Inspirational Quotes by Philip Yancey
“The gospel is not at all what we would come up with on our own.”
“somehow throughout history the church has managed to gain a reputation for its ungrace. As a little English girl prayed, “O God, make the bad people good, and the good people nice.”
“The church works best as a force of resistance, a counterbalance to the consuming power of the state.”
“Jesus requires—no, demands—a response of forgiveness.”
“He who cannot forgive another breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself. GEORGE HERBERT”
“Forgiveness breaks the cycle of blame and loosens the stranglehold of guilt. It accomplishes these two things through a remarkable linkage, placing the forgiver on the same side as the party who did the wrong.”
“God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found.”
“Lord, if you can’t make me thin, then make my friends look fat,” humorist Erma Bombeck once prayed.”
“In the study of scientific atheism, there was the idea that religion divides people. Now we see the opposite: love for God can only unite.”
“Forgiveness—undeserved, unearned—can cut the cords and let the oppressive burden of guilt roll away.”
“a hope for healing should be presented realistically. It is just that — a “hope,” not a guarantee. If it comes, a joyous miracle has happened. If it doesn’t come, God has not let you down.”
― Philip Yancey ,
“a suffering person needs: love, and not knowledge and wisdom.”
― Philip Yancey ,
“In his list of fruits of the Spirit, Paul includes one that we translate with the archaic word “long-suffering.” We would do well to revive that word, and concept, in its most literal form to apply to the problem of long-term pain.”
― Philip Yancey ,
“forgiveness must be taught and practiced, as one would practice any difficult craft.”
“In the Christian scheme of things, this world and the time spent here are not all there is. Earth is a proving ground, a dot in eternity — albeit an important dot, for Jesus said our destiny depends on our obedience here.”
― Philip Yancey ,
“Justice has a good and righteous and rational kind of power. The power of grace is different: unworldly, transforming, supernatural.”
“Then the question becomes, “How do we treat sinners?”
“Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, decided to leave her clergy position in part because of the church’s failure to administer that grace: One thing that had always troubled me was the way people disappeared from church when their lives were breaking down. Separation and divorce were the most common explanations for long absences, but so were depression, alcoholism, job loss, and mortal illness. One new widow told me that she could not come to church because she started crying the moment she sat down in a pew. A young man freshly diagnosed with AIDS said that he stayed away because he was too frightened to answer questions and too angry to sing hymns. I understood their reasoning, but I was sorry that church did not strike these wounded souls as a place they could bring the dark fruits of their equally dark nights.”
“grace does not depend on what we have done for God but rather what God has done for us.”
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Philip Yancey is an American Christian author. Fourteen million of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, What's So Amazing About Grace in 1998. He is published by Zondervan Publishing.
Yancey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. When Yancey was one year old, his father, stricken with polio, died after his church elders suggested he go off life support in faith that God would heal him. This was one of the reasons he had lost his faith at one point of time. Yancey earned his MA with highest honors from the graduate school of Wheaton College. His two graduate degrees in Communications and English were earned from Wheaton College Graduate School and the University of Chicago.
Yancey moved to Chicago, Illinois, and in 1971 joined the staff of Campus Life magazine--a sister publication of Christianity Today directed towards high school and college students--where he served as editor for eight years. Yancey was for many years an editor for Christianity Today and wrote articles for Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Eternity, Moody Monthly, and National Wildlife, among others. He now lives in Colorado, working as a columnist and editor-at-large for Christianity Today. He is a member of the editorial board of Books and Culture, another magazine affiliated with Christianity Today, and travels around the world for speaking engagements.