Lesslie Newbigin Quotes

Quotes about:

• The church is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's kingship.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Religious, Men, Order

  Lesslie Newbigin (1988). “Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture”, p.122, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  52 Copy quote

• Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the
  rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly
  be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact?
  The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is like the
  fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal
  but life-giving.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Jesus, Giving, Joy

  Lesslie Newbigin (2014). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society”, p.156, SPCK

  63 Copy quote

• Live in the kingdom of God in such a way that it provokes questions for which the gospel is the answer.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Answers, Kingdoms, Way

  66 Copy quote

• How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Real, Believe, Training

  37 Copy quote

• It is less important to ask a Christian what he or she believes about the Bible than it is to inquire what he or she does with it.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Christian, Believe, Important

  Lesslie Newbigin (1995). “Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship”, p.87, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  49 Copy quote

• The business of the church is to tell and embody a story

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Church, Stories

  7 Copy quote

• I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Life, Jesus, Optimistic

  63 Copy quote

• Do things that will get people asking questions, the answer to which is the Gospel.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Christian, Prayer, Asking Questions

  40 Copy quote

• The Church, wherever it is, is not only Christ's witness to its own people and nation, but also the home-base for a mission to the ends of the earth.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Home, People, Church

  25 Copy quote

• The victory of the Church over the power which was embodied in the Roman imperial system was not won by seizing the levers of power: it was won when the victims knelt down in the Colosseum and prayed in the name of Jesus for the Emperor.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Jesus, Names, Victory

  Lesslie Newbigin (1989). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society”, p.275, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

  41 Copy quote

• The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about ‘what is true for me’ is an evasion of the serious business of living. It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture. It is a preliminary symptom of death.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Loss, Serious Business, Culture

  Lesslie Newbigin (2013). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: SPCK Classic”, p.36, SPCK

  33 Copy quote

• The Church must be seen as the company of pilgrims on the way to the end of the world and the ends of the earth.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Church, World, Earth

  20 Copy quote

• The living God is a God of justice and mercy and He will be satisfied with nothing less than a people in whom his justice and mercy are alive.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  People, Justice, Alive

  18 Copy quote

• The resurrection is the revelation to chosen witnesses of the fact that Jesus who died on the cross is indeed king - conqueror of death and sin, Lord and Savior of all. The resurrection is not the reversal of a defeat but the proclamation of a victory. The King reigns from the tree. The reign of God has indeed come upon us, and its sign is not a golden throne but a wooden cross.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Jesus, Kings, Tree

  31 Copy quote

• It has never at any time been possible to fit the resurrection of Jesus into any world view except a world view of which it is the basis.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Jesus, Views, World

  Lesslie Newbigin (2011). “Honest Religion for Secular Man”, p.53, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  27 Copy quote

• Our confidence...is not in the competence of our own knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability of the one who is known.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Knowing, Reliability, Faithfulness

  21 Copy quote

• One does not learn anything except by believing something, and -- conversely -- if one doubts everything one learns nothing. On the other hand, believing everything uncritically is the road to disaster. The faculty of doubt is essential. But as I have argued, rational doubt always rests on faith and not vice versa. The relationship between the two cannot be reversed.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Believe, Hands, Two

  27 Copy quote

• To make the improving of our own character our central aim is hardly the highest kind of goodness. True goodness forgets itself and goes out to do the right thing for no other reason than that it is right.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Character, Kind, Forget

  18 Copy quote

• To be elect in Christ Jesus, and there is no other election, means to be incorporated into his mission to the world, to be the bearer of God saving purpose for his whole world, to be the sign and the agent and the firstfruit of his blessed kingdom which is for all.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Jesus, Blessed, Mean

  Lesslie Newbigin (2013). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: SPCK Classic”, p.117, SPCK

  20 Copy quote

• God's grace is not limited by any ecclesiastical barriers.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Grace, God's Grace, Barriers

  Lesslie Newbigin (2009). “The Finality of Christ”, p.101, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  19 Copy quote

• Congregational life wherein each member has his opportunity to contribute to the life of the whole body, those gifts with which the Spirit endows him, is as much of the essence of the Church as are ministry and sacraments.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Christian, Opportunity, Essence

  4 Copy quote

• ...our societies appear to be intent on immediate consumption rather than on investment for the future. We are piling up enormous debts and exploiting the natural environment in a manner which suggests that we have no real sense of any worthwhile future. Just as a society which believes in the future saves in the present in order to invest in the future, so a society without belief spends everything now and piles up debts for future generations to settle. "Spend now and someone else will pay later."

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Real, Believe, Future

  21 Copy quote

• Christ is the clue to all that is.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Stewardship, Clue, Christ

  13 Copy quote

• The gospel is not just the illustration (even the best illustration) of an idea. It is the story of actions by which the human situation is irreversibly changed.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Illustration, Ideas, Stories

  Lesslie Newbigin (1989). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society”, Eerdmans Publishing Company

  6 Copy quote

• There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others]...We have to ask: 'What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make?

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Humility, Arrogant, Able

  Lesslie Newbigin (2013). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: SPCK Classic”, p.225, SPCK

  8 Copy quote

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