Legalism Quotes

Although he didn't care much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about marks (grades or comparisons).

~ C.s. Lewis

one primary enemy of the Gospel—legalism—comes in two forms. Some people avoid the gospel and try to save themselves by keeping the rules, doing what they’re told, maintaining the standards, and so on (you could call this “front-door legalism”). Other people avoid the gospel and try to save themselves by breaking the rules, doing whatever they want, developing their own autonomous standards, and so on (you could call this “back-door legalism”).

~ Tullian Tchividjian

We have invented a moral sense which is rotting now that we can't give it employment, and when a moral sense begins to rot, it is worse than when you had none. I suppose that all endeavors which are directed to a purely worldly end, as my precious civilization was, contain within themselves the germs of their own corruption.

~ T.h. White

People will do the basest things on account of their so-called honor.

~ T.h. White

Thus, dear friends, I have said it clearly enough, and I believe you ought to understand it and not make liberty a law...

~ Martin Luther

This is so whether the said body of citizens or its prevailing part does this directly of itself, or commits the task to another or others who are not and cannot be the legislator in an unqualified sense but only in a certain respect and at a certain time and in accordance with the authority of the primary legislator. And in consequence of this I say that laws and anything else instituted by election must receive their necessary approval from the same primary authority and no other: whatever may be the situation concerning various ceremonies or solemnities, which are not required for the results of an election to stand but for their good standing, and even without which the election would be no less valid. I say further that it is by the same authority that laws and anything else instituted by election must receive any addition or subtraction or even total overhaul, any interpretation and any suspension: depending on the demands of time and place and other circumstances that might make one of these measures opportune for the sake of the common advantage in such matters.

~ Marsiglio Of Padua

(Pastor Chuck) Smith told his elders in no uncertain terms that if the church had to turn away young people because of bare feet and clothes that they would be better off ripping up the carpet and replacing the pews with steel folding chairs.

~ Larry Eskridge

I listened to make sure I was meeting the minimum requirement to stay out of jail, so to speak.

~ Bill Mckenzie

with the police doing all the killing, who do we call when our hero's are the villain

~ O.s. Hickman

Religion to me almost like when God leaves – and people devise a set of rules to fill in the space.

~ Bono

Without the infinite personal God, all a person can do, as Nietzsche points out, is to make systems. In today's speech we would call them gameplans. A person can erect some sort of structure, some type of limited frame in which he lives, shutting himself up in that frame and not looking beyond it.

~ Francis A. Schaeffer

According to Aquinas, effort may not be the best measure of our virtue.

~ Jen Pollock Michel

Our religious institutions are not giving very many men access to credible encounters with the holy or even with their own wholeness. We largely give men mandates, signposts, scaffolding and appealing images that tend to create religious identity and boundaries, but from the outside.

~ Richard Rohr

I can turn every is into ought .

~ Kevin Deyoung

Everybody makes excuses for themselves they wouldn't be prepared to make for other people.

~ Rebecca Goldstein

He fetishized limits.

~ Rick Perlstein

Security is by far the city's predominant business.

~ Ron Suskind

What are Christians known for? Outsiders think our moralizing, our condemnations, and our attempts to draw boundaries around everything. Even if these standards are accurate and biblical, they seem to be all we have to offer. And our lives are a poor advertisement for the standards. We have set the gameboard to register lifestyle points; then we are surprised to be trapped by our mistakes. The truth is we have invited the hypocrite image.

~ David Kinnaman

If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553).

~ Richard Baxter

Lord, please protect me from Your people.

~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Do we use the Word of God only as a cue card to commandeer our external behavior?

~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Legal action is but warfare disguised.

~ Mike Klepper

We make a big mistake when we conclude that the law is the answer to bad behavior. In fact, the law alone stirs up more of such behavior. People get worse, not better, when you lay down the law. To be sure, the Spirit does use both God's law and God's gospel in our sanctification. But the law and the gospel do very different things.

~ Tullian Tchividjian

Morality often involves tension within the group motivated by competition between different groups.

~ Jonathan Haidt

Law will take over because law always carries with it a sense of security and manipulative power.

~ Richard J. Foster

To dream in doctrines, how tidy!

~ John Le Carré