Biblical Authority Quotes

As I've taught our congregation, within the Christian faith the question of homosexuality is not a question of biblical authority, but biblical interpretation. ~ Adam Hamilton

The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord. ~ Jon Meacham

The difference between us and the papists is that they do not think that the church can be 'the pillar of the truth' unless she presides over the word of God. We, on the other hand, assert that it is because she reverently subjects herself to the word of God that the truth is preserved by her and passed on to others by her hands. ~ John Calvin

All normative judgments about worship must be avoided. Attempts to use biblicism as a guideline, as we shall see, tend to be abandoned in the course of time or lead to biblicism of only certain portions of scripture. After all, there is more biblical authority for snake handling (Mark 16:18) than there is for confirmation! Historically, attempts to deduce norms for worship from scripture fail because the Bible was not written for such a purpose. ~ James F. White

If we cannot speak with confidence about biblical authority, what ground have we for challenging the reigning plausibility structure? ~ Lesslie Newbigin

Customs change with time, so it isn't fair to permit change only when you happen to approve of it but condemn change citing biblical authority when you don't. ~ Deepak Chopra

I can't quite count the ways in which we hurt one another. It was the means by which we tried to help one another - me, turning her into a patient, her, turning me into a dull authority - which were as bad as, if not worse, than our actual abuses. ~ Hanif Kureishi

What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge. ~ Karl Popper

But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

People ask me how it happens that my children are all so promptly obedient and so happy. As if it chanced that some parents have such children or chanced that some have not! I am afraid it is only too true, as someone has remarked, that "this is the age of obedient parents!" What then will be the future of their children? How can they yield to God who have never been taught to yield to human authority? And how well fitted will they be to rule their own households who have never learned to rule themselves? ~ Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. ~ Oscar Wilde

My only role in the opening of the schools has been to suggest and encourage opening them. But it is impossible for there to be a [central authority] controlling the schools. They are in more than 100 countries, and there must be many different companies that have opened and run them. ~ Fethullah Gulen

The biblical method of change begins in the heart of man with the Gospel. It transforms the mind of man and gradually works its way out. And it builds a nation from the bottom up. ~ Kirk Cameron

Authority is quite degrading. ~ Oscar Wilde

Certain things are extremely difficult to understand, such as the concept of unconditional love, perhaps it is due to mislead thoughts about God's love for us. Assuming that we can say or do certain things and suddenly lose this love and approval. But I when I picture God I picture him standing with his arms out saying, "Beth stop punishing yourself." And he says it like my dad used to say, with such great authority and assurance in his voice that I can't help but smile, and know it's gonna be ok. ~ Bethany Brookbank

So many of the models of courage we've had, ones that are still taught to boys and girls, are about going out to slay the dragon, to kill. It's a courage that's born out of fear, anger, and hate. But there's this other kind of courage. It's the courage to risk your life, not in war, not in battle, not out of fear ... but out of love and a sense of injustice that has to be challenged. It takes far more courage to challenge unjust authority without violence than it takes to kill all the monsters in all the stories told to children about the meaning of bravery. ~ Riane Eisler

Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built. ~ Erich Fromm

Women with power and authority tend to intimidate people far more than men with the same qualities, particularly if those women deserve the position they have achieved. ~ Helene Tursten

Maybe I fell in love with the idea of love, but I'm a teenage girl. This morning I fell in love with raspberry jam and a puppy in a tiny raincoat. I'm not exactly Earth's top authority on the subject. ~ Leah Raeder

Mankind was designed to function as a worshipper of God for eternity, and the intent was for all aspects of his life to be acts of worship to the living God. ~ Jay E. Adams

Do not let the writer's authority or learning influence you, be it little or great, but let the love of pure truth attract you to read. Do not ask, 'Who said this?' but pay attention to what is said. ~ Thomas A Kempis

For eighteen centuries avid and pious Christians of divergent sects had overlaid the simplicity of Biblical scenes with tawdry symbolism, rude commercialism, and pious hokum. ~ David H. Finnie

So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you - your relationship with others and with the world - there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Everyone that gets an authority into his hands tyrannizes over others; as many husbands, parents, masters, magistrates, that live after the flesh do carry themselves like oppressing lords over such as are under them, not knowing that their wives, children, servants, subjects are their fellow creatures, and hath an equal privilege to share them in the blessing of liberty. ~ Gerrard Winstanley

Giving orders you know won't be obeyed is one of the best ways I know to destroy your own authority. ~ David Weber

The intersection of political analysis and Internet theory is a busy crossroad of cliche, where familiar rhetorical vehicles - decentralized authority, emergent leadership, empowered grass roots - create a ceaseless buzz. ~ Gary Wolf

How does she do it? She makes it sound like she is so cut up to be giving them this information, and it's all just bumph out of her head. She never told them ANYTHING. I don't think she's given them the right name of any airfield in Britain except Mainsend and Buscot, which of course were where she was stationed. They could have easily checked. It's all so close to truth, and so glib
her aircraft identification is rather good considering what a fuss she makes about it. It makes me think of the first day I met her, giving those directions in German. So cool and crisp, such authority
suddenly she really was a radio operator, a German radio operator, she was so good at faking it. Or when I told her to be Jamie, how she just suddenly turned into Jamie.
This confession of hers is rotten with error ... ~ Elizabeth Wein

If it be true that the world has lost its respect for authority, it is only because it lost it first in the home. By a peculiar paradox, as the home loses its authority, the authority of the state becomes tyrannical. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Religions centered on the worship of a male God create "moods" and "motivations" that keep women in a state of psychological dependence on men and male authority, while at the same legitimating the political and social authority of fathers and sons in the institutions of society. ~ Carol P. Christ

Be not guided by the will-o'-the-wisp of policy, but by the pole-star of divine authority. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

In this very brief history of modern cosmological physics, the laws of quantum and relativistic physics represent things to be wondered at but widely accepted: just like biblical miracles. M-theory invokes something different: a prime mover, a begetter, a creative force that is everywhere and nowhere. This force cannot be identified by instruments or examined by comprehensible mathematical prediction, and yet it contains all possibilities. It incorporates omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence, and it's a big mystery. Remind you of Anybody?49 ~ John C. Lennox

Since the Protestant Reformation, it has been understood that there are two apparently opposite mistakes or errors into which you can fall so as to lose your grasp on this biblical gospel and its power. They are called "legalism," the view that we can put God in our debt and procure his blessing with our goodness, and "antinomianism," the idea that we can relate to God without obeying his Word and commands. Both words, derived from the Latin and Greek words for "law," miss a crucial aspect of how the gospel functions. ~ Timothy Keller

Thomas Merton said it was actually dangerous to put the Scriptures in the hands of people whose inner self is not yet sufficiently awakened to encounter the Spirit, because they will try to use God for their own egocentric purposes. (This is why religion is so subject to corruption!) Now, if we are going to talk about conversion and penance, let me apply that to the two major groups that have occupied Western Christianity - Catholics and Protestants. Neither one has really let the Word of God guide their lives.

Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasn't wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible. (Historically they did not have the printing press, nor could most people read, so you can't blame them entirely.) I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. (The only good thing about it is that they never fight you like Protestants do about Scripture. They are e ~ Richard Rohr

After four centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898. Residents were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, and the federal government has allowed Puerto Rico to exercise authority over its local affairs in a manner similar to the 50 states. ~ Pedro Pierluisi

Any commander who fails to exceed his authority is not of much use to his subordinates. ~ Arleigh Burke

Some authorities believe that one prosperous thought is more powerful than a thousand failure thoughts; and that two prosperous attitudes steadily held and expressed are more powerful than ten thousand failure attitudes! ~ Catherine Ponder

The alien laws collectively invested the president the authority to deport resident aliens he considered dangerous. The sedition bill criminalized free speech, forbidding anyone to "write, print, utter or publish ... any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, with intent to defame ... or to bring them ... into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States."16 So ~ Jon Meacham

Even the mild-mannered Sophia Western of Tom Jones and Richardson's annoyingly pious Clarissa Harlow distinguished themselves by saying no to the authority of their parents, their societies, and norms and demanding to marry the man they chose. Perhaps it was exactly because women were deprived of so much in their real lives that they became so subversive in the realm of fiction, refusing the authority imposed on them, breaking out of old structures, not submitting. ~ Azar Nafisi

The Biblical Illustrator was published in 66 volumes. To give you a sense of how comprehensive it is, volume 49 contains 588 pages on Galatians. And ~ Joseph S. Exell

Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas-where we all understood he wanted authority to act-but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused. ~ Tom Daschle

Some persons fancy that bias and counter-bias are favorable to the extraction of truth–that hot and partisan debate is the way to investigate. This is the theory of our atrocious legal procedure. But Logic puts its heel upon this suggestion. It irrefragably demonstrates that knowledge can only be furthered by the real desire for it, and that the methods of obstinacy, of authority and every mode of trying to reach a foregone conclusion, are absolutely of no value. These things are proved. The reader is at liberty to think so or not as long as the proof is not set forth, or as long as he refrains from examining it. Just so, he can preserve, if he likes, his freedom of opinion in regard to the propositions of geometry; only, in that case, if he takes a fancy to read Euclid, he will do well to skip whatever he finds with A, B, C, etc., for, if he reads attentively that disagreeable matter, the freedom of his opinion about geometry may unhappily be lost forever. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

And the extraordinary thing is that according to these texts all powers, all the power and glory of the kingdoms, all that has to do with politics and political authority, belongs to the devil. It has all been given to him and he gives it to whom he wills. Those who hold political power receive it from him and depend upon him. (It is astonishing that in the innumerable theological discussions of the legitimacy of political power, no one has ever adduced these texts! [Matthew 4:8-9; Luke 4:6-7]) This fact is no less important than the fact that Jesus rejects the devil's offer. Jesus does not say to the devil: It is not true. You do not have power over kingdoms and states. He does not dispute this claim. He refuses the offer of power because the devil demands that he should fall down before him. This is the sole point when he says: 'You shall worship the Lord your God and you shall serve him, only him' (Matthew 4:10). We may thus say that among Jesus' immediate followers and in the first Christian generation political authorities - what we call the state - belonged to the devil and those who held power received it from him. ~ Jacques Ellul

From the earliest days of Unitarianism and Universalism, these traditions have advocated for the compatibility of science and religion. Both traditions encourage the use of reason, the search for truth, and the improvement of human nature and society through learning and the discoveries of science. Some, especially those called humanists, eschew Biblical revelation and supernaturalism and believe that science and technology will eventually solve all the major problems facing humankind. ~ Mark W. Harris

Conversion for those first Christians was not a destination; it was the beginning of a journey. And right there is where the Biblical emphasis differs from ours ... . In the book of Acts, faith was for each believer a beginning, not an end; it was a journey, not a bed in which to be waiting for the day of our Lord's triumph. ~ A.W. Tozer

The reason there is so much misery in marriage is not that husbands and wives seek their own pleasure, but that they do not seek it in the pleasure of their spouses. The biblical mandate to husbands and wives is to seek your own joy in the joy of your spouse. ~ John Piper