Michael Horton Quotes

#1. Long before genetics became a flourishing field, Christians have spoken about sin as an inherited condition.

Michael Horton

#2. The goal of Christian mission is not success, but faithful witness; not power, but proclamation; not technique, but truth; not method, but message.

Michael Horton

#3. But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us.

Michael Horton

#4. We are not saved by sound church order and discipline but we are served by it.

Michael Horton

#5. God's church is not a stage for us to perform on but a garden for us to grow in.

Michael Horton

#6. If you want to be an athlete, there's no way around it: You have to go to the gym. You can't Google your way to it.

Michael Horton

#7. Christians are driven by God's promises, and directed by God's purposes.

Michael Horton

#8. Does Scripture forbid homosexual behavior? Of course it does. Jesus and his apostles taught that God's intention in marriage is for a man to leave his parents and join himself to one woman.

Michael Horton

#9. Our weaknesses are an opportunity for God to show his strength.

Michael Horton

#10. Theology, not morality, is the first business on the church's agenda of reform, and the church, not society, is the first target of divine criticism.

Michael Horton

#11. We cannot find God for the same reason that a thief can't find a police officer.

Michael Horton

#12. When salvation is viewed as man's program, it is left up to man as to whether he will let God do this or that, but when it is viewed as God's program, there is a confidence and a certainty that no one whom God regenerates will be a carnal Christian.

Michael Horton

#13. Ask the proficient athlete, artist, businessperson, or homemaker what creates excellence and they'll all agree: a commitment to long-term goals - and with a community of mentors and fellow "disciples."

Michael Horton

#14. In such a therapeutic, pragmatic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps society as ours, the message of God having to do all the work in saving us comes as an offensive shot at our egos.

Michael Horton

#15. Jesus and spirituality can easily become therapies that merely help us cope with life. They can serve us if we chose Him over other service providers. We even talk about "making Jesus my personal Lord and Savior," as if we could make Him anything!

Michael Horton

#16. Evangelicalism as a movement is rushing headlong toward theological ambiguity, which is another way of saying apostasy.

Michael Horton

#17. We need more Christians who take their place alongside believing and unbelieving neighbors in the daily gift exchange

Michael Horton

#18. How can I trust that the Bible is reliable?

Michael Horton

#19. A church that is deeply aware of it's misery and nakedness before a holy God will cling tenaciously to an all sufficient Savior, while one that is self-confident and relatively unaware of its inherent sinfulness will reach for religion and morality whenever it seems convenient

Michael Horton

#20. Christians must return to the great story that has its fulfillment in life after death, so we may live and die well in the light of our extraordinary hope that enables us to embrace the ordinary lives God gives us here and now.

Michael Horton

#21. No one has to be taught to trust in themselves. No one has to be taught that what you experience inside yourself is more authoritative than what comes to you externally, even if it comes from God. Since the Fall, it has been part of our character to look within ourselves.

Michael Horton

#22. Excellence is being thwarted not only by laziness but by reckless attachment to causes, programs, and - in some cases, leaders.

Michael Horton

#23. The gospel is entirely a message about what someone else has done not only for me but also for the renewal of the whole creation.

Michael Horton

#24. At the end of the day, we need to stop thinking about what we can make of ourselves and start thinking more about who God is, what he has done and is doing in Christ for us and for our neighbors, and how he can use us and our fellow brothers and sisters to be instruments of his gift-giving.

Michael Horton

#25. God is not a supporting actor in our life movie. We exist for his purposes, not the other way around.

Michael Horton

#26. Eternal joy can never be taken from God's people. Therefore ambition, restlessness, and avarice can be put away for the first time as we rest more and more in the work of the Son of God.

Michael Horton

#27. You can't find a YouTube clip to become a craftsman, friend, parent - or disciple of Christ. It's all of grace. And to grow in that grace, you need two things: time and community.

Michael Horton

#28. The gospel frees us to confess our sins without fear of condemnation.

Michael Horton

#29. God's Word does not merely impart information; it actually creates life. It's not only descriptive; it's effective too, God speaking is God acting.

Michael Horton

#30. Baptism is not only a sacrament of our union with Christ; it is also a sacrament of our communion as the body of Christ.

Michael Horton

#31. Once we truly grasp the message of the 'New Testament', it is impossible to read the 'Old Testament' again without seeing Christ on every page, in every story, foreshadowed or anticipated in every event and narrative.

Michael Horton

#32. As we are brought into God's extraordinary kingdom through ordinary means, we are remade, no longer fashioned as competitors for commodities in a world of scarce resources, but as co-sharers with Christ in the circulation of gifts that flows outward from its source without running out.

Michael Horton

#33. People ask me, 'Why pray if God is sovereign?' I respond, 'Why pray if He isn't?

Michael Horton

#34. The proper focus of holiness is not on being set apart from something (i.e., the world), but on being set apart for something.

Michael Horton

#35. There are versions of the pro-gay and anti-gay agenda that assume a simplistic rather than simple understanding of the issue - at least from a biblical perspective. Reject it or embrace it: that's the easy choice that makes for great sound-bites but ruins lives.

Michael Horton