Quotes about Scripture

When I don't think biblically, I go nuts. I just go, 'This is crazy.'

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.

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

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture the book widens and deepens with our years.

No one book of scripture can be understood by itself, any more than any one part of a tree or member of the body can be understood without reference to the whole of which it is a part.

It would be well if all who call themselves Christians, should learn that it is not their business to believe and teach what they may think true or right, but what God in his Holy Word has seen fit to reveal.

In a multitude of cases, and in all cases where regeneration is spoken of, it means the whole soul; that is, it includes the intellect, will, and the conscience as well as the affections. Hence the Bible speaks of the eyes, of the thoughts, of the purposes, of the devices, as well as of the feelings or affections of the heart. In Scriptural language, therefore, a 'new heart' does not mean simply a new state of feeling, but a radical change in the state of the whole soul or interior man.

All her triumphs over sin and error have been effected by the word of God. So long as she uses this and relies on it alone, she goes on conquering; but when any thing else, be it reason, science, tradition, or the commandments of men, is allowed to take its place or to share its office, then the church, or the Christian, is at the mercy of the adversary. Hoc signo vinces—the apostle may be understood to say to every believer and to the whole church.

If the facts of Scripture are what Augustinians believe them to be, then the Augustinian system is the only possible system of theology. If those facts be what Romanists or Remonstrants take them to be, then their system is the only true one. It is important that the theologian should know his place. He is not master of the situation. He can no more construct a system of theology to suit his fancy, than the astronomer can adjust the mechanism of the heavens according to his own good pleasure.

Theology, therefore, is the exhibition of the facts of Scripture in their proper order and relation, with the principles or general truths involved in the facts themselves, and which pervade and harmonize the whole.

In this sense, the methodological form that comes into play here is ultimately quite simple: Scripture is interpreted by Scripture. Scripture interprets itself. Attentive listening to Scripture's own internal self-interpretation is very characteristic of Redemptoris Mater.

Maximus has been called unscriptural, but Scripture is the background and the presupposition for all that he does, to a wholly different degree than in the one-sided scholastic theology or spiritual works of the sixth century. The Confessor's first major work is his set of answers to the questions of his friend Thalassius on passages in the Holy Scriptures. Maximus offers these answers from the fullness both of the exegetical and spiritual tradition and of his own personal meditation.