Few things are sapping the strength of the church of Jesus Christ more than the unreconciled state of so many believers. So many have matters deeply imbedded in their craws, like iron wedges forced between themselves and other Christians. They can’t walk together because they do not agree. When they should be marching side by side through this world taking men captive for Jesus Christ, they are acting instead like an army that has been routed and scattered and whose troops in their confusion have begun fighting among themselves. Nothing is sapping the church of Christ of her strength so much as these unresolved problems, these loose ends among believing Christians that have never been tied up. There is no excuse for this sad condition, for the Bible does not allow for loose ends. God wants no loose ends.
— Jay Adams (1929–2020), Theologe, Buchautor und Begründer der biblischen/nouthetischen Seelsorge
Topics: Church & Congregation, Guilt & Forgiveness
Occasions: For Reflection
Jay Adams
Jay Adams (1929–2020) war ein US-amerikanischer presbyterianisch-reformierter Theologe, Pastor und Autor. Er begründete die nouthetische Seelsorge, die säkulare Psychologie strikt ablehnt und seelische Probleme primär auf sündiges Fehlverhalten zurückführt, das biblischer Zurechtweisung bedarf. Während sein Ansatz in konservativ-evangelikalen Kreisen als Rückbesinnung auf die Bibel geschätzt wird, kritisieren Fachleute und Seelsorger den oft konfrontativen Stil sowie die Vernachlässigung psychischer und organischer Krankheitsursachen.
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