Ryken Quotes

Earlier in this century someone claimed that we work at our play and play at our work. Today the confusion has deepened: we worship our work, work at our play, and play in our worship.

It is untrue that fiction is nonutilitarian. The uses of fiction are synonymous with the uses of literature. They include refreshment, clarification of life, self-awareness, expansion of our range of experiences, and enlargement of our sense of understanding and discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty , and understanding. Like literature generally, fiction is a form of discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty, and understanding. If it is all these things, the question of whether it is a legitimate use of time should not even arise.

Passion is a far better prioritizer than any organization system. Soul refreshment comes from SEEING glory – not getting stuff done.

If you want to make a Christian work, then be Christian, and simply try to make a beautiful work, into which your heart will pass; do not try to “make Christian.

Ease and luxury, such as our affluence brings us today, do not make for maturity; hardship and struggle do,

The only knowledge that is worthwhile, writes Northrop Frye. "is the knowledge that leafs to wisdom, for knowledge without wisdom is a body without life.

As Francis Schaeffer reminded us, “The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars

There is no valid reason for the perennial Christian preference of biography, history, and the newspaper to fiction and poetry. The former tell us what happened, while literature tells us what happens. The example of the Bible, which is central to any attempt to formulate a Christian approach to literature, sanctions the imagination as a valid form of truth. The Bible is in large part a work of imagination. Its most customary way of expressing truth is not the sermon or the theological outline, but the story, the poem, and the vision--all of them literary forms and products of the imagination (though not necessarily the fictional imagination). Literary conventions are present in the Bible from start to finish, even in the most historically factual parts.

literature enlarges our world of experience to include both more of the physical world and things not yet imagined, giving the “actual world” a “new dimension of depth” (Lewis, Of Other Worlds 29). This makes it possible for literature to strip Christian doctrines of their “stained glass” associations and make them appear in their “real potency” (37), a possibility Lewis himself realized in the Narnia series and the space trilogy.

Vincit qui patitur [he who suffers conquers].

Richard Rogers was lecturing at Wethersfield, Essex, someone told him, “Mr. Rogers, I like you and your company very well, but you are so precise.” To which Rogers replied, “O Sir, I serve a precise God.

If the opening chapters of Genesis portray God as a creative artist, then it only stands to reason that the people he made in his image will also be artists. Art is an imaginative activity, and in the act of creating, we reflect the mind of our Maker.

At its best, art is able to do what Fujimura's paintings do: satisfy our deep longing for beauty and communicate profound spiritual, intellectual, and emotional truth about the world that God has made for his glory. Is it any wonder that the best artists are celebrated?

The true sons of Abraham are not identified biologically, but Christologically.

Martin Luther said, “A Christian is not someone who has no sin or feels no sin; he is someone to whom, because of his faith in Christ, God does not impute his sin.

What we think has a strong influence on what we feel. John

No one cares how much we know unless they also know how much we care.

When a mind is in love with Jesus, this is what it sees: a world full of the wonders he has made.

The Christian worldview is liturgical as well as cerebral; it culminates with an everlasting crescendo of praise.

God has high standard for art, and obviously he does not and cannot endorse the content of work that is pornographic or propagandistic, or that violates his character in some other way.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wisely wrote, “If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all.”3

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.

Rather than giving in to meaninglessness and despair, Christian artists know that there is a way out. Thus they create images of grace, awakening a desire for the new heavens and the new earth by anticipating the possibilities of redemption in Christ.

the real issue for most of us is that we always want to place limits on our love. We are ready to give, but only when we have something left over. We are willing to care as long as it isn’t too inconvenient. We are able to love provided that people love us back.

We belong to Jesus Christ, because we have all been baptized into His body. Now the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit gives us a spiritual unity that overcomes our differences, enabling us to live together in a caring community that stands out like a city on a hill.

Meaning in fiction is thus viewed as what an action leads to, results in, or implies. If the experiment in living succeeds, the work can be said to affirm that world view. If the experiment fails, the work denies that view of reality and by implication usually suggests an alternative.

The end of learning, he said, is to “repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him” by acquiring “true virtue” (Hughes 631). This reinforces and expands Sidney’s point that the end of learning is virtuous action.

Why does God call people to be artists? Because he is an Artist, and we are made in his image. When we first meet the God of the Bible, he is busy making things and calling them good. Thus it is only natural for him to take some of the people that he has made, call them to be artists, and hold them to an aesthetic standard.

Western culture generally, as well as the Christian subculture specifically, has had an unwarranted tendency to think that abstract ideas and facts are the only valid type of knowledge that we possess. Literature challenges that bias, and so does the Bible. The Bible is not a theological outline with proof texts attached. It is an anthology of literature.

Art has tremendous power to shape culture and touch the human heart. Its artifacts embody the ideas and desires of the coming generation. This means that what is happening in the arts today is prophetic of what will happen in our culture tomorrow. It also means that when Christians abandon the artistic community, we lose a significant opportunity to coniniu- nicate Christ to our culture.

As long as one has a living art, its forms will change. The past art forms, therefore, are not necessarily the right ones for today or tomorrow. To demand the art forms of yesterday in either word systems or art is a bourgeois error. It cannot be assumed that if a Christian painter becomes “more Christian” he will necessarily become more and more like Rembrandt. This would be like saying that if the preacher really makes it next Sunday morning, he will preach to us in Chaucerian English. Then we’ll really listen!

Part of what Milton valued in a good book then was contact with the mind of an author rendered otherwise inaccessible by distance or time. Such contact is precisely what much modern and postmodern criticism insists we cannot have. Perhaps a secular world view inevitably leads to a universe in which a text is merely a playing field for the reader’s own intellectual athleticism. Perhaps only a Christian view (such as Milton’s) of the imago descending from God to author to text can preserve the writing of literature as an act of communication.

It is true enough that sanctification follows justification, but justification never gets left behind. We will never stand before God on the basis of our own righteousness. We can stand before God only on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Once and forever, we are justified before God by the righteousness we have received by faith. To be sure, we are becoming more holy all the time. Having been justified, we are now becoming sanctifies. But we cannot use our obedience--aa imperfect as it is--to establish our righteousness before God. To put this another way, we cannot base our justification on our sanctification

In a sermon I heard recently, the minister claimed that the portrait of God as a storm god (a literary motif that he did not name) in Psalm 97 is based on allusions to the Exodus and is 'not mere window dressing,' that is, metaphoric. As I observed to this preacher later, he used a metaphor in his denigration of metaphor as "mere window dressing.

In 1941, Dorothy L. Sayers provided a detailed analysis of that creative process in The Mind of the Maker. She developed the relevance of the imago Dei for understanding artistic creation in explicitly trinitarian terms. In every act of creation there is a controlling idea (the Father), the energy which incarnates that idea through craftsmanship in some medium (the Son), and the power to create a response in the reader (the Spirit). These three, while separate in identity, are yet one act of creation. So the ancient credal statements about the Trinity are factual claims about the mind of the maker created in his image. Sayers delves into the numerous literary examples, in what is one of the most fascinating accounts ever written both of the nature of literature and of the imago Dei. While some readers may feel she has a tendency to take a good idea too far, The Mind of the Maker remains an indispensable classic of Christian poetics.

In the words of the Puritan William Perkins, “The promises made to Abraham are first made to Christ, and then in Christ to all that believe in him.”6

Salvation in Christ does not rest on a law that we inevitably break; it rests on a promise that God cannot break.

The influence of Christianity seems to be declining in America and the West. At the same time, opposition to Christianity seems to be increasing-not only in this country but also around the world-and this makes some Christians pessimistic about the future. Many can relate to the words of Aragorn: "So we come to it in the end; the great battle of our time, in which many things shall pass away." Others are tempted to take up Théoden's lament: "Alas! That these evil days should be mine, and should come in my old age instead of that peace which I have earned. Alas for Boromir the brave! The young perish and the old linger, withering." Fortunately for Théoden- and his followers-Gandalf is there to correct his royal self-pity and strengthen his courage. The wizard calls the old king to "cast aside regret and fear" and "do the deed at hand.

From start to finish, the whole Christian life is by grace through faith. A new life in Christ commences with faith, continues by faith, and will be completed by faith.

The gospel is for Christians just as much as it is for non-Christians. We never advance beyond the good news of the cross and the empty tomb.

Os puritanos sabiam que a Escritura é a regra inalterada da santidade, e eles nunca se permitiram esquecer disso.

O calvinismo não ensina uma ética de autoconfiança, como ensina nossa ética moderna do trabalho. É, ao contrário, uma ética da graça: quaisquer recompensas tangíveis advindas do trabalho são o dom da graça de Deus.

No coração do puritanismo estava a crença de que a graça de Deus é a fonte de todo benefício humano e que não se pode adquiri-la por mérito humano.

Artists are called and gifted-personally, by name-to write, paint, sing, play, and dance to the glory of God.

Vamos trazer nossos filhos tão próximo do céu quanto pudermos... Está em nosso poder restringi-los e reformá-los, e isso devemos fazer”.

O sermão puritano cita o texto e o “põe em aberto” tão resumidamente quanto possível, expondo as circunstâncias e o contexto, explicando seus significados gramaticais, reduzindo suas figuras e esquemas à prosa, e expondo suas implicações lógicas. O sermão então proclama numa frase peremptória e indicativa a “doutrina” contida no texto ou logicamente deduzida dele e procede à primeira razão ou prova. A razão segue a razão, sem qualquer transição, senão um ponto e um número; depois que a última prova é afirmada seguem-se os usos ou aplicações, também em sequência numerada, e o sermão termina quando não há mais nada a ser dito.

Os puritanos pensavam que o futuro da igreja repousava num clero distinguido... por um novo fervor, um equipamento intelectual superior, um poder de comunicar... O principal propósito do novo clérigo era comunicar zelo aos leigos, tornando-os capazes de unirem-se para selecionar seus próprios ministros, examinar suas próprias vidas espirituais, dirigir orações em família, ler livros santos e tomar parte na administração eclesiástica.[

dizer quantos autores temos lido, o quanto somos familiarizados com os escolásticos, quão linguisticamente críticos nós somos ou coisa semelhante. É uma miserável ostentação”.

The call of the new covenant is the same as the old: in loving God, we give him our “all.

God is one; . . . this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; . . . the Father is the Father of the Son; and the Son, the Son of the Father; and the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father and the Son; and . . . in respect of this their mutual relations, they are distinct from each other. (John Owen)1

Yet even Christians who are dismissive of art continue to use it. Doing so is inescapable. Every time we build a sanctuary, arrange furniture in a room, or produce a brochure, we are making artistic decisions. Even if we are not artists in our primary vocation, there is an inescapably artistic aspect to our daily experience.

These men were not selected by a jury of fellow artists, but appointed by the sovereign and electing choice of God.

The example of the tabernacle proves that God loves all kinds of art, in all kinds of media and all kinds of styles-provided, that is, that they are in keeping with the perfections of his character. As John Calvin said, "All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions."3 Therefore, as Christians we are not limited to crosses and flannelgraphs, or to praise choruses and evangelistic skits.

A Christian view of art thus stands in opposition to the postmodern assumption that there are no absolutes.

The Puritan divine Richard Steele wrote, God doth call every man and woman…to serve him in some peculiar employment in this world, both for their own and the common good.…The Great Governor of the world hath appointed to every man his proper post and province.

If anything, things are even more difficult for Christian artists. Some churches do not consider art a serious way to serve God. Others deny that Christians in the arts have a legitimate calling. As a result, Christian artists often feel like they have to justify their existence. Rather than providing a community of support, some churches surround them with a climate of suspicion.

four fundamental principles for a Christian theology of the arts: (1) the artist's call and gift come from God; (2) God loves all kinds of art; (3) God maintains high standards for goodness, truth, and beauty; and (4) art is for the glory of God.

Moses was a prophet, but the tabernacle needed an artist.

Artists sometimes talk about art for art's sake. What they mean is that art has intrinsic worth: it has value in and of itself, apart from any utility. This needs to be said because there are always some people who wonder why we need art, on the assumption that in order to be a legitimate calling it must perform some practical function. But since God has made us to enjoy beauty, art itself is able to nourish our souls.

The composer Igor Stravinsky wisely said, "I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received."3

God's careful instructions for building the tabernacle remind us that his perfection sets the standard for whatever we create in his name.

The place where we most belong is not our neighborhood, our nation, our company, or even our family, but our church—the city of God—that caring community where we are known and loved, and where we find deeply supportive faith-building relationships.

People certainly do not want anyone to bring God into the discussion. They talk about the separation of church and state, but often what they mean is the separation of God from daily life. What business does God have telling us what to do, anyway? If people believe in God at all, they like to think of him as a kind of cosmic Santa Claus who is there to do nice things for people, not disapprove of what we are doing.

In the providence of God, some people who hope to become artists never reach their desired goal. This may be for reasons of practical necessity, or because they never reach the level of excellence required to sustain a career in the arts. In such cases it is important not to focus on the frustration of not achieving one's ambitions, but to recognize that there are other meaningful ways to participate in the arts. A full understanding of the arts recognizes both the unique vocation of the professional artist and the value of other forms of artistic expression. Even if our art must become an avocation rather than a vocation, it should still be pursued with deep joy and a strong sense of purpose. The church can help in this pursuit by serving as a community of encouragement that affirms the calling of artists and nurtures the artistic aspect of every human soul.

in Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (New York: Penguin, 2011).   2. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (ed. Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998], 150) speaks of the city as “humanity en masse” and therefore “humanity ‘writ large.’”   3. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (p. 150) defines city as a “fortified habitation.”   4. See Frank Frick, The City

To enjoy in tragedy that which one would not willingly suffer in reality is “miserable madness” (miserabilis insania).

Art is always tempted to glory in itself, and nearly every form of art has been used to communicate values that are contrary to Scripture. Art is as fallen as any other aspect of human existence. This fallenness perverts the arts against fulfilling their original purpose and prevents us from embracing them uncritically.

William Perkins said, “The end of a man’s calling is not to gather riches for himself…but to serve God in the serving of man, and in the seeking the good of all men.

Puritan leaders, at least, valued an educated mind over material riches. Cotton Mather admonished his congregation with the comment, “If your main concern be to get the riches of this world for your children, and leave a belly full of this world unto them, it looks very suspiciously as if you were yourselves the people of this world, whose portion is only in this life.”30

God has put his love into our lives by pouring his Spirit into our hearts. So when we desire to love Jesus more, we are not limited to loving him out of our own small affection, but can love him with the abundant love that he freely gives.

Works of art can simultaneously present ugliness (at the level of subject or content) and beauty (at the level of form). People who want things tidy and controlled will stumble at this paradox, but we will make far more sense of modern art if we are bold enough to accept the paradox.

Chad Walsh, a contemporary Christian poet, writes that the creative artist 'can honestly see himself as a kind of earthly assistant to God (so can the carpenter), carrying on the delegated work of creation, making the fullness of creation fuller.

The first thing the Bible does is introduce us to the God of the universe. He is introduced as a creative artist.

When we first read about the image of God in people in Genesis 1, we have as yet heard nothing about God as redeemer or the God of providence or the covenant God or the God of moral truth. The one thing that we know about God is that he created the world. In its immediate narrative context, then, the doctrine of the image of God in people emphasizes that people, are, like God, creators.

De fato, a saúde da igreja depende do que acontece na família.

Teaching the Bible involves far more than simply giving out information about the Bible. Bible teaching is ministering to people, liberating them from their inadequate concepts of God, expanding their notion of what it means to live faithfully before God, helping them cast aside old self-defeating habits and replace them with habits of holiness.

God is not intimidated by such hard and testing questions, nor is he unable to answer them. But we must come with the right kind of skepticism—not the kind that refuses to believe anything at all, but the kind that is committed to believe only what is really true.

...the Christian life requires a continual turning away from sin. But it also requires constant faith, for the Christian daily looks to Christ for loving care. The penitent believer never stops trusting in the saving power of the crucified and risen Saviour.

That is why we not only learn from literature but enjoy it: it delights as it teaches. And it conveys its kind of truth through the creation of concrete images which incarnate or embody ideas which would otherwise remain abstract and nebulous.

Many evangelicals are seduced by the proponents of topical and narrative preaching. The declarative force of Scripture is blunted by a demand for story, and the textual shape of the Bible is supplanted by topical considerations. In many pulpits, the Bible, if referenced at all, becomes merely a source for pithy aphorisms or convenient narratives. The therapeutic concerns of the culture too often set the agenda for evangelical preaching. The issues of the self predominate, and the congregation expects to hear simple answers to complex problems. The essence of most therapeutic preaching comes down to an affirmation of the self and its importance. Evangelicals,

Angels have no interest in being worshipped themselves. They are totally absorbed with God, and all they would have us do is join them in adoring Him.

Goodness is both an ethical and an esthetic standard.

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) explained this in a picturesque way: What is God’s law now? It is not above a Christian—it is under a Christian. Some men hold God’s law like a rod, in terror, over Christians, and say, “If you sin you will be punished with it.” It is not so. The law is under a Christian; it is for him to walk on, to be his guide, his rule, his pattern: “we are not under the law, but under grace.” Law is the road which guides us, not the rod which drives us, nor the spirit which actuates us. The law is good and excellent, if it keep its place.10

The task is rather to assess whether and to what degree works are Christian in their viewpoint. Christian enthusiasts for literature too often seek to baptize every work of literature that they love.

Theologian Philip Ryken quotes from a contemporary novel about a young single woman. She writes a New Year’s resolution: “Develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.” However, she sees a problem. “My sense of self comes not from other people but from . . . myself? That can’t be right.”24

Generally speaking, the reason the church fails to have a more positive, transforming influence on our culture is that we do not fully grasp the Bible-based, Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered, God-glorifying perspective that belongs to us by grace—which is why we need to learn how to live the right worldview.

How can we distinguish between the good and perverted use of beauty?

How does one balance the fallen and redeemed aspects of life in the artistic portrayal of human experience in the world?

In Exodus 31 God sanctifies a wide spectrum of artistic gifts by blessing "all kinds of craftsmanship.

One consequence of the Puritan doctrine of Creation is that it led logically to a repudiation of the old sacred-secular dichotomy that had dominated thinking for so long.

At the risk of oversimplification, it could be said that Reformation Protestantism was a religion of literacy, domestic prayer, and the family bible in the family home, all buttressed by the public sermon.

For the past three centuries Western civilization has been dominated by a secularized perversion of the original Puritan work ethic.