What Good Is God? Quotes

“I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God's family.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Where is God when it hurts? We know one answer because God came to earth and showed us. You need only follow Jesus around and note how he responded to the tragedies of his day: large-scale tragedies such as an act of government terrorism in the temple or a tower collapsing on eighteen innocent bystanders; as well as small tragedies, such as a widow who has lost her only son or even a Roman soldier whose servant has fallen ill. At moments like these Jesus never delivered sermons about judgment or the need to accept God’s mysterious providence. Instead he responded with compassion – a word from Latin which simply means, “to suffer with” – and comfort and healings. God stands on the side of those who suffer. (pp.27-28/What Good Is God?)”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Jesus tended to honor the losers of this world, not the winners. Our modern culture extravagantly rewards beauty, athletic skill, wealth, and artistic achievement, qualities which seemed to impress Jesus not at all.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“We are all trophies of God’s grace, some more dramatically than others; Jesus came for the sick and not the well, for the sinner and not the righteous. He came to redeem and transform, to make all things new. May you go forth more committed than ever to nourish the souls who you touch, those tender lives who have sustained the enormous assaults of the universe. (pp.88)”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“On a trip to Russia I bought one of those Matryoshka “nested dolls” that break apart at the waist to reveal smaller and smaller dolls inside…it occurred to me to me later that each of us, like the nested dolls, contains multiple selves, making us a mysterious combination of good and evil, wisdom and folly, reason and instinct… (pp.80)”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“For the Christian, living by strict rules becomes a danger when it quenches the spiritual life rather than expresses it. Do you rely on rules as a way to earn God’s approval? Does a rule-based community set up a ranking system of higher and lower spirituality? Do rules distract you from weightier issues? Which do they foster, pride or humility? Do they help nourish the inner life or merely whitewash the outer appearance? These are the questions Jesus raised about the Pharisees, in some of the strongest language he ever used.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Where is God when it hurts? Where God’s people are. Where misery is, there is the Messiah, and now on earth the Messiah takes form in the shape of the church. That’s what the body of Christ means.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“The sufferings of Jesus show us that pain comes to us not as punishment but rather as a testing ground for faith that transcends pain. In truth, pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Western powers have learned a related and painful lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan: change imposed by force rarely produces the desired results. Likewise, a faith that matters grows best from the ground up, working its way through society gradually, without coercion.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Pharisees spend too much time around other Pharisees. As a result Pharisees (whether the Jewish or Christian variety) neglect wider issues, narrow their vision, and compete to achieve an artificial piety.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Dr. Brand said, in a comment that has always stayed with me, “A healthy body attends to the pain of the weakest part.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“I yearn for a grace-abounding church that rewards rather than punishes honesty, and that, in Jesus’ words, exists for the sinners and not the righteous, the sick and not the healthy.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“Legalism lowers, rather than raises, God’s standards. Loving your neighbor as yourself, caring for the poor, bringing about justice, forgiving enemies—none of these reduces to a set of rules. Indeed, any list of rules narrows the breadth of what God wants done in the world. It moves the emphasis away from dispensing God’s grace to sinners toward a pointless competition with pseudo-saints. It makes faith petty and irrelevant, not something that urgently matters.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“C. S. Lewis said, “If you read history you will find out that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next… Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters

“When we ignore the world outside the walls we suffer—as does it.”
― Philip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters