Quotes about Behavior

By striving to prove how much they deserve God's love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don't deserve it. The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.

I do not know if that theory is correct, but I do know that singling out one behavior as "sin" and emphasizing it over others provides a convenient way of dodging our own need for grace. High-minded moralism and shrill pronouncements of judgment may help fundraising, but they undermine a gospel of grace.

The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.

He lambastes Catholics. He opposes the J. B. Phillips version of the Bible because Phillips had a friendship with C. S. Lewis, who drank beer and smoked a pipe.

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

One of humanity's most common character traits is ingratitude.

We measure morality by what happens. Not what is intended.

Studies consistently show that when a school requires its students to wear school uniforms, or even just has a dress code, grades rise and violence declines.

While a pure mind may be a saintly ideal, for the rest of us mortals controlling our behavior is an enormous enough achievement.

The Torah and Judaism are behaviorist in their approach to life. How we behave is ultimately more important than how we think or feel. This is one of the greatest differences between the Torah and the contemporary mind, which attaches far more importance to how people feel.

If doing the bad thing never brought benefits, no one would ever do

This is what healing demands. Behavior that is hurtful, shameful, abusive, or demeaning must be brought into the fierce light of truth, and truth can be brutal.