Craig S. Keener Quotes

#1. If the early Christian accounts of dramatic signs make these works seem foreign and foreboding to segments of modern Western academia,[85] they are nevertheless welcome in many of the dynamic churches of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, which believe that they share their experiences.

Craig S. Keener

#2. The book of Revelation is a book of worship that summons us to recognize the awesome majesty of our Lord.

Craig S. Keener

#3. One of the first steps we should take in knowing God's voice is knowing God's heart.

Craig S. Keener

#4. Revelation announces that God is still in control and that he will conclude this stage of history the way he has promised. He

Craig S. Keener

#5. Is Western Christianity genuinely different enough from our cultures to delay God's judgment on our societies?

Craig S. Keener

#6. Spiritual giftedness does not guarantee that we hear from God rightly on every point.

Craig S. Keener

#7. Granted, God is sovereign and can speak as he pleases - through a proof text, a poem, or Balaam's donkey. But we do not regularly seek out donkeys to tell us how to live.

Craig S. Keener

#8. He does miracles when we need them - not for our entertainment or to make us feel "spiritual.

Craig S. Keener

#9. Western theology invariably asks the question: Are miracles possible? This of course addresses the Enlightenment problem of a closed universe. In much of Asia that is a non-question because the miraculous is assumed and fairly regularly experienced. - Hwa Yung

Craig S. Keener

#10. God is consistent with his nature and declared purposes in Scripture, but he is not limited to our finite understanding of him or the ways we think he should work.

Craig S. Keener

#11. Many of us who affirm and practice spiritual gifts would feel more comfortable among anticharismatics who are at least grounded in Scripture than among such flaky charismatics.

Craig S. Keener

#12. Only by depending on God's power can we offer worship truly worthy of his honor.

Craig S. Keener

#13. We should know and celebrate God with our whole person. While too many Christians neglect to serve God with the mind, others cultivate only their minds and neglect the emotional aspects of worship.

Craig S. Keener

#14. Until those charismatic churches who have poor teaching can supply both spiritual empowerment and sounder teaching, many of them will continue to be only a way station for Christians who need a fresh spiritual experience but who end up taking it elsewhere once they have it.

Craig S. Keener

#15. So pervasively has Enlightenment culture's anti-supernaturalism affected the Western church, especially educated European and North American Christians, that most of us are suspicious of anything supernatural.

Craig S. Keener

#16. Millions of Bible-reading Christians who today call themselves charismatics do not believe in health and wealth teachings.

Craig S. Keener

#17. God alone is God, and he alone merits first place - beyond every other love, every other anxiety, every other fear that consumes us.

Craig S. Keener

#18. Because I am committed to the truth of Scripture, I must try to understand what Scripture says, even if it transcends my own experience.

Craig S. Keener

#19. The keeper of the keys was one of the most important roles a household servant could hold (Mark 13:32-34). A higher official held the keys in a royal kingdom (Is 22:22) and in God's house, the temple.

Craig S. Keener

#20. An important step in getting to know God is to realize how available he is to us. In learning to hear God, it helps us to take on faith the fact that we are already in his presence. If we must make ourselves worthy of his presence first, we will never get there.

Craig S. Keener

#21. No one who beats his wife or children, spreads slander in a congregation, or harbors perpetual unforgiveness in his or her heart is full of the Spirit, no matter how many supernatural gifts he or she claims to have.

Craig S. Keener

#22. If we must "feel" God's presence before we believe he is with us, we again reduce God to our ability to grasp him, making him an idol instead of acknowledging him as God.

Craig S. Keener

#23. Using only nonnarrative portions of the Bible to interpret narrative is not only disrespectful to the narrative portions but also suggests a misguided approach to nonnarrative parts of the Bible.

Craig S. Keener

#24. Revelation addresses many issues that have not changed because human nature and God's character have remained constant. It

Craig S. Keener

#25. Those who look down on other Christians because they lack a particular gift or experience, or those who despise a particular gift and look down on Christians who have it, are not demonstrating spiritual maturity.

Craig S. Keener