gì h? cho là chân lý m?c dù th?t ra nó có th? sai l?m. NhÆ°ng h? không bao gi? ch?u ch?t vì nh?ng gì h? bi?t là gi? d?i.

Again from Napoleon: The nature of Christ's existence is mysterious, I admit; but this mystery meets the wants of man — reject it and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it, and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained.

The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.