Quotes from Gary Thomas

Ascetics are "strict" only because they want to reserve a major portion of their lives for their passionate pursuit of God.

It is this strict side of the ascetic's life that is perhaps the least understood, not only by our culture, but also by other Christians. Especially among evangelicals, who champion salvation by grace through faith, a strict faith can seem perilously close to legalism; and in some cases, it might be. For healthy ascetics, however, strictness is a cherished method of expressing love for God.

Sin never seems quite as shocking when it is known only to us; when we see how it looks or sounds to another, it is magnified ten times over.

We're not married in a carefree garden of Eden; we're married in the midst of many responsibilities that compete for our energy.

We must never be naïve enough to think of marriage as a safe harbor from the fall... The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the fall: marriage."

Imagine the power of reading a psalm at age eighty that you read daily in your thirties. Rituals can tie our years together.

This segregation has erected denominational walls and impoverished many Christians. Unless you happen to be born into just the right tradition, you're brought up to feed on somebody else's diet.

The truth is, we want to be known; we truly do. But we're afraid. If you see the real me, will you run away? Am I even worth being known? Will the real me bore you? Scare you? Repulse you? And so we hide.

If you want to be free to serve Jesus, there's no question—stay single. Marriage takes a lot of time. But if you want to become more like Jesus, I can't imagine any better thing to do than to get married. Being married forces you to face some character issues you'd never have to face otherwise.

A good marriage isn't something you find; it's something you make.

Just when we are most eager to make ourselves understood, we must strive to understand. Just when we seek to air our grievances, we must labor to comprehend another's hurt. Just when we want to point out the fallacies and abusive behavior of someone else, we must ruthlessly evaluate our own offensive attitudes and behaviors.

A heavyweight boxing champion who dodges all serious contenders to consistently fight marshmallows is derided and ridiculed—and rightly so. Christians who dodge all serious struggle and consciously seek to put themselves in whatever situations and relationships are easiest are doing the same thing—they are coasting, and eventually that coasting will define them and—even worse—shape them.