As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Every week I see images of full churches and read about how God is moving in churches across the world. I see pictures of baptisms and crowds. I also hear the podcasts. I can’t possibly keep up with the best of the preaching out there. It’s good when I can rejoice in how God is using others. It’s dangerous if I begin to envy the ministries of others.” - Servants of Grace
“We have added to the gospel through smells and scents, and promised those we lead that joy is found in something you apply to your skin and not something that happens to your heart.
“There is a double surprise in store for Aeschliman’s readers. It is alarming to learn how the rise and growth of a scientific culture has been linked with the most blatant subjectivism. It is a joy to be introduced to the ‘great central tradition’ of witnesses to the true meaning of words and defenders of human reason.” - National Review
“[T]o have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart,” Luther said. “That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.” - Acton (Gene Veith)
“[A] high proportion of the psalter is taken up with lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented, and broken.
“In this short book, Daniel Mahoney brilliantly lays bare the shallow and facile but dictatorial modern religion of optimistic humanitarianism: shallow and facile because it does not acknowledge the depth and persistence of human evil, and dictatorial because it will brook no rival.” - National Review
“In place of religion, we now have spirituality (or pseudo-spirituality). Instead of church, we do elaborate #selfcaresunday rituals. We get baptized at Burning Man. We pay tithings to yoga studios. Wellness has in many ways become our new religion, with practitioners, instructors, and coaches its priests, imams, and rabbis.” - Quartzy
When wisely managed, disillusionment is a beneficial misery. It qualifies as what the Puritans called “a severe mercy”—a torment that purifies the soul. Since disillusionment is emotionally painful, we naturally regard it as an enemy. But to be disillusioned is to be set free from illusion, and that is never bad. Disillusionment bursts an illusion much as a pin pops a balloon. The experience is jarring; but in the case of illusions, it is equally liberating.
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