The Allure of Gentleness Quotes

“It is only in the heat of pain and suffering, both mental and physical, that real human character is forged. One does not develop courage without facing danger, patience without trials, wisdom without heart- and brain-racking puzzles, endurance without suffering, or temperance and honesty without temptations. These are the very things we treasure most about people. Ask yourself if you would be willing to be devoid of all these virtues. If your answer is no, then don’t scorn the means of obtaining them. The gold of human character is dug from torturous mines, but its dung and dirt are quite easily come by. And it should come as no surprise to us that in our time—the time of the great flight from pain—such virtues as these are conspicuous only by their absence. I’m”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. . . . We must spend more time in studying our Lord’s lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them. . . . Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else [circumstances, for example], and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry. . . . That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think.2 We’re”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Truth reveals reality, and reality can be described as what we humans run into when we are wrong, a collision in which we always lose. Being”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“The world that contains the possibility of evil is the one that also contains the greatest possibility of good. And the question of why God allows evil to happen has to be put against the question of what a world where evil could not happen would be like. It’s by working on those questions that people can come to some resolution in their minds about the reality of evil and what it means.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“I get a lot of resistance to the idea that God can choose not to know things, because people are concerned about God’s omniscience. But let me tell you that God’s omniscience does not overwhelm his omnipotence. God does not have to know anything he does not wish to know. His omniscience refers to his ability to know everything, just as his omnipotence refers to his ability to do anything he wishes. God’s omnipotence does not mean that he is always doing—or that he ever does—everything he can do. In the same way, he does not have to know everything he can know. He is capable of not knowing whatever he does not wish to know—should there be any such thing.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“What is to be made known is what God is going to bring out of human history, what Malachi 3:17 describes as his “jewels” (KJV). What God is going to bring out of human history in his people is going to be the greatest reflection of God’s own glory, wisdom, and love. That is what human history is about. It is to make a society of the redeemed that will be the crown jewel of creation. And when we look at all of the terrible things that happen in human history, when we look at the extent of human evil in it, we want to remember what would be lost if human history had not happened. What would be lost is precisely this crown jewel of creation, which consists of Christlike people living together with the kind of love that the members of the Trinity have for one another and enjoying that full, shared, self-subsistent being that characterizes God himself as God dwells in those people.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Remember, in Colossians we are told that in him are hidden “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3). And, of course, it’s perfectly logical that the reason all the treasures are hidden in him is because he made everything. So if you’re engaged in research in some field, you should take him in as your partner, because he really does know what makes things work. Regardless of what you’re working on, Jesus has the knowledge required to solve your problems.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“The means of our communication needs to be gentle, because gentleness also characterizes the subject of our communication. What we are seeking to defend or explain is Jesus himself, who is a gentle, loving shepherd. If we are not gentle in how we present the good news, how will people encounter the gentle and loving Messiah we want to point to? And finally, in an age shaped by feuding intellectual commitments and cultural battles over religion, science, truth, and morality, how will we get a hearing by merely insisting that we have truth and reason on our side? Many have made these claims before us. Some in a spirit of aggression, some in fear, and some in arrogance. Our apologetic happens in a context, and that context is strewn with enmity, hostility, abuse, and other opposition, which ultimately contradict the very things our message lifts up. That is why our apologetic has to embody the message and person we want to communicate. Only with “gentleness and reverence” will people be able to see, verify, and be persuaded to respond to what we have to say.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“So the call to “give an account” is, first, not a call to beat unwilling people into intellectual submission, but to be the servant of those in need, often indeed the servant of those who are in the grip of their own intellectual self-righteousness and pride, usually reinforced by their social surroundings.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Remember, Jesus said that people do not light a lamp to put it under a bushel basket. He said you’re to be like a city set upon a hill (Matt. 5:14–15). Have you ever thought about trying to hide a city set on a hill? Can you imagine being assigned the job of hiding San Francisco? Jesus is saying that when you are tied into the kingdom of the heavens, there is going to be something so obviously different about you that people are going to think, “What have you done? What have you got? What makes you so different?” And that is the context of apologetics.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“The Bible is the unique written Word of God. It is inerrant in its original form and infallible in all of its forms for the purpose of guiding you into a life-saving relationship with God in His kingdom. The Bible contains a body of knowledge without which human beings cannot survive. It reliably fixes the boundaries of everything God will ever say to humankind.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus

“Let's remember that Jesus didn't leave Thomas to suffer without the blessing of faith and confidence; he gave him the evidence he required. That is typical of Jesus's approach to doubt; he responded to honest doubters in the way he knew best, the way that would help them to move from doubt to knowledge.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus

“Jesus's words are the best information on the subjects of greatest importance to human beings—whether they know it or not. He is the only solid foundation for our ideas.

So here's an example of a big idea from Jesus: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17, KJV). The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of the heavens is right here. That is what Jesus preached. He preached the immediate availability of the kingdom of the heavens to anyone who would simply turn and walk into it. He preached discipleship as the greatest opportunity that any human being will ever have. He preached discipleship, because discipleship is how we get our ideas corrected.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus

“Faith is a living, well-founded confidence in the grace of God, so perfectly certain that it would die a thousand times rather than surrender its conviction. Such confidence and personal knowledge of divine grace makes its possessor joyful, bold, and full of warm affection toward God and all created things—all of which the Holy Spirit works in faith. Hence, such a man becomes without constraint willing and eager to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer all manner of ills, in order to please and to glorify God, who has shown toward him such grace. It is thus impossible to separate works from faith—yea, just as impossible as to separate burning and shining from fire.9 So”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“The scriptures are the best-attested record of the ancient world that we have. Normal standards of historical evidence authenticate them as reliable, historically and scientifically, so far as we can determine in every way. But that will not bring you salvation. When you come to the scriptures and say, “Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord. My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word!”3 then the hand of God reaches out and touches the soul and brings you into that great purpose and reality that is God’s redemptive act in human history. And any questions that arise about the nature of scripture or the people of God can be honestly dealt with.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Reason functions as a basis of responsibility before God precisely because of its ability to serve in the instigation, nurture, and correction of faith. Because of this ability, we are responsible before God if we do not abide according to its results. To disparage the role of reason in the production and sustenance of faith is to contradict the plain intent of the scriptures, according to which reason provides adequate grounds to support a right worship of God.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Method is always tied to subject matter, and in dealing with life in general there is no such thing as a single scientific method. This has become the quandary of our culture, because everything that really matters in guiding life falls outside of science. Can any of the sciences or the scientific method tell you how to become a truly good person? Science can’t deal with something like that, because some questions can’t be quantified. Science turns out to be only a portion of the much broader field of knowledge.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“The intellect is good. Our natural abilities of perception are good, and they are not opposed to faith. Please hear me: our natural abilities are not opposed to faith. Yes, we live by faith and not by sight, but try not using your sight at all and see how that works. When Jesus walked this earth, he used all of his human powers—all of them—and we are called to devote all of our human powers to God in order that we might live under him as he intended.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Method is always tied to subject matter, and in dealing with life in general there is no such thing as a single scientific method.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“Faith is not opposed to evidence that we might gain from perception as well as from reason.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“To be simple, humble, and thoughtful as we listen to others and help them come to faith in the One who has given us life.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility

“We have a terrible time understanding love, because we confuse it with desire. Desire and love are two utterly different kinds of things. Not only is desire not love; it is often opposed to love. Right action is the act of love, regardless of the desires of anyone involved.”
― Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus – Demonstrating Christianity Through a Transformed Life of Love and Humility