StephenBarkley.com

The man who loves God,
and is not yet pure,
courts the burning of God.
— George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons)
There is nothing quite as effective as a perfect analogy to drive a point home. C. S. Lewis was the master of this. In his religious writings, he would often find the most ordinary and mundane illustration to illuminate [...]

Children may not bank on the piety of parents for salvation;
nor may a community find a lightning rod against divine fury
in the presence of one or two righteous persons.
— Daniel I. Block (Ezekiel)
God never needs to justify his actions. He is ultimate reality—and what he does is right. Those two sentences would sound horrifying if [...]

No net less wide than a man’s whole heart,
nor less fine of mesh than love,
will hold the sacred Fish.
— C. S. Lewis (Reflections on the Psalms)
Something must have happened to the people in exile. Maybe they heard rumors from home. Perhaps they were suffering some new form of humiliation by their captors. Whatever the cause [...]

We cannot generate faith ourselves.
We cannot possess greater faith
by fostering or facilitating something inside our psyches.
There is no incantation, meditative technique, guru-gimmick or mystical magic
by which we can generate faith out of our own resources.
— Victor Shepherd (Seasons of Grace)
As the exiles began to make their home in foreign lands, a group of women decided [...]