John Dickson Quotes

I am a mathematician, sir. I never permit myself to think.

We don't fall in love with a woman because of her good character.

I get into a tearing passion about something I know very little about, and when I learn more my passion ebbs away.

The eyes were of a color which he could never decide on, afterwards when he told the story he used to say they were the color of everything in Spring.

I have committed another crime, Hadley,' he said. 'I have guessed the truth again.

Atheism certainly promotes a low view of humanity- how much lower can you get than thinking yourself an accidental by-product of a series of even larger accidents!

Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself.

The real power of effective leadership is maximizing other people’s potential which inevitably demands also ensuring that they get the credit. When our ego won’t let us build another person up, when everything has to build us up, then the effectiveness of the organization reverts to depending instead on how good we are in the technical aspects of what we do. And we have stopped leading and inspiring others to great heights.

Humility applied to convictions does not mean believing things any less; it means treating those who hold contrary beliefs with respect and friendship.

John Le Carre said that authenticity is less important than plausibility.

Alan Campbell opened one eye. From somewhere in remote distances, muffled beyond sight or sound, his soul crawled back painfully, through subterranean corridors, up into his body again. Toward the last it moved to a cacophony of hammers and lights. Then he was awake. The first eye was bad enough. But, when he opened his second eye, such as rush of anguish flowed through his brain that he hastily closed them again.

My only claim to distinction among writers is that I do not believe my life contains any materials for a novel. I have prowled around Limehouse and the gamiest sections of Paris, but I have never yet seen (a) a really choice murder in a locked room, (b) a mysterious mastermind or (c) a really good‐looking adventuress with slant eyes.

There is an aesthetic dimension to virtue. In real life, as opposed to in celluloid, we are attracted to the good and repelled by the bad. Even the woman who says she prefers the archetypal 'bad boy' probably doesn't actually like it when he is bad toward her.

To write good history is the noblest work of man.

books by her favorite “Golden Age” British mystery writers—Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, John Dickson Carr, and Agatha Christie—evil

It’s all very well to have your eight suspects parading in their endless ring-around-the-rosebush outside the library. That’s fine. But give some sensible reason why they were there. If you must shower the room with bus tickets, provide a reason for that too. In other words, construct your story. Your present problem is not to explain the villainy of the guilty: it’s to explain the stupidity of the innocent.

He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his safety razor. A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in three, with a countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster.

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, 'The Cannibals, you will be eaten by cannibals!' John Paton replied to this man 'Mr Dickson, you are advanced in years now and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you that if I can live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27).

Without a life example that speaks louder than words, even the most persuasive leader will fail.

The antidote to hateful, nationalistic, violent Christianity, Einstein proposed, is Christianity in practice.

I don’t care what bad songwriters do. I don’t care what lazy songwriters do. Just don’t try to do it with me. Even if I’m not going to be that great I’m damned sure going to try to be.

The poor fool hadn't realized that if all mankind shares a folly or an illusion, and likes to share it even knowing what it is, then the illusion is much more valuable and fine a kind of thing than the ass who wants to upset it.

while I may not be able to trace the Artist’s hand at all times, I can always trust his motives. The God who is in control of all things, who acts behind the scenes in all things, is also the God who willingly suffers. He is the one I can shout at, cry with and find comfort in.

If you stood motionless in the stream of time, listening to crying voices out of the past, you might presently believe that your feelings or your neighbour's were of puny significance because they had been experienced so often before and would be experienced again when you had gone. Whereas they did matter; they were the only reality; there was no shame in feeling the hurt.

In an extraordinarily bold move, Carr allows Fell in chapter seventeen [in, The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (1935)] to address the reader directly, giving a disquisition on the lockedroom mystery that has often been reprinted as an essay on the subject: ‘We’re in a detective story, and we don’t fool the reader by pretending we’re not . . . Let’s candidly glory in the noblest pursuit possible to characters in a book . . . When I say that a story about a hermetically sealed chamber is more interesting than anything else in detective fiction, that’s merely prejudice. I like my murders to be frequent, gory, and grotesque. I like some vividness of colour and imagination flashing out of my plot, since I cannot find a story enthralling solely on the grounds that it sounds as though it might really have happened.’ Fell proceeds to offer an analysis of different types of locked-room scenarios so impressively detailed that it has never been surpassed.

What the biblical narrative tells me – and, in particular the account of Christ’s passion- is that while I may not be able to trace the artists hand at all times, I can always trust his motives. The God who is in control of all things, who acts behind the scenes in all things, is also the God who willingly suffers. He is the one I can shout at, cry with and find comfort in. His heart, if not all his ways, is clear to me because the cross wore it on his sleeve for all to see. This God is able to sympathise with those who suffer not simply because his is 'all knowing' - an attribute ascribed to any version of divinity - because he has experienced pain first hand.

In a morally and religiously diverse culture such as ours, humility is a much-needed key to harmony.

Ray was downtown on Lower Broad and saw some guy with that sign: ‘Friend for Life, 25 cents.’ It seems to be a simple song, but it’s great,” Guy says. “I glanced over it in my mind for several years, and, after dissecting it, it’s strong as mare’s breath. It’s really wild.

Well, it’s all right. I’m going through the treatments and stuff like that.’ I said ‘I’m really sorry. I understand those treatments are really rough.’ Guy says, ‘Oh, hell. I’ve had hangovers worse than this.

After she was bedridden for several years, she seemed kind of hollow. I started avoiding her because I was so uncomfortable on the phone with her and seeing her like that. Once in a while there’d be a little glimmer of the old Susanna, but mostly just this hollow face. It’s really sad.

Guy declined a drink. He told me the chemotherapy had made him lose his taste for alcohol, and he was still pissed off about it.

He’s respected for that. He hasn’t given in to radio or to anything. He writes from his heart. He’s nice. He’s kind, and he’s lived his life exactly how he’s wanted to.

Discreetly, I found the waiter and paid the $15 check for our migas. When Guy found out I paid the check, he was miffed.

Guy is the one who said ‘You have to throw out the best line of your song if it doesn’t serve the rest of the song.

Guy brought in his studio band for the final show on September 27. Shawn Camp played fiddle and mandolin, Bryn Davies

coining,

pilot announced the problem and added, “There are four of us but only three parachutes. It’s my plane, my parachutes—I have to take one of them.” The others agreed. He strapped the parachute on and jumped to safety. Left on the aircraft were a brilliant professor (a rocket scientist, no less), a minister of religion and a backpacker. The professor jumped to his feet insisting, “I am one of the greatest minds in the country. I must survive. I must take one of the remaining parachutes.” The others agreed. He prepared himself and launched out. The elderly clergyman started to explain to the young traveler, “I’ve lived a long life. I do not fear death. You take the last parachute.” She stopped him mid-sentence with, “No, it’s fine. That brilliant professor just jumped out with my backpack strapped on!

—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1—4) It is important to see the logical connection between verses 1—2 and verses 3—4. Why is it good for Christians to pray for “all people”? Because such prayers please the One who desires “all people” to be saved. In other words, prayers for the unbelieving world fulfil the Saviour God’s longing to redeem that world. Praying for those who do not yet believe is actually a way of seeking their salvation. Prayer is not a passive, sideline aspect of evangelistic commitment; it is a fundamental expression of that commitment.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

How Good Deeds Conquered an Empire Humanly speaking, no one would have thought it possible to bring the nations to the worship of God through simple good deeds. How on earth could “good deeds” change a realm as mighty as the Roman Empire, let alone the whole world? As unlikely as it may have sounded at the time, Jesus’ call to be the light of the world was taken seriously by his disciples. They devoted themselves to quite heroic acts of godliness. They loved their enemies, prayed for their persecutors and cared for the poor wherever they found them. We know that the Jerusalem church set up a large daily food roster for the destitute among them—no fewer than seven Christian leaders were assigned to the management of the program (Acts 6:1—7). The apostle Paul, perhaps the greatest missionary/evangelist ever, was utterly devoted to these kinds of good deeds. In response to a famine that ravaged Palestine between AD 46—48 Paul conducted his own decade-long international aid program earmarked for poverty-stricken Palestinians. Wherever he went, he asked the Gentile churches to contribute whatever they could to the poor in Jerusalem.23 Christian “good deeds” continued long after the New Testament era. We know, for instance, that by AD 250 the Christian community in Rome was supporting 1,500 destitute people every day.24 All around the Mediterranean churches were setting up food programs, hospitals and orphanages. These were available to believers and unbelievers alike. This was an innovation. Historians often point to ancient Israel as the first society to introduce a comprehensive welfare system that cared for the poor and marginalised within the community. Christians

At the risk of sounding like a scratched CD, let me repeat the mission equation: if there is one Lord to whom all people belong and owe their allegiance, the people of that Lord must promote this reality everywhere.

would go as far as to say that, over time, the number of visitors in our church services is directly proportionate to the level of enthusiasm felt by those who regularly attend.

I was speaking to a brand-new Christian who told me about a cocktail party he went to recently. Some of Henry’s friends were a little perplexed by his “finding religion”. One of them said, “Why on earth would you go to church?” Henry threw it straight back at him: “Come with me on Sunday and you can see for yourself!” That is a believer who enjoys his church service! And why wouldn’t he? It was a church service that hooked him in the first place. Henry had not attended church since the enforced chapel services of his Catholic school days. But one day his wife, Sandra, decided she wanted to take the kids to Sunday school-she had been invited to the church by a local school mum. Sandra went and loved it and within a few months found herself trusting in Christ. Naturally, she asked Henry to come along. Reluctantly, he did, and to his surprise he too loved the experience. He couldn’t put his finger on it but something about the singing and the prayers and the preaching (and the people) captivated him. He says it was an hour of depth and solace in an otherwise full and frantic life. Henry came back again and again. He soon found himself joining in with the songs and the prayers and finding that he really meant it. Christ had become real to him. Henry and Sandra have not looked back. They are among the most regular members of my church and remain eager to throw down the challenge to their friends and family: “Come with me on Sunday and you can see for yourself!

The services Henry and Sandra were so taken with were not evangelistic events; they were regular services designed for the praise of God and the strengthening of believers. There were Bible readings, songs, prayers, creeds and preaching-all the things that have always been part of church gatherings. Henry and Sandra were eavesdroppers, as it were. And this, I think, is part of the power of services like these. Visitors to church can easily feel threatened if they suspect the whole event is pitched at them. But when they feel the freedom simply to observe what Christians do-praying to the Lord, giving thanks to him, listening to his Word-visitors are often more at ease, less defensive and more open to the things they hear. They are more attentive to our “praises” of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. I still think there is a place for the evangelistic church service and even for the so-called seeker service. I also think it is important to consider making small adjustments to our gatherings to make them more comprehensible to the uninitiated. However, I want to stress in the strongest terms that visitor-focused services are not an evangelistic necessity. Normal church meetings conducted exceptionally well will not only inspire the regulars; they will draw in visitors and, through the powerful vehicle of our corporate praise, promote the gospel to them. The burden is on us-whether we are laypeople or leaders-to do everything we can to enhance what goes on in our services and to invite our friends and family to eavesdrop on what we do.

As I said earlier, my larger point remains regardless of how one understands “prophesying”: the intelligible words of the congregation (not just the preachers) during the church service can have evangelistic significance, according to Paul. Notice that the congregational speech referred to by Paul is not pitched at the visiting unbeliever; this is not an evangelistic service. Paul simply describes an outsider walking into a church service and overhearing what believers are saying (and/or singing). This is enough, says Paul, to convince such a visitor to worship God with us.

The second clue is in 1 Corinthians 14 itself. In verses 3-4 Paul says, “Those who prophesy speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. Those who speak in a tongue [which is not interpreted] edify themselves, but those who prophesy edify the church”. At the very least, we can say from this that “prophesying” is an intelligible form of speech in church that contributes to the strengthening, encouragement and comfort of the congregation. Broad, I know, but clarifying nonetheless, especially given the “heat” associated with discussion about prophecy.

Romance once more, thinks Dickson . That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa; the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope. Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass. “I call it very genteel,” she says. “Real stylish. It might be worn by a queen.” “I wouldn’t say but it has,” says Dickson.

Russia is mortally sick and therefore all evil is unchained, and the criminals have no one to check them. There is crime everywhere in the world, and the unfettered crime in Russia is so powerful that it stretches its hand to crime throughout the globe and there is a great mobilizing everywhere of wicked men. Once you boasted that law was international and that the police in one land worked with the police of all others. To-day that is true about criminals. After a war evil passions are loosed, and, since Russia is broken, in her they can make their headquarters...

Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson with admiration. “I’m blessed if you’re not the most whole-hearted brigand I’ve ever struck.”“I’m not. I’m just a business man.” “Do you realize that you’re levying a private war and breaking every law of the land?” “Hoots!” said Dickson. “I don’t care a docken about the law. I’m for seeing this job through. What force can you produce?” “Only cripples , I’m afraid.

I have been back among fairy tales,” she says. “I do not quite understand, Alesha. Those gallant little boys! They are youth, and youth is always full of strangeness. Mr. Heritage! He is youth, too, and poetry, perhaps, and a soldier’s tradition. I think I know him... But what about Dickson? He is the petit bourgeois, the épicier, the class which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. “No,” is the answer. “You will not find him in Russia. He is what they call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at. But he is the stuff which aboveall others makes a great people. He will endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our own land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will not be a nation.

Violence has been a universal part of the human story. The demand to love one’s enemies has not. Division has been a norm. Inherent human dignity has not. Armies, greed, and the politics of power have been constants in history. Hospitals, schools, and charity, for all have not. Bullies are common. Saints are not.

Christ wrote a beautiful tune, which the church has often performed well, and often badly. But the melody was never completely drowned out. Sometimes it became a symphony.

There’s no keeping anything from you, is there, Devil-face?” she demanded, rolling about in her seat almost gaily. “Now, then, how did you know that?

They got the body out this morning, with a little silver crucifix twined about the neck. She had already written a note which she just addressed ‘To the Police Department,’ confessing that she had shot LaGarde. She confessed to a crime she did not commit.

The tempration of our age is to elevate our particular time and place as the crescendo of human purity and achievement. And that necessarily involves speaking ill of the past.

The temptation of our age is to elevate our particular time and place as the crescendo of human purity and achievement. And that necessarily involves speaking ill of the past.

John Dickson Carr’s novel The Burning Court.

The Three Coffins and The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr.

Try reading The Hollow Man, written by the ‘king of crime’, John Dickson Carr, in 1935. It’s unquestionably brilliant, often cited as the best locked-room mystery ever written.

UK-based Ipsos MORI survey “Rating Professions by Trustworthiness, 1993–2015.”2 Respondents were asked to rank sixteen professions according to “trustworthiness to tell the truth.” Sadly, journalists and politicians were near the bottom

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself but undoubting about the truth. This has been exactly reversed … We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.5

Every time he spoke, in fact, he had the appearance of thinly addressing an audience, raising and lowering his head as though from notes, and speaking in a penetrating singsong towards a point over his listeners' heads. You would have diagnosed a Physics B.Sc. with Socialist platform tendencies, and you would have been right.

Rodney Crowell says. “I went over, and we sat at the table, and Guy had a bottle of Johnny Walker Red, a quart, and he was hurting. He was drinking whiskey. When the pain is so deep, it’s that moan, it’s that timeless moan, and pain. Susanna was—that conversation was, ‘You know, it’s over.’ She was just saying, ‘It’s over.’ Guy was just trying to deal with the pain. Susanna surrendered something that night, as far as I could tell.” Her

We have forgotten how to flex two mental muscles at the same time: the muscle of moral conviction and the muscle of compassion to all regardless of their morality.

consider what I do poetry. I don’t need to prove I’m a poet in every line, and I’m not afraid to speak plainly in my songs. Not everything needs to be metaphor, and I don’t need lofty words. But it is my obligation as a poet to be faithful to the verse. I write what I know. I write what I see.” “Guy

tomes on the meaning of life. Poets and playwrights were

In those early years as a believer I had no idea Christians could be coy about their faith. No one had told me I was meant to feel awkward about spreading the good news. That was something I learnt only after mixing with Christians for a while. But I learnt it soon enough.

paperchase. And it is on a deduction drawn from

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.6

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I was startled to see that there was neither nervousness nor affected ease about him.

How’s it going, Inspector?” Halliday inquired, somewhat genially.

We’ve all met one or two women, I daresay, it would have been better if we hadn’t met.” “Now there,” observed Cullingford Abbot, “we have a short history of mankind expressed with admirable terseness.

I beg your pardon,” said Abbot. “You are quite right, of course. I am not myself fond of bad taste, though I am always displaying it. Go on.

Psychiatric examinations and numerous psychological tests have failed to reveal forms of mental illness that could, conceivably, explain the abduction phenomenon (Mack 1995; Bloecher, Clamar, and Hopkins 1985; Parnell and Sprinkle 1990; Rodeghier, Goodpastor, and Blatterbauer 1991; Zimmer 1984; Spanos, Cross, Dickson, and DeBreuil 1993).

Люди не составляют представление о членах семьи. Они принимают то, что есть, и, видит бог, это ещё не самое худшее.

Have you ever read The Hollow Man, by John Dickson Carr?

That’s why they pay me the big bucks.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Dickson said, ‘I heard it on TV.

Rampole,

Son, frankness is a virtue only when you're talkin' about yourself, and then it's a nuisance.

As a general rule, these sleight-of-hand tricks are a dead give-away to the murderer once you've tumbled to the means of workin' the illusion. A special sort of crime indicates a special set of circumstances, and those circumstances narrow down to fit one person like a hangman's cap when you know what they are.

The explosion of charity in the fourth century is one clear way in which Christ's teaching has impacted the history of western society.

The best way to be rid of quaking knees is to keep a busy mind.

Well, she is my most beloved and adored kinswoman, and for her sake I would commit most crimes.

Five reasonably intelligent men sat in a stupor of impotence, repeating wearily the essentials of a problem which they could not solve.

I have to consider the honour of my house.' 'Honour?' Jaikie queried. 'Yes, honour,' said Ashie severely. 'Have you anything to say against it?' 'N-o-o. But it’s an awkward word and apt to obscure reason.' 'It is a very real thing, which you English do not understand.' 'We understand it well enough, but we are shy of talking about it.

accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition,

But for the greatest long - range murder ever committed in a locked room, gents, I commend you to one of the most brilliant short detective stories in the history of detective fiction. (In fact, it shares the honours for supreme untouchable top - notch excellence with Thomas Burke's The Hands of Mr Ottermole, Chesterton's The Man in the Passage, and Jacques Futrelle's The Problem of Cell 13.) This is Melville Davisson Post's The Doomdorf Mystery

The notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. . . . This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. . . . This was revolutionary stuff. Indeed, it was the cultural basis for the revitalization of the Roman world. (Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 209–15.)

He applied his new-found faith to matters of state bringing far reaching benefits to ordinary citizens. He did not impose Christianity on the empire. His approach was simply to end the persecution of Christianity and grant the church the rights of any other religion or civic association. But he did “Christianise” (if there is such a thing) certain Roman laws. He humanised the criminal law and the law of debt, eased the conditions of slaves, and, importantly, introduced imperial financial support for children of poor families. The effect of this last measure was to discourage the common Roman practice of “exposure,” abandoning unwanted babies. With the conversion of Constantine, the empire established by brute force was beginning to be conquered by the message of a Servant Lord.

My own desire is, for the common good of the world and the advantage of all mankind, that Thy people [Christians] should enjoy a life of peace and undisturbed concord. So let those who still delight in error [the pagan majority] be made welcome to the same degree of peace and tranquility which those who believe have. For it may be that this restoration of equal privileges to all [i.e., the removal of repressions of the Church] will prevail to lead them [pagans] into the straight path. Let no one molest another, but let every one do as his soul desires. . . . We pray, however, that they [pagans] too may receive the same blessing, and thus experience that heartfelt joy which unity of sentiment inspires. . . . Once more, let none use that to the detriment of another which he may himself have received on conviction of its truth; but let everyone, if it be possible, apply what he has understood and known to the benefit of his neighbour. (“Constantine’s Edict to the People of the Provinces on the Error of Polytheism,” Life of Constantine 2.56 in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 512–14.) For

John Clyn, the contemporary Franciscan chronicler based in Kilkenny, claimed that during the four months after the plague pandemic reached Dublin and Drogheda in August 1348, 14,000 died in Dublin alone (‘xiiii milia hominum mortui sunt’), and that ‘ipsas civitates Dubliniam et Drovhda fere destruxit et vastavit incolis et hominibus’ (Dublin and Drogheda were almost destroyed and emptied of inhabitants and men). Both the archbishop and the mayor were among its victims.30

what we don’t know and can’t do far exceeds what we do know and can do. A little humility, then, is hardly rocket science. It is common sense.

Red General Jacqueminot Prince Camilla de Rohan, (darkest Rose of all). Jubilee. Baron Bonstetten. General Washington. John Hopper. Ulrich Brunner. Victor Verdier. [134] Pink Mrs. John Laing (constant bloomer). Anne de Diesbach. La France (blooms all summer). Magna Charta. Mme. Gabriel Luizet. Baroness Rothschild. Paul Neyron. White Margaret Dickson. Coquette des Alpes. White Maman Cochet (blooms continually). Madame Plantier (blooms continually). Coquette des Blanches. Mme. Alfred Carriere. Marchioness of Londonderry. Yellow I know but two hardy yellow Roses: The Persian Yellow. Soleil d’Or.

Winchell was enormously entertaining to the common man, his harsh and staccato voice wrapped in a fearless facade. He saw himself as a “protector of little people,” wrote Dickson Hartwell in a 1948 Collier’s profile. “Nobody browbeats a waiter in his presence.” He took on Hitler, Congress, and the president, and he wasn’t afraid to lambaste by name prominent Americans he suspected of a pro-Axis attitude. At various times he heaped scorn upon Huey Long, Hamilton Fish, Charles A. Lindbergh, Martin Dies, and the Ku Klux Klan. He sometimes referred to Congress as “the House of Reprehensibles,” and he got in trouble with his sponsor and network (one of many such troubles) when he characterized as “damn fools” voters who had returned isolationists to office.

The notion of a carefully prepared exposition of Scripture, which we have equated with “teaching,” is virtually absent from Acts

sermons are at least as different from what Paul called “teaching” as they are from what he called “prophesying.

But the problem with a hateful Christian is not their Christianity but their departure from it.

This is true of every age. For every Cyril of Alexandria (the bishop when Hypatia was murdered) there was a Basil of Caesarea (who established the first hospital). For every Christian warlord hacking his way through pagan Europe there was a humble preacher standing in his way preferring to die than to kill. We will meet both of these, and more, in the next few chapters.