William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.
Always remember that true happiness is not in getting what you want, but wanting what you already have. He who dies with the most toys is still dead. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Before I die, I will preach to the Muslims in the Arab world. I will preach in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. I will preach in Tehran. I will do it under the umbrella of God. And see its impact.
We realized that there's a great need in many churches to use the power of the media...There are a lot of different ways to preach. You can preach by praising. You can preach by preaching sermons. You can preach by just giving someone food when they're hungry. There are people who will never darken a church door but they will come to see a play.
If any man will preach as he should preach, his work will take more out of him than any other labor under heaven.
I firmly believe the world will sort itself out in the end. Believe it with me. At least none of us will be around to be proven wrong.
It is either all of Christ or none of Christ! I believe we need to preach again a whole Christ to the world - a Christ who does not need our apologies, a Christ who will not be divided, a Christ who will either be Lord of all or will not be Lord at all!
I believe abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I believe that since Roe v Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice. We can believe what we want, but will will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me waivering on that.
There are still people who insist that we have to preach on repentance. Well, I disagree! I think we should do it God’s way – preach the goodness of God and allow the goodness of God to lead people to repentance. Such repentance will be true repentance. It will not be motivated by the fear of judgment and indignation. It will be a genuine repentance that is motivated by His grace, unconditional love and compassion. After all, our ability to love God stems from our first tasting His love for us.
A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power.
Those of us who preach the Scriptures, along with being nourished by it ourselves, have to figure out along with our congregations how we can incarnate the gospel in our community, or we will preach to a religious ghetto.
None may wholly escape the good of Nature, however imperfectly exposed to her blessings. The minister will not preach a perfectly flat and sedimentary sermon after climbing a snowy peak; and the fair play and tremendous impartiality of Nature, so tellingly displayed, will surely affect the after pleadings of the lawyer. Fresh air at least will get into everybody, and the cares of mere business will be quenched like the fires of a sinking ship.
My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold.
... but I believe the divine ones will send other great masters to preach the truth to mankind, and that mankind will always receive them with the cross and the fire and the stones
No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.