Inspirational Quotes by Alister McGrath
“For Luther, it (faith) is an undeviating, trusting outlook appointment life, a constant stance of the trustworthiness of the promises of God.”
― Alister McGrath ,
from Reformation Thought
“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
“There was now a commercial reason for removing the Apocrypha—Bibles without it were both cheaper to produce, and smaller (and hence cheaper to transport overseas). Sensitive to the importance of both production and transportation costs, the missionary societies gradually came to the view that the Apocrypha would be omitted—primarily for financial, rather than theological reasons. As far as is known, the first missionary society to take this decision was the British and Foreign Bible Society. Its decision of 1826 to cease including the Apocrypha in their Bibles is known to have given a major stimulus to the growing trend to publish Bibles without the Apocrypha. In very general terms, Bibles produced for a predominantly Protestant readership now tend to exclude the Apocrypha, and those intended for a Roman Catholic readership include it.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“Lewis had experienced more trauma than most of his modern readers ever will.”
“The term synoptic gospels is often used to refer to the first three gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). This term refers to their similar literary structure,”
― Alister McGrath ,
“The author compares the struggles of Martin Luther with the prevailing doctrine that a little genuine effort on our part results in a disproportionate reward of God's righteousness with a blind man who would be given $1 million – if only he could see.”
― Alister McGrath ,
from Reformation Thought
“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. . . . Our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
“Hebrew idiom that the translators interpreted literally and so failed to appreciate the general drift of the text. The idiom “to rise up early to do something” actually means “to do something continually.” Hence the second of the quotations just noted has the following meaning: “They did not listen to my words which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets; even though I sent them continually they still would not listen to them.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”
“Yet there is a final issue that needs to be noted here. The koine Greek of the New Testament is the “everyday” Greek language of working people rather than of self-conscious literary scholars and poets. The King James translators were not aware of this fact. Their location in history denied them access to this knowledge.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“We are, Lewis suggested, like a seed waiting in the good earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half-waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming.[131]”
“In his Bible translations, Tyndale coined such phrases as: “the powers that be” (Romans 13); “my brother's keeper” (Genesis 4); “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5); and “a law unto themselves” (Romans 2). These phrases continue to be used, even in modern English, precisely because they are so well shaped in terms of their alliteration, rhyme, and word repetitions. Tyndale also introduced or revived many words that are still in use. He constructed the term “Jehovah” from the Hebrew construction known as the “tetragrammaton” in the Old Testament. He invented the English word “Passover” to refer to the Jewish festival known in Hebrew as Pesah.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“Reading works of literature is about “entering fully into the opinions, and therefore also the attitudes, feelings, and total experience” of other people.[96] To read literature is thus to open us up to new ideas, or to force us to revisit those we once believed we were right to reject.”
“The explicit royal stipulation that all forms of annotation would be excluded ensured that the difficulties created for the establishment by the Geneva Bible would be avoided—or so, at any rate, it was thought.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“God may accept us just as we are--but he isn't going to leave us there. God wants to move us on, to help us become the people we are meant to be.”
“Further concerns were expressed over the king's increasingly obvious homosexual tendencies, which led to certain royal favorites being granted favors that were the subject of much comment and envy. Robert Carr, some twenty years younger than James, was one such favorite: he became the earl of Somerset in 1613. Although James fondled and kissed his favorites in what was widely regarded as a lecherous manner in public, the court was prepared to believe that his private behavior was somewhat more restrained.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“Take Lewis’s “argument from desire.” He basically argues that we experience desires that no experience in this world seems able to satisfy. And when we see these experiences through the lens of the Christian faith, we realise that this sort of experience is exactly what we would expect if Christianity is true.”
“No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text.”
― Alister McGrath ,
“Lewis created a new kind of marriage between theological reflection and poetic imagination.”
“Martin Luther arrived at his earthshaking conclusions imbued with biblical exposition. As a professor, he taught the book of Psalms verse by verse from 1513 to 1515, Romans from 1515 to 1516, Galatians from 1516 until 1517, the book of Hebrews from 1517 to 1518 and then the Psalms again from 1519 until 1521.”
― Alister McGrath ,
from Reformation Thought
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Alister Edgar McGrath is a Christian theologian and apologist, who holds both a PhD (in molecular biophysics) and an earned Doctor of Divinity degree from Oxford. He is noted for his work in historical, systematic and scientific theology. He was formerly an atheist.
In his writing and public speaking, he promotes "scientific theology" and opposes antireligionism. McGrath was until recently Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, but has now taken up the chair of Theology, Religion and Culture at King's College London since September 2008. Until 2005, he was principal of Wycliffe Hall.
McGrath is a prolific writer. His work often refers both to the early Church Fathers and to contemporary evangelical stalwarts such as Thomas Torrance and J. I. Packer. His areas of expertise include doctrine, Church history, the interaction of science and faith, and evangelical spirituality.
In 2005 he resigned as Principal of Wycliffe Hall, whilst remaining President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics which was based there.