"To understand God's Word, we must empty ourselves utterly of our own wisdom and rest in utter dependence upon the Spirit of God to interpret it to us."

"When we have entirely put away our own wisdom, then and only then we get the wisdom of God."

"The emptying must precede filling, the self poured out that God may be poured in."

--- R. A. Torrey, in "The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit"

"When all religions and philosophies and philologies have tried to define God, one and all sink inane and pass, while the Bible's statements stand like eternal monuments, shrouded in ineffable glory: 'God is light'; 'God is love'; 'God is holy.'"

--- Oswald Chambers, "Christian Disciplines" ---

In honor of the "God's Not Dead" movie, I present this quote ...

"If the philosopher and apologists is not careful, all of [their] faith becomes cerebral.  And it is not at all surprising that many great apologists and Christian philosophers actually end up with some very serious personal issues in their own lives and struggles of various kinds. ...

When [they] wrestle with intensely philosophical issues, there is a great danger of getting so slanted, that the bridge between the head and the heart never ever gets connected; and it is critical that, that amputation not take place.  There has to be the connection between the head and the heart."  

--- Ravi Zacharias ---

When Skidmore found himself in a mental cul de sac, emptied by his role of continually giving the truth out to others, he shared his dilemma with Chambers.

What do you read?" Oswald asked.
"Only the Bible and books directly associated with it," Skidmore told him.
"That's the trouble," Chambers replied. "You have allowed part of your brain to stagnate for want of use."
Within a few minutes, Oswald had scribbled out a list of more than fifty books -- philosophical, psychological, and theological, dealing with every phase of current thought.

In a follow-up letter to Skidmore, Oswald said: "My strong advice to you is to soak, soak, soak in philosophy and psychology, until you know more of these subjects than ever you need consciously to think. It is ignorance of these subjects on the part of ministers and workers that has brought over evangelical theology to such a sorry plight.

"When people refer to a man as 'a man of one book,' meaning the Bible, he is generally found to be a man of multitudinous books, which simply isolates the one Book to its proper grandeur. The man who reads only the Bible does not, as a rule, know it or human life."

--- Excerpt from "Abandoned To God" by David McCasland ... biography of Oswald Chambers