Definition of Religion

Jas 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Jas 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Religion: Greek Word: Qrhskeiva Transliterated Word: threskeia Greek Definition: religious worship; esp. external, that which consists of ceremonies; religious discipline, religion Quotes regarding "Religion" and "Christianity" The popular point of view is unconsciously syncretistic: it is widely believed that "all religions really mean the same thing." C.S. Lewis In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History....There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or idealogy that does not think that we live in alienation....Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freeedom that is only beauty, that is only real life, plenitude, light Philip Yancey When we listen to the religion that is largely preached in our generation, we hear the same thing the unbelieving philosophers and sociologists are saying. The only difference is that theological language is used. But, God says, "It will not do. This brings you under my judgment. Francis Schaeffer Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 53 Religion is the process of turning your skull into a tabernacle, not of going up to Jerusalem once a year. Austin O'Malley The publicity surrounding religious activities is usually in inverse ratio to their intrinsic importance. Aelred Graham Religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. There are no spiritual gains without pains. J.C. Ryle Religion is a dish to be served hot; once it becomes lukewarm it is sickening. Our baptism must be with the Holy Ghost and with fire if we would win the masses to hear the gospel. Charles Spurgeon There's not much practical Christianity in the man who lives on better terms with angels and seraphs, than with his children, servants and neighbors. Henry Ward Beecher The same fire which melts the wax hardens the clay; the same sun which makes the living tree grow, dries up the dead tree, and prepares it for burning. Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things... it is not privileges alone which make people Christians, but the Grace of the Holy Ghost. J.C. Ryle The mind which asks for a non-miraculous Christianity is a mind in process of relapsing from Christianity into mere "religion." C.S. Lewis The Christians are unhappy men who are persuaded that they will survive death and live forever; in consequence, they despise death and are willing to sacrifice their lives to their faith. Lucian The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion. John Wesley To pretend that Christianity was intended to stereotype existing forms of government and society, and protect them against change, is to reduce it to the level of Islamism and Brahminism. It is precisely because Christianity has not done this that it has been the religion of the progressive portion of mankind. John Stuart Mill A little child is easily quieted and amused with gaudy toys and dolls and rattles, so long as it is not hungry; but once let it feel the cravings of nature within, and we know that nothing will satisfy it but food. So it is with man in the matter of his soul. Music and flowers and candles and incense and banners and processions and beautiful vestments and confessionals and man-made ceremonies of a semi-Romish character may do well enough for him under certain conditions. But once let him 'awake and arise from the dead', and he will not rest content with these things. They will seem to him mere solemn triflings and a waste of time. Once let him see his sin, and he must see his Saviour. J.C. Ryle People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced. Samuel Butler I declare I know of no state of soul more dangerous than to imagine we are born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, because we have picked up a few religious feelings. J.C. Ryle There is a philosophy which is a noble exercise of our reasonable faculties, and highly serviceable to religion, such a study of the works of God as leads us to the knowledge of God and confirms our faith in him. But there is a philosophy which is vain and deceitful, which is prejudicial to religion, and sets up the wisdom of man in competition with the wisdom of God, and while it pleases men's fancies ruins their faith; as nice and curious speculations about things above us, or of no use and concern to us; or a care of words and terms of art, which have only an empty and often a cheating appearance of knowledge. Matthew Henry If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he lives, he cannot be a Christian anywhere. Henry Ward Beecher Christianity is both science and art. Science is to know; art is to do. What we know is incomplete until fulfilled in the act. The most practical of all religions is Christianity, because it demands that the act accompany the thought. Richard Lynch The man who has nothing more than a kind of Sunday religion -- whose Christianity is like his Sunday clothes put on once a week, and then laid aside -- such a man cannot, of course, be expected to care about growth in grace. J.C. Ryle The followers of Jesus are to be different-different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian value-system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, life-style and network of relationships-all of which are totally at variance with those of the non-Christian world. And this Christian Counterculture is the life of the kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule. John Stott Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. C.S. Lewis What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. Martin Luther Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. A.W. Tozer Christianity is not just a mental assent that certain doctrines are true -- not even that the right doctrines are true. This is only the beginning. This would be rather like a starving man sitting in front of great heaps of food and saying, "I believe the food exists; I believe it is real," and yet never eating it. It is not enough merely to say, "I am a Christian," and then in practice to live as if present contact with the supernatural were something far off and strange. Many Christians I know seem to act as though they come in contact with the supernatural just twice -- once when they are justified and become a Christian and once when they die. The rest of the time they act as though they were sitting in the materialist's chair. Francis Schaeffer Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 134

Andrew

Andrew is the picture of all those who labor quietly in humble places. Not with eye service as men pleasers but as servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. Andrew is not the pillar like Peter, James and John, he is a humbler stone. He could have anticipated the sentiment of the poet Christina Rossetti who wrote: "Give me the lowest place, not that I dare ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died that I might live and share Thy glory by Thy side. Give me the lowest place or if for me the lowest place is too high, then make one more low where I may sit and see my God and love Him so." That's Andrew. I mean, after all, he was one of the original two called and yet he wasn't in the inner three but it didn't seem to bother him. He was always Peter's brother. He's one of those rare people who's willing to take second place. One of those rare people who wants to be in support. Or one of those rare people who doesn't mind being hidden as long as the work is done. He is the kind of man that all leaders depend on. He's the kind of person that everyone knows is the backbone of every ministry. The cause of Christ is dependent, beloved, on self-forgetting souls who are content to occupy a small sphere and an obscure place, free from self-seeking ambition and yet he will sit on the throne judging the tribes of Israel. Daniel Mc Lean, a Scotsman, who has a special affection for Andrew who has become the patron saint of Scotland, writes about his beloved Apostle these words: "Gathering together the traces of character found in Scripture found about Andrew we find neither the writer of an epistle nor the founder of a church nor a leading figure in the apostolic age but simply an intimate disciple of Jesus Christ, ever anxious that others should know the spring of spiritual joy and share the blessing he so highly prized. A man of very moderate endowment, who scarcely redeemed his early promise, simple minded and sympathetic without either dramatic power or heroic spirit. Yet he had that clinging confidence in Christ that brought him into that inner circle of the twelve. A man with deep religious feeling with little power of expression. He was more magnetic than he was electric. Better suited for the quiet walks of life than the stirring thoroughfares. Yes, Andrew is the Apostle of the private life.