The very concept of “the weekend” is unbiblical. It turns Sunday into a second Saturday. Home Depot may gain, but we lose. It turns Sunday into the day we catch up on the stuff we were too lazy or disorganized to do on Saturday. It also turns Sunday into a day to ramp up for work or school on Monday. It hollows out not only Sunday but our whole week, because it marginalizes God and church and sermons and all the other vital things that happen in our lives only when we make the vital things also the central things. If we accept the world’s concept of “the weekend,” we inevitably end up “fitting God in” rather than centering the practical reality of our every week around Him. We trivialize Him, even as we allow secondary things to hijack the sacred place of centrality, we live soul-exhausted lives, and then we wonder why God isn’t more real to us, why church isn’t “working” for us, why we’re grumpy, and so forth.
— Ray Ortlund (b. 1949), Pastor, Theologe und Autor
Topics: Church & Congregation, Discipleship, Time & Transience
Occasions: For Reflection
Ray Ortlund
Ray Ortlund (* 1949) ist ein US-amerikanischer Theologe, Alttestamentler und Pastor im reformiert-evangelikalen sowie anglikanischen Raum, der unter anderem am Trinity Evangelical Divinity School lehrte und die Immanuel Church in Nashville gründete. Er steht für die theologische Verbindung von biblischer Lehre mit einer gelebten Gemeindekultur der Gnade, Barmherzigkeit und geistlichen Erneuerung. Für Bibelleser verknüpfen seine Auslegungen und Schriften theologische Reflexion mit einer seelsorglichen, auf Christus zentrierten Alltagspraxis.
All quotes by Ray Ortlund (67)
The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
Tim Keller
The Church is not a cultural club, but the family of Jesus.
Pope Francis
The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.
John Charles Ryle
In essential unity; in nonessentials liberty; in all this charity.
Rupertus Meldenius
Henry Ward Beecher
Philip Yancey
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In a congregation, every person must be able to be as their heart truly is.
Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf