"We must learn the language of our audience.  ... it is no use at all laying down a priori what the 'plain man' does or does not understand. You have to find out by experience."

... "you must translate every bit of your theology into the vernacular.  ... it is essential.  It is also of the greatest service to your own thought. ... if you cannot translate your thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts were confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood one's own meaning." 

- - C. S. Lewis, essay "Christian Apologetics", in "God In the Dock"

"By trying to translate our doctrines into vulgar speech we discover how much we understand them ourselves.  Our failure to translate may sometimes be due to our ignorance of the vernacular; much more often it exposes the fact that we do not exactly know what we mean."

- - C. S. Lewis, essay "God In the Dock", in "God In the Dock" 

“In seminary I had a mentor who used to tell me, 'Get your theology from the Bible. Don’t take your theology to the Bible and interpret it through your own paradigms'."

“Deep theology with no experience is like a museum - big, beautiful and fun to explore, but at the end of the day it is just a building full of artifacts."

- Chad Norris, in "Signs, Wonders and a Baptist Preacher"

"A man may be reborn by the Holy Spirit and still not be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  In being reborn, there is the impartation of life by the Spirit's power, and the one who receives it is saved.  In the baptism with the Holy Spirit, there is the impartation of power, and the one who receives it is fitted for service."

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

"We shall never truly know the truth until we are thus taught directly by the Holy Spirit.  No amount of mere human teaching, no matter who our teachers maybe, will ever give us a correct and exact and full apprehension of the truth. Not even a diligent study of the Word either in English or in the original languages will give us a real understanding of the truth. We must be taught directly by the Holy Spirit, and we may be thus taught, each one of us.  The one who is thus taught will understand the truth of God better, even if he does not know one word of Greek and Hebrew, than the one who knows Greek and Hebrew thoroughly, and all the cognate languages as well, but who is not taught of the Spirit."

"The Holy Spirit takes the deep things of God which God has prepared for us, even in the life that now is, and reveals them to us."

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

... "while we may learn much from men, we are not dependent upon them.  We have a divine Teacher, the Holy Spirit."

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

... "around 1970" ..., "a group of seven began to meet together in a home.  Brother Tao [,"one of the original seven members of the" W****** Church]  noted that they were largely untaught, but depended on the Holy Spirit.  He indicated that they emphasized repentance, faith in Christ and being born again, as well as the power of the Holy Spirit, baptism in the Spirit, speaking in tongues and spiritual gifts.  I asked Brother Tao how they came to these theological beliefs.  He answered, 'From a simple reading of the Bible.'  He said that they (the original seven) chose to follow what they felt was clearly taught in scripture."

L. Wesley, "Meditation #39: Persecuted, Yet Persevering", in "Stories from China: Fried Rice for the Soul"

"The clearest evidence that God's grace is at work in our hearts is that we do not get into panics."

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

"Nothing we think is right - only what God thinks in us is right.  The Son of God revealed exactly how a person's brain and body and will were to be used if he was to live in obedience to God." 

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

... "in regard to God's Word, see you take time to know it; God's Spirit will give you an understanding of His nature, make His Word spirit and life to you."

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

"The very essence of Christianity is not so much a walk with Jesus as a walk like His walk, when we have allowed Him to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire."

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