The impact of philosophical pluralism on Western culture is incalculable. It touches virtually every discipline – history, art, literature, anthropology, education, philosophy, psychology, the social sciences, even, increasingly, the “hard” sciences – but it has already achieved popularity in the public square, even when its existence is not recognized. It achieves its greatest victory in redefining religious pluralism so as to render heretical the idea that heresy is possible.

The Christian’s whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.

The gospel of the crucified Messiah must transform not only our beliefs but our behavior.

Christians have learned that when there seems to be no other evidence of God’s love, they cannot escape the cross.

When God finds us so puffed up that we do not feel our need for him, it is an act of kindness on his part to take us down a peg or two; it would be an act of judgment to leave us in our vaulting self-esteem.

The person who prays more in public than in private reveals that he is less interested in God’s approval than in human praise. Not piety but a reputation for piety is his concern.

In a theistic universe, there can be nothing worse than being truly abandoned by God himself. The worst of hell’s torments is that men and women are truly abandoned by God. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

The new command398 is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

We are dealing with God’s thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.

On the last day, God will ask, in effect, “What have you done with the salvation I bestowed on you?