Edmund Clowney Quotes

       Edmund Clowney
       1917-2005
      
       Edmund Prosper Clowney Clowney was ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and served as pastor for churches from 1942 to 1946. Westminster Theological Seminary invited him to become an assistant professor of practical theology in 1952. In 1966 he became the first president of that seminary, and remained so until 1984, when he became the theologian-in-residence of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.
      
       In 1990, he moved to Escondido, California where he was adjunct professor at Westminster Seminary California. In 2001 he began a full-time position as associate pastor at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. After two years in Texas, Clowney returned to Trinity Presbyterian Church as part-time theologian-in-residence, a position he held until his death in 2005.
      
       He is author of ten books including Called to the Ministry, Christian Meditation, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament, and The Church.

When Protestants speak of going to church... they are not thinking of a building but of a congregation. The congregation, not the building is holy... The church is holy because the congregation is the house of God.     Topics: Church Never before has the world been so desperately asking for answers to crucial questions, and never before has the world been so frantically committed to the idea that no answers are possible.     Topics: Ignorance Yes, to Jesus we come, for with richness of figurative language, wealth of ethical insight, and depth of redemptive-historical grasp we are brought by the Scriptures to Jesus. God spoke in diverse manners has spoken in a Son. What focus in brought to our preaching in this approach.     Topics: Jesus, Scripture On all sides it is recognized that any who would take the New Testament seriously must be confronted by eschatology... Preaching that has lost urgency and passion reveals a loss of the eschatological perspective of the New Testament... He is not aware that he ministers in the time of the ascended Christ, the time of the fulfillment of all the prophets in his saving rule.     Topics: Preaching, Scripture Once the necessity and the fruitfulness of the method is recognized, however, no worthy workman in the Word can refuse the effort it requires. He is called as a scribe of the kingdom to bring forth treasures new and old, and any labor that issues in a fuller preaching of Christ has its reward.     Topics: Preaching, Rewards Our preaching often lacks the punctuation of the exclamation point of praise. Unlike the Scriptures, our sermons are so centered on men that they neglect to bless God.     Topics: Preaching Jesus endorsed the inspiration of the Old Testament, not only as "full" or "plenary," but even "literal" in the sense that the very letters of the words were inspired.     Topics: Scripture The work of spirituality is to recognize where we are - the particular circumstances of our lives - to recognize grace and say, "Do you suppose God wants to be with me in a way that does not involve changing my spouse or getting rid of my spouse or my kids, but in changing me, and doing something in my life that maybe I could never experience without this pain and this suffering?     Topics: Suffering, Change Trials should not surprise us, or cause us to doubt God's faithfulness. Rather, we should actually be glad for them. God sends trials to strengthen our trust in him so that our faith will not fail. Our trials keep us trusting; they burn away our self confidence and drive us to our Saviour.     Topics: Trials, Faith People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.     Topics: Worship When we worship God as we ought that's when the nations listen.     Topics: Worship Worship is a meeting at the centre so that our lives are centred in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or deluded lethargy as we are, in turn, alarmed by spectres and soothed by placebos. If there is no centre, there is no circumference.     Topics: Worship