Quotes from Craig Keener

If we must "feel" God's presence before we believe he is with us, we again reduce God to our ability to grasp him, making him an idol instead of acknowledging him as God.

I was valuing my survival more than sharing my faith.

Every Christian generation learns equally the lessons of Revelation—that God is in control, that the powers of the world are minuscule when compared with God, that God is as likely to work through apparent weakness and failure as through strength and success, and that in the end God's people will prevail.

A bland Jesus who simply told people to look at the lilies of the field - such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who created him threaten no one.

When one employs a method of verifying miracles that insists that they be replicable in controlled settings, yet regards as natural and nonmiraculous any event that is so replicable,[121] one has framed the method so as to secure the expected antisupernatural outcome.

One can never satisfy a closed mind.

An important step in getting to know God is to realize how available he is to us. In learning to hear God, it helps us to take on faith the fact that we are already in his presence. If we must make ourselves worthy of his presence first, we will never get there.

God is consistent with his nature and declared purposes in Scripture, but he is not limited to our finite understanding of him or the ways we think he should work.

We should know and celebrate God with our whole person. While too many Christians neglect to serve God with the mind, others cultivate only their minds and neglect the emotional aspects of worship.

Because I am committed to the truth of Scripture, I must try to understand what Scripture says, even if it transcends my own experience.

The fact that God is sovereign over the distribution of gifts (1 Cor. 12:7) is no reason not to seek the gifts. God is sovereign over our food too, but though he desires to provide it for his children (see Matt. 6:25—34) and wants us to seek his kingdom first (Matt. 6:9—10, 33), he expects us to pray for him to provide our food (Matt. 6:11; 7:7—11).

Until those charismatic churches who have poor teaching can supply both spiritual empowerment and sounder teaching, many of them will continue to be only a way station for Christians who need a fresh spiritual experience but who end up taking it elsewhere once they have it.