An Unknown Quality of Life

"At a rally in 1983 for those opposed to abortion, to me the most moving argument was made by Alison Davis, who described herself as 'a happy spina bifida adult' and spoke from a wheelchair. 'I can think of few concepts more terrifying,' she said, 'than saying that certain people are better off dead, and may therefore be killed for their own good.' One doctor, on hearing her say that she was glad to be alive, 'made the incredible observation that no one can judge their own quality of life, and that other people might well consider a life like mine miserable!'"

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 405. Print.

Cure Your Materialism

"The Christian antidote to materialism is not asceticism; austerity for its own sake is a rejection of the good gifts of the Creator."

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 315. Print.

Gospel Selection

"The biblical perspective is not 'the survival of the fittest' but 'the protection of the weakest.'"

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 305. Print.

What Moves You?

"Extreme poverty is demeaning; it reduces human beings to the level of animals. To be sure, Christians should be provoked by the idolatry of a Hindu city, as Paul was by the idols in Athens, and moved to evangelism. But, like Jesus when he saw the hungry crowds, we should be moved with compassion to feed them (compare Acts 17:16f. with, e.g., Mark 8:1-3)."

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 298. Print.

Our Evangelistic Mission

"In evangelism we should neither try to force people to believe the gospel, nor remain silent as if we were indifferent to their response, nor rely exclusively on the dogmatic proclamation of biblical texts (vital as authoritative biblical exposition is), but rather, like the apostles, we should reason with people from both nature and Scripture, commending God's gospel to them by rational arguments."

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 79. Print.

Loving Your Neighbor Begets Action

"So if we truly love our neighbours, and want to serve them, our service may oblige us to take (or solicit) political action on their behalf."

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 36. Print.

The Church Reforms the World

"It is astonishing to read Finney's statement in his twenty-third Lecture on Revival that 'the great business of the Church is to reform the world...The Church of Christ was originally organized to be a body of reformers. The very profession of Christianity implies the profession and virtually an oath to do all that can be done for the universal reformation of the world.'"

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W., Roy McCloughry, John Wyatt, and John R. W. Stott. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 28. Print.

God is Topsy-Turvy

"The proud are abased and the humble exalted; the rich are impoverished and the poor enriched; the well fed are sent away empty and the hungry filled with good things; powerful rulers are toppled from their thrones, while the powerless and the oppressed are caused to reign like princes. "Who is like the LORD our God?" His thoughts and ways are not ours. He is a topsy-turvy God. He turns the standards and values of the world upside down."

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W. Issues Facing Christians Today. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. 300. Print.

Prayer

"One of the best ways to discover a Christian's chief anxieties and ambitions is to study the content of his prayers and the intensity with which he prays them. We all pray about what concerns us, and are evidently not concerned about matters we do not include in our prayers. Prayer expresses desire....As the hymn puts it, 'Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed.'"

- John Stott

Source: Stott, John R. W. The Message of Ephesians. Inter-Varsity Press, 1979. P. 131