“Even before there was a New Testament to appeal to as the written authority for Christian faith and practice, the implicit apostolic faith of early Christianity revolved around the scandal of the deity of Christ. The reason Christians held on to it tenaciously in the face of pagan ridicule and Roman persecution as well as all kinds of attempts to water it down was that it was the linchpin of the gospel. If it were removed in any way, then the hope for eternal participation in God’s own life and for forgiveness and restoration to the image of God would fall apart. The gospel itself would be wrecked.”

Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999), 150.

“It is a growing conviction of mine that no parish can fulfill its true function unless there is at the very center of its leadership life a small community of quietly fanatic, changed and truly converted Christians. The trouble with most parishes is that nobody, including the pastor, is really greatly changed. . . .

We do not want ordinary men. Ordinary men cannot win the brutally pagan life of a city like New York for Christ. We want quiet fanatics.”

John Heuss, Our Christian Vocation (Greenwish, 1955), pages 15-16.

HT: Ray Ortland

This was humbling to read today while I was at seminary.

Today hardly one in a hundred considers how difficult and arduous it is faithfully to discharge the office of pastor. Hence many are led into it as something trivial and not serious; and afterwards experience teaches them, too late, how foolishly they aspired to the unknown. Others think themselves endowed with great skill and intelligence and promise themselves great things from their talent, learning, and judgment; but afterwards they experience too late how limited their equipment is, for their powers fail them at the outset. Others, while knowing there will be many serious battles, have no fear, as though they were born for contention, and put on an iron front. Still others who want to be ministers are mercenaries. We know indeed that all God’s servants are wretched in the eyes of the world and common sense, for they must make war on the passions of all and thus displease men in order to please God.

—William J. Bouwsma’s John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Biography, p. 220

HT: My Mac Hero

In reading John Owen’s Overcoming Sin and Temptation, I came across this sweet quotation. Owen is arguing with someone who says he combats his lusts with a reminder that God’s law will condemn him at the end of his life. To that person he says,

“Yea, know that this reserve will not long hold out. If your lust has driven you from stronger gospel forts, it will speedily prevail against this also. Do not suppose that such considerations will deliver you, when you have voluntarily given up to your enemy those helps and means of preservation which have a thousand times their strengt*. Rest assuredly in this, that unless you recover yourself with speed from this condition, the thing that you fear will come upon you. What gospel principles do not, legal motives cannot do.”

I love the way Owen describes the truths of the gospel as gospel forts. I want to live in these forts. I need to stay in these forts everyday. It is only in these forts that I can stay protected against the temptation of my flesh, the allure of the world, comparison of others, the discouragement from failure, and the guilt of sin.

May God keep our souls in His gospel forts.

If you don’t already, you should find some way to connect with the Of First Importance blog everyday. Its mission is to “provide a helpful quote to help you remember what’s “of first importance”: the gospel of Jesus Christ. The phrase “of first importance” comes from 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul tells the church in Corinth he delivered what was of first first importance, namely the gospel.

All that to say I found the quotation yesterday very insightful.

“By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. . . . If the church is the body of Christ, then we should not live as disembodied Christians.”

• Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church (Wheaton, Ill, Crossway Books, 2008), 41.