Can it be, that the chief object of existence is to sing, and play, and dress and dance? Do not these things, when we reflect upon them, look more like the pursuits of butterflies and grasshoppers, and canary birds – than of rational creatures? Is it not melancholy to see beings with never-dying souls, sinking to the amusements of children; and employing time as if it were given them for nothing but mirth; and using the world as if it were created by God only to be a sort of playground for its inhabitants?
— John Angell James (1785–1859), Prediger
Topics: Meaning & Identity, Time & Transience, Ethical Questions
Occasions: For Reflection
John Angell James
John Angell James war ein englischer kongregationalistischer Prediger und Schriftsteller, der von 1805 bis zu seinem Tod 1859 an der Carrs Lane Chapel in Birmingham wirkte. Bekanntheit erlangte er durch weitverbreitete Erbauungsschriften wie „The Anxious Inquirer“ sowie durch seinen Einsatz für persönliche Bekehrung, Seelsorge und Ernsthaftigkeit im Predigtdienst. Heutigen Bibellesern bieten seine Schriften praxisnahe Anregungen für die persönliche Glaubenspraxis und das geistliche Leben.
All quotes by John Angell James (26)
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
Augustine of Hippo
Jesus calls us not to a new religion, but to life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
Henri Nouwen
To love a person means to see them as God meant them to be.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Inner dignity remains, even when performance capacity and social role decline.
Anselm Grün
There is a God, and I'm not him.
John Mark Comer
God has put eternity into our hearts and filled it with longing.
John Piper
Prayers are tools not for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.
Eugene Peterson