Kevin Stilley

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October 23, 2012 by kevinstilley

Dice – select quotes

I cannot believe God plays dice with the universe.
~ Albert Einstein

Not only does God play dice with the universe, He’s using loaded dice.
~ Joseph Ford, quoted by James Gleick in Chaos: Making a New Science  Viking Penguin Inc, NY; 1987 (p. 314)

Not only does God play dice, He throws them where we cannot see them.
~ Stephen Hawking, as quoted by Clifford A. Pickover in The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience . page 167

God does not play dice with the universe. He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
~ Terry Pratchett, in Good Omens

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I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That’s what I call a liberal education.
~ Tallulah Bankhead

Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones.
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
~ Lord Byron

Iacta alea est. – The die is cast.
~ Julius Caesar, when crossing the Rubicon

We figured the odds as best we could, and then we rolled the dice.
~ Jimmy Carter

Death and the dice level all distinctions.
~ Samuel Foote, in ‘The Minor’, Act 1

I’m the lone crap shooter
Playing the field every night
Baby can’t stay
You got to roll me
And call me the tumbling dice
Roll me and call me the tumbling dice
~ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, ‘Tumbling Dice’

Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start.
And I bet when you exploded in my heart.
~ Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits, from ‘Romeo & Juliet’

Triumph depends on a roll of Fate’s dice; the ultimate prize is a place in Heaven.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.
~ Terry Pratchett

The best throw of the dice is to throw them away.
~ from an old English proverb

One who doesn’t throw the dice can never expect to score a six.
~ Navjot Singh Sidhu

The dice of Zeus fall ever luckily. (Or, “God’s dice always have a lucky roll.”)
~ Sophocles

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: creation, Dice, Gambling, God, Providence

March 16, 2011 by kevinstilley

Perspective on Difficulties

Pastor James Montgomery Boice stood before Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in May 2000 and shared with them that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer. His perspective on his condition is one that would greatly enrich the spiritual life of many Christians suffering in diverse circumstances.

“Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free to do that, of course. My general impression is that the God who is able to do miracles–and He certainly can–is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place. So although miracles do happen, they’re rare by definition.…Above all, I would say pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying Himself in history and you say, where in all of history has God most glorified Himself? He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross, though He could have.…God is in charge. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental. It’s not as if God somehow forgot what was going on, and something bad slipped by.… God is not only the one who is in charge; God is also good. Everything He does is good.… If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you’d change it, you’d make it worse. It wouldn’t be as good” (James Montgomery Boice, quoted by Randy Alcorn in If God is Good, p.14).

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James Montgomery Boice Bibliography

Books:

1970  Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John (Zondervan)
1971  Philippians: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan)
1972  The Sermon on the Mount (Zondervan)
1973  How to Live the Christian Life (Moody; originally, How to Live It Up, Zondervan)
1974  Ordinary Men Called by God (Victor; originally, How God Can Use Nobodies)
1974 The Last and Future World (Zondervan)
1975-79  The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary (5 volumes, Zondervan; issued in one volume, 1985; 5 volumes, Baker 1999)
1976  “Galatians” in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Zondervan)
1977 Can You Run Away from God? (Victor)
1977  Does Inerrancy Matter? (Tyndale)
1977  Our Sovereign God, editor (Baker)
1978  The Foundation of Biblical Authority, editor (Zondervan)
1979  The Epistles of John: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan)
1979  Making God’s Word Plain, editor (Tenth Presbyterian Church)
1980  Our Savior God: Studies on Man, Christ and the Atonement, editor (Baker)
1982-87  Genesis: An Expositional Commentary (3 volumes, Zondervan)
1983  The Parables of Jesus (Moody)
1983  The Christ of Christmas (Moody)
1983-86  The Minor Prophets: An Expositional Commentary (2 volumes, Zondervan)
1984  Standing on the Rock (Tyndale). Reissued 1994 (Baker)
1985  The Christ of the Open Tomb (Moody)
1986  Foundations of the Christian Faith (4 volumes in one, InterVarsity Press; original volumes issued, 1978-81)
1986  Christ’s Call to Discipleship (Moody)
1988  Transforming Our World: A Call to Action, editor (Multnomah)
1988, 98  Ephesians: An Expositional Commentary (Baker)
1989  Daniel: An Expositional Commentary (Zondervan)
1989  Joshua: We Will Serve the Lord (Revell)
1990  Nehemiah: Learning to Lead (Revell)
1992-94  Romans (4 volumes, Baker)
1992 The King Has Come (Christian Focus Publications)
1993  Amazing Grace (Tyndale)
1993  Mind Renewal in a Mindless Age (Baker)
1994-98  Psalms (3 volumes, Baker)
1994  Sure I Believe, So What! (Christian Focus Publications)
1995  Hearing God When You Hurt (Baker)
1996  Two Cities, Two Loves (InterVarsity)
1996  Here We Stand: A Call from Confessing Evangelicals, editor with Benjamin E. Sasse (Baker)
1997  Living By the Book (Baker)
1997  Acts: An Expositional Commentary (Baker)
1999  The Heart of the Cross, with Philip Graham Ryken (Crossway)
1999  What Makes a Church Evangelical?
2000  Hymns for a Modern Reformation, with Paul S. Jones
2001  Matthew: An Expositional Commentary (2 volumes, Baker)
2001  Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Crossway)
2002  The Doctrines of Grace, with Philip Graham Ryken (Crossway)
2002  Jesus on Trial, with Philip Graham Ryken (Crossway)

Chapters:

1985  “The Future of Reformed Theology” in David F. Wells, editor, Reformed Theology in America: A History of Its Modern Development (Eerdmans)
1986  “The Preacher and Scholarship” in Samuel T. Logan, editor, The Preacher and Preaching: Reviving the Art in the Twentieth Century (Presbyterian and Reformed)
1992  “A Better Way: The Power of Word and Spirit” in Michael Scott Horton, editor, Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church? (Moody)
1994  “The Sovereignty of God” in John D. Carson and David W. Hall, editors, To Glorify and Enjoy God: A Commemoration of the 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (Banner of Truth Trust)

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RELATED

Click here for the full text of Boice’s announcement

Suffering – Select Quotes

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes, Theology Tagged With: cancer, Miracles, Providence, Sovereignty of God, suffering

November 25, 2009 by kevinstilley

How Likely?

There is a 1-in-649,739 chance of being dealt a royal straight flush when you play poker. The odds of getting struck by lightning are actually higher.

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RELATED CONTENT

  • Trivia Index
  • Index to Great Quotes

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Book Cover

Filed Under: Blog, Trivia Tagged With: chance, math, Odds, Providence, Statistics

November 11, 2009 by kevinstilley

Providence of God – select quotes

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not wish to sign.
~ Anatole France, in Le Jardin d’ epicure

It is not hard, you find, to trust the management of the universe, and of all the outward creation, to the Lord. Can your case then be so much more complex and difficult than these, that you need to be anxious or troubled about His management of you?
~ Hannah Whitall Smith, in The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life

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RELATED CONTENT

  • Index To Great Quotes

__________

Book Cover

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: Providence, quotations, quote

November 7, 2009 by kevinstilley

Trusting God – select quotes

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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RELATED CONTENT

  • Index To Great Quotes

__________

Book Cover

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: God, Providence, quotations, quote, trust

July 13, 2008 by kevinstilley

What Is Providence, by Derek Thomas

What Is Providence?
by Derek Thomas
Basics of the Reformed Faith series
Published by P&R
Paperback, 32 pages

“Derek Thomas is well-qualified to write on the subject of Providence. He wonderfully combines in one person the lucidity of a professor of theology, the sensitivity of a gifted pastor, and the personal experience of a Christian who has learned much about God’s ways in his own life. He is the ideal “Mr. Interpreter” to plot our way through life with a deep confidence in God’s wise and sovereign love. The value of What Is Providence? is out of all proportion to its size. Here is a booklet to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” And once you have done that, buy a little stock so that you always have one to give to those who ask, ‘Why did God . . . .?’”
-Sinclair B Ferguson, The First Presbyterian Church, Columbia

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Providence, theology proper

June 30, 2007 by kevinstilley

Where God Wants Me

One day I happened to call a man on business whom I will probably never talk to again, but this day God wanted me to talk to him.

He was head of security at a company that had invited the remaining members of a company who had been decimated by the attack on the Twin Towers to share their office space. With his voice full of awe, he told me stories of why these people were alive and their counterparts were dead.

All the stories were just little things.

You might know about the head of the company who got in late that day because his son started kindergarten.

Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.

The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning. He took the various means to get to work, but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive.

So, Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone… all the little things that annoy me… I think to myself, this is exactly where God wants me to be at this very moment. May God continue to bless you with all those annoying little things.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Providence

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