Cornelius Plantinga Quotes

       Cornelius Plantinga
       1946-
      
       Cornelius "Neal" Plantinga, Jr. is the president of Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he is professor of systematic theology. He is a preacher, speaker,and award-winning author.
      
       He was born in Jamestown, ND and was ordained in 1971. He is the brother of philosopher Alvin Plantinga,music historian Leon Plantinga, and former CBS news producer Terry Plantinga. He is the uncle of theologian Amy Plantinga Pauw. Plantinga married Kathleen Talsma in 1967 and has two children with her.

We know the excitement of getting a present - we love to unwrap it to see what is inside. So it is with our children they are gifts we unwrap for years as we discover the unique characters God has made them.     Topics: Children Faith in the sheltering wings of God does not remove physical danger or the need for precaution against it. We cannot ignore Beirut tourist advisories, or feed wild animals on our camping trips, or jump a hot motorcycle over a row of parked cars and trust God to keep us safe. We cannot smoke cigarettes like the Marlboro man and then claim the promises of Psalm 91 as our protection against lung cancer. A person who did these things would be a foolish believer and a foolish reader of Psalm 91.     Topics: Faith To place ourselves in range of God's choicest gifts, we have to walk with God, work with God, lean on God, cling to God, come to have the sense and feel of God, refer all things to God.     Topics: Gifts A humble person is more likely to be self confident... a person with real humility knows how much they are loved.     Topics: Humility, Self-confidence Patience is like good motor oil. It doesn't remove all the contaminants. It just puts them into suspension so they don't get into your works and seize them up. Patient people have, so too speak, a large crankcase. They can put a lot of irritants into suspension.     Topics: Patience Saints and martyrs are famous for testifying to the truth about Jesus Christ while their enemies set them on fire, but each day ordinary Christians experience small martyrdoms when they blow the whistle on a dangerous product, or lose a friend they had to confront, or stand up in a small group and, for the first time in their lives, say to a group of strangers,"My name is Maxine, and I am an alcoholic."     Topics: Persecution, Witnessing The challenge of hospitality, both personally and professionally, comes when we are stressed out or tired and we offer it grudgingly. The gift of hospitality comes when we find in the welcoming face of hospitality the welcoming face of God.     Topics: Relationships For the Christian church (even in its recently popular seeker services) to ignore, euphemize, or otherwise mute the lethal reality of sin is to cut the nerve of the gospel. For the sober truth is that without full disclosure on sin, the gospel of grace becomes impertinent, unnecessary, and finally uninteresting.     Topics: Sin, The Gospel It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public institutions often see this odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone in the institution seems to be thankful "in general." It's very strange. It's a little like being married in general.     Topics: Thankfulness Wisdom in scripture is, broadly speaking, the knowledge of God's world and the knack of fitting oneself into it.     Topics: Wisdom