Quotes by Curtis Thomas
Curtis Thomas — Pastor und Buchautor · Reformierter Baptist / Evangelikal-reformiert · USA
Curtis Thomas ist ein US-amerikanischer evangelikal-reformierter Pastor und Autor, der über vier Jahrzehnte im pastoralen Dienst stand, insbesondere in Arkansas. Bekanntheit erlangte er vor allem als Mitverfasser des Buches „The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, Documented“, einer systematischen Darlegung der reformierten Heilslehre. Für Bibelleser bietet seine Arbeit eine kompakte, stark an Belegstellen orientierte Zusammenfassung calvinistischer Theologie und reformierter Gemeindepraxis.
Era: Today
Recurring topics: Church & Congregation, Wisdom & Understanding, Witness & Mission, The Bible & the Word of God, Discipleship, Courage & Strength, Temptation & Struggle, Growth & Character
Quotes by Curtis Thomas
The truth should comfort the hurting but also unsettle the comfortable.
Curtis Thomas
The more fractured we are, the greater we become spectacles to the world. The more we are united in love, the more the world sees Christ.
Curtis Thomas
We cannot sit back and wait for the sheep to lead. A few will, but by and large they are looking to us for direction, feeding, and leadership by our stepping out courageously in faith.
Curtis Thomas
The next time you think about leaving a church, think of the example of Christ. He does not just walk away from His people, but patiently suffers with them through many trials and tribulations, always thinking of their needs before His own.
Curtis Thomas
The Universal Church has in it only true believers, ones who have been called by the Spirit to trust in the saving work of Christ, who are kept eternally by the love of God and who will be presented to Christ without spot or blemish.
Curtis Thomas
Nowhere in Scripture do we have the slightest hint that God’s people are to volunteer. Rather, the Scriptures indicate that the use of our gifts should be considered a joyful responsibility.
Curtis Thomas
Our eyes should never be on the size of our church, the success of our programs, our budget, our salaries, but on speaking the truth of our Lord. Our concern must be the repentance, salvation, and spiritual growth of our hearers. To fear men is to hold God’s Word up for contempt; to fear God is to speak His message truthfully and faithfully.
Curtis Thomas
In general, separations should occur only as a last resort. But there are times when one’s life, children, or sanity are involved, and the seemingly prudent thing to do is to allow for a temporary separation with the hope expressed that the guilty party will repent of his/her actions and the marriage will be saved.
Curtis Thomas
God despises pride. Pride usually leads into a terrible fall. Only Satan can convince us that we, by our own strength, have accomplished anything good spiritually.
Curtis Thomas
One of the quickest ways for a pastor to raise needless questions about his integrity, to become burdened with things unnecessary, and to be tempted to treat members with partiality is to become involved in the church’s finances. Though the elders are ultimately responsible, the day-to-day affairs are best left to the deacons.
Curtis Thomas
The old adage that 10 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work is probably true in many congregations.
Curtis Thomas
Ultimately, of course, the effectiveness of preaching is the work of the Spirit. The most expertly crafted and powerfully delivered sermon imaginable will accomplish nothing if He does not act to persuade and enable the hearer to respond to the truth. But at the same time, we must also remember that the Spirit does not act in a vacuum. Ordinarily, He uses means, and preaching which employs all the rhetorical devices within the preacher’s ability is one of those means.
Curtis Thomas
There are a lot of temptations for pastors, one of which, because of our public role, is to think of ourselves more highly than we should. And in so doing, we can develop a tendency to depreciate those who are under our leadership. This can be manifested in a number of ways. Our messages can be occasions where we talk down to people. We can berate people about particular sins, though our own sins are just as heinous. We can assume a know-it-all attitude. We can conduct meetings in such a way that we take advantage of people or make light of their thoughts or suggestions. We can make public, veiled references to people. And we can use humor about our members from the pulpit at their emotional expense.
Curtis Thomas
That non-bony, flappable instrument between our bicuspids can be an instrument of tremendous good or cataclysmic destruction. It can be used to build people up in the faith or to destroy their hard-earned reputations. It can help bring about peace among nations or can start a war. And it can be an instrument for good in a local church, or can destroy a work of God.
Curtis Thomas
Leadership involves taking bold steps forward, not simply reacting. It involves courage and the ability to take occasional spiritual lumps. It involves faith in a sovereign God and a trust that His Word works. It involves a sacrificial love for the flock, a love that will move us to lay down our lives for God’s people.
Curtis Thomas
We never grow too old to be mentored or to be a mentor. We can look upon ourselves as middlemen. We should place ourselves under someone wiser and more knowledgeable than ourselves in order to learn from them, then be looking for those to whom we can transmit what we have learned. The torch must be passed continuously from one generation to the next.
Curtis Thomas
Local Churches have in their membership people who are professing believers, some of whom are genuinely saved, while others are unsaved and are still lost in their sins. Sometimes it is impossible to clearly distinguish between the two, because often unbelieving members exhibit many of the outward characteristics of believers. But the Lord knows who are His.
Curtis Thomas
Pastors are sinners. They have weaknesses and faults just like church members. This is not to say that they are not to live as an example to the flock (1 Peter 5:3) and are not to have met certain moral qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). But we must be realistic about their sinful nature. They will continually do battle with the old nature which is still part of their lives, and will do so as long as they live. Total victory over sin will not be won in this life. Sanctification will take place; victories will occur; bad habits and sins will be overcome – but there will be many battles to fight until the day of glory… Remember that your pastor and his family constantly live in a fishbowl for all the church to see – and sometimes the sight is not going to be particularly attractive. They are humans also!
Curtis Thomas
The ultimate purpose of all preaching is to lead the listener to a whole-person encounter with the truth of God. His mind should understand the truth, his heart should be stirred to feel the claim of that truth, and his will should be moved to respond to that truth. This whole-person encounter with the truth of God is, finally, the means to a further end – an encounter with the God of truth Himself.
Curtis Thomas
Time heals things. We’ve heard that many times. And occasionally it is true that people’s emotions die down and they lose the heart to disagree or fight. But to depend on time alone in the body of Christ to mend church problems is a very dangerous path. More often than not the problems only fester, become more serious, and then explode.
Curtis Thomas
Trying to put many biblical concepts together, I would define a gift as a combination of personal desire, natural propensities and learned abilities. Obviously, all of this must be given to us by the grace of God, hence a gift. And for that reason they are often spoken of as “grace-gifts.”
Curtis Thomas
We must do God’s work in God’s way, declaring God’s truth on His terms. That calls for trust – an absolute reliance upon God! The modern church often is afflicted by fear – fear of the members, fear of the world, fear of the unknown, fear of trying to do things God’s way. But it is His church, and His Word tells us how to feed His church with His truth and to leave the results in His sovereign hands.
Curtis Thomas
We [must] give the Spirit of God opportunity to work in their lives to enable them to digest biblical truth. “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,” but those members taught by the Spirit of God will indeed be changed.
Curtis Thomas
Satan is happy when problems occur in the body of Christ. He loves divisions, dissensions, uproars, individual against individual, falsehood against truth, lies, distortions, and other things that upset the tranquility and mission of the church. And one of his insidious ways of fostering these problems is to cause the leadership to assume that we just need to give the matter a bit of time to see if it won’t work itself out. Seldom is that the case! Some very minor issues, are best left alone, but when they escalate to major issues, time will work against us rather than for us. We must not fall into Satan’s trap. He is for real!
Curtis Thomas
Sources: pcabookstore.com, faithlife.com, wikipedia.org, thriftbooks.com
All quotes · lumen.bible