Quotes from Douglas Wilson

We live in a narcissistic age, which means that many want to have the praise that comes from having read, without the antecedent labor of actually reading.

We cannot carry everything, but God still insists that we carry something. We are to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). God wants us to be a neighbor to those who suffer without aspiring to the position of a god in the lives of those who suffer. And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus defines neighbor as the one in front of us right now.

Why should you care if there is a hole in the ship if the hole is not in your cabin?

When a man singles a woman out for attention, he should have one thing clear in his mind. (Actually, a young Christian woman should understand the same thing as well.) To some extent, one of two things is happening. The first option is that the man is attempting to get the woman into bed dishonorably. The other possibility is that he is trying to do it honorably. If this sounds crass, you may not fully appreciate the holiness of the marriage bed.

We are starting to slide when we start to judge our brother's motives by whether or not he experiences the same gut response of reactive compassion to the outrage we are assigned to deal with. But a Christian nurse in Romania who has dedicated herself to caring for abandoned orphans with birth defects may never have heard of Roe v. Wade. She doesn't need to.

Jesus was crucified in a public way, and so His death must have public ramifications. There is no way to be fully faithful to the message of His death and resurrection in private. Private faith in this public event cannot, in the very nature of the case, remain private. The love of God, as displayed in the cross, is as public as it gets.

Read because you want to, not because you need to. Actually, you need to as well, but you need to want to. You also need to want to need to, but I am rapidly getting out of my depth.

How can you persuade a man whose livelihood depends upon him remaining unpersuaded?

Oscar Wilde once defined a gentleman as one who never insulted somebody else accidentally.

Justin Taylor, editor of Crossway, cites the example of one writer who wanted to thank "my parents, Jesus and Ayn Rand." See what happens when you leave out the serial comma? But Andy Le Peau, at InterVarsity, points to a different kind of example. Suppose someone were to dedicate his book to "my mother, Ayn Rand, and God"? Now the serial comma creates the idea that Ayn Rand is in apposition to mother, which it presumably wasn't.

whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). This is quite true—whatever you eat or drink, on whatever day, for whatever meal. This includes, of course, the french fries, but that does not mean that you are to stand on the restaurant chair in order to thank God that you are not like other men, the ones who do not glorify God for the french fries.

This is as good a place as any to insist that all the characters in Evangellyfish are fictional, and I made them all up out of my own head. Any resemblance to any real people, living or dead, is their own darn fault. If they quit acting like that, the resemblance would cease immediately and we wouldn't have to worry about it.

Discipline by principle means that your system of discipline makes sense. It is orderly. It is not a chaos of commandments that depend upon the emotional state of Mom or Dad at the time the directives are delivered.

Aside from your name on the cover of the book, your voice should be your most distinctive signature.

We have a great array of choices before us, and it is our glory to choose between them. But there is one choice we do not have, and that is the choice to be the author of the story.

The issue is not the rate at which things get dirty. Marriages will always include bumps, fusses, misunderstandings, and problems. However, when these problems arise, you will either push them away or you are going to deal with them right away. When you do not deal with them right away, they accumulate. Marriages that are put together are marriages where sin is not allowed to accumulate.

The task of evangelism, now that Christ has risen, is not so much to run around at night, poking our flashlights into corners and cellars. Rather, the task of evangelism is more like pulling back the curtains.

Spurgeon once said, "Faults are thick where love is thin.

Offensive Takeaway Point: We should look for a way to stop responding to initiatives of the adversary and start behaving in such a way that they have to figure out how to respond to us. Take the initiative.

In Scripture, doctrine is practical and high doctrine is highly practical. Those who disparage doctrine for the sake of practice are impractical. Those who disparage practice for the sake of doctrine are unskilled in the word of righteousness. We are never to put apart what God has joined together.

I take it as a given that any conservative Christian who addresses cultural issues at all is not worth his salt if he does not get himself accused of racism. I am convinced that unless we are drawing that charge somehow, some way, then we are not doing our part to threaten the prevailing multicultural hooey. It is therefore important to incur the charge of racism. It is equally important that the charge be a slander and a falsehood.

To mock the color of a man's skin is to defy the handiwork of God.

You cannot receive what you are unwilling for God to give to someone else also.

We are not born again because we have repented and believed. Rather, we have repented and believed because God has given us the new birth. If the old heart is capable of repentance and belief, then a man does not need a new heart. He simply needs to continue to improve the old one.