Top 100 Francis Schaeffer Quotes
#1. What kind of ministry is that, just talking to people? Criticism directed at Francis Schaeffer's plan to open an obscure spot in the Swiss Alps to those who came with questions.
Nancy Pearcey
#2. As Francis Schaeffer reminded us, "The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars" (5).
Leland Ryken
#3. Many people operate as though the definition of faith were, Don't ask questions, just believe. They quote Jesus himself, who taught his followers to have the faith of a child (Mark 10:15). But I once heard Francis Schaeffer respond by saying, "Don't you realize how many questions children ask?"
Nancy Pearcey
#4. Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful - Christian community is the final apologetic.
Francis Schaeffer
#5. What kind of judgment does one apply, then, to a work of art? I believe that there are four basic standards: (1) technical excellence, (2) validity, (3) intellectual content, the world view which comes through and (4) the integration of content and vehicle.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#6. Tell me what the world is saying today, and I'll tell you what the church will be saying in seven years.
Francis Schaeffer
#7. All men bear the image of God. They have value not because they are redeemed, but because they are God's creation in God's image.
Francis Schaeffer
#8. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be a vehicle for self-conscious evangelism. Christians ought not to be threatened by fantasy and imagination. The Christian is the really free man. He is free to have imagination.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#9. But our world at the end of the twentieth century has so much destruction without Christian artists so emphasizing the minor theme in the total body of their work that they add to the poorness and destruction of our generation.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#10. Humanism is not wrong in its cry for sociological healing, but humanism is not producing it.
Francis Schaeffer
#11. As a Christian I do not have to find my validity in my status, or by thinking myself above other men. My validity and my status are found in being before the God who is there.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#12. When a man comes under the blood of Christ, his whole capacity as a man is refashioned. His soul is saved, yes, but so are his mind and his body. True spirituality means the lordship of Christ over the total man.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#13. Thank God for the reality for which we were created, a moment-by-moment communication with God himself.
Francis Schaeffer
#14. You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend upon our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand.
Francis Schaeffer
#15. People drift from generation to generation, and the morally unthinkable becomes thinkable as the years move on.
Francis Schaeffer
#17. Preaching the gospel without the Holy Spirit is to miss the entire point of the command of Jesus Christ for our era. In the area of "Christian activities" or "Christian service," how we are doing it is at least as important as what we are doing.
Francis Schaeffer
#18. Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting point to go on into a living relationship - and not as ends in themselves.
Francis Schaeffer
#19. The purpose of apologetics is not just to win an argument or a discussion, but that people with whom we are in contact may become Christians and then live under the Lordship of Christ in the whole spectrum of life.
Francis Schaeffer
#20. To demand the art forms of yesterday in either word systems or art is a bourgeois failure.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#21. The ordinary Christian with the Bible in his hand can say that the majority is wrong.
Francis Schaeffer
#22. There is no place in God's world where there are no people who will come and share a home as long as it is a real home.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#23. The great distinction of a true Christian is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. How careful should he be, lest anything in his thoughts or feelings would be offensive to the Divine Guest.!
Francis Schaeffer
#25. Hudson Taylor said, "The Lord's work done in the Lord's way will never fail to have the Lord's provision." ... The Lord's work done in human energy is not the Lord's work any longer. It is something, but it is not the Lord's work.
Francis Schaeffer
#26. There is nothing more ugly than an orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#27. That is our calling: to show that there is a reality in personal relationship, and not just words about it.
Francis Schaeffer
#28. Christ is with those in paradise now. But Christ - the same Christ, with the same reality - promises the Christian that he will bring forth fruit through us in this life now. The power of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ will bring forth this fruit through us now.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#29. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free. Once more a humanistic utopianism ends in tyranny, whether in Rousseau's writing or in the Reign of Terror which carried his position to its conclusion. Robespierre,
Francis A. Schaeffer
#30. You are not Christ's disciple, in the sense of following him, if this is not your way of life: rejected and slain daily!
Francis Schaeffer
#31. A quiet disposition and a heart giving thanks at any given moment is the real test of the extent to which we love God at that moment.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#34. In the flesh rather than the work of the Spirit, it is easy to say we are showing holiness and it only be egotistic pride and hardness.
Francis Schaeffer
#35. The Lord is the General, and he has the right ... the sovereign right ... to put us where he wants in the battle.
Francis Schaeffer
#36. If one starts with an impersonal beginning, the answer to morals eventually turns out to be the assertion that there are no morals.
Francis Schaeffer
#37. If we do not show love to one another, the world has a right to question whether Christianity is true.
Francis Schaeffer
#39. The Cross of Christ is to be a reality to me not only once for all at my conversion, but all through my life as a Christian. True spirituality does not stop at the negative (death), but without the negative - in comprehension and in practice - we are not ready to go on.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#40. Most people do not realize that there was a paid chaplain in Congress even before the Revolutionary War ended.
Francis Schaeffer
#41. If Christians win a battle by using worldly means, they have really lost.
Francis Schaeffer
#42. To die is to be with the Lord. It is not just an idea, it is a reality.
Francis Schaeffer
#43. The Christian should be the man with the flaming imagination and the beauty of creation.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#45. I am convinced that when Nietzsche came to Switzerland and went insane, it was not because of venereal disease, though he did have this disease. Rather, it was because he understood that insanity was the only philosophic answer if the infinite-personal God does not exist.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#46. in the absence of a biblical morality a new elite will always come forward to dictate arbitrary absolutes to society
Francis A. Schaeffer
#47. Eternity will be wonderful, but there is one thing heaven will not contain, and that is the call, the possibility, and the privilege of living a supernatural life here and now by faith, before we meet Jesus face to face.
Francis Schaeffer
#48. We should not view men with a cynical eye, seeing them only as meaningless products of chance, but, on the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme of seeing them romantically. To do either is to fail to understand who men really are
creatures made in the image of God but fallen.
Francis Schaeffer
#49. Sometimes the greatest deterrent to a great marriage is believing you have a perfect marriage.
Francis Schaeffer
#50. If Christianity is really true, then it involves the whole man, including his intellect and creativeness. Christianity is not just 'dogmatically' true or 'doctrinally' true. Rather, it is true to what is there, true in the whole area of the whole man in all of life.
Francis Schaeffer
#51. The soul is not more important than the body. God made the whole man and the whole man is important.
Francis Schaeffer
#52. We as Bible-believing evangelical Christians are locked in a battle. This is not a friendly gentleman's discussion. It is a life and death conflict between the spiritual hosts of wickedness and those who claim the name of Christ.
Francis Schaeffer
#53. The inward area is the first place of loss of true Christian life, of true spirituality, and the outward sinful act is the result.
Francis Schaeffer
#54. If the church is what it should be, young people will be there. But they will not just 'be there' - they will be there with the blowing of horns and the clashing of high-sounding cymbals, and they will come dancing with flowers in their hair.
Francis Schaeffer
#55. How can art be sufficiently meaningful? If it is offered up merely before men, then it does not have a sufficient integration point.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#56. This shift from the Judeo-Christian basis for law and the shift away from the restraints of the Constitution automatically militates against religious liberty.
Francis Schaeffer
#58. If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.
Francis Schaeffer
#59. The one thing the media abhors almost without exception is anyone who takes a firm stand on any issue out of religious principle, unless their stand happens to coincide with their expressed views.
Francis Schaeffer
#60. The beginning of men's rebellion against God was, and is, the lack of a thankful heart.
Francis Schaeffer
#61. Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains!" Rousseau saw the primitive as innocent and autonomous freedom as the final good. We
Francis A. Schaeffer
#62. We may not play with the new theology even if we may think we can turn it to our advantage.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#63. Some psychological and sociological conditioning occurs in every man's life and this affects the decisions he makes. But we must resist the modern concept that all sin can be explained merely on the basis of conditioning.
Francis Schaeffer
#64. It is only as we consciously bring each victory to His feet, and keep it there as we think of it - and especially as we speak of it - that we can avoid the pride of that victory, which can be worse than the sin over which we claim to have had the victory.
Francis Schaeffer
#65. God has communicated to man, the infinite to the finite. The One who made man capable of language in the first place has communicated to man in language about both spiritual reality and physical reality, about the nature of God and the nature of man.
Francis Schaeffer
#66. But when the world can turn around and see a group of God's people exhibiting substantial healing in the area of human relationships in their present life, then the world will take notice.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#67. Modern multiple divorce is rooted in the fact that many are seeking in human relationships what human relationships can never give. Why do they have multiple divorce, instead of merely promiscuous affairs? Because they are seeking more than merely sexual relationship.
Francis Schaeffer
#69. The Christian should be the person who is alive, whose imagination absolutely boils, which moves, which produces something a bit different from God's world because God made us to be creative.
Francis Schaeffer
#70. Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society, the way that a child catches the measles. But people with understanding realize that their presuppositions should be *chosen* after a careful consideration of which worldview is true.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#71. Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#72. I have come to the conclusion that none of us in our generation feels as guilty about sin as we should or as our forefathers did.
Francis Schaeffer
#73. In God's world the individual counts. Therefore, Christian art should deal with the individual.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#74. And the purpose of our creation, in which all our subsidiary purposes fit, is to be in a personal relationship to God, in communion with him, in love, by choice, the creature before the Creator.
Francis Schaeffer
#75. A compassionate open home is part of Christian responsibility, and should be practiced up to the level of capacity.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#76. If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute.
Francis Schaeffer
#77. When I accept Christ as my Savior ... I am immediately in a new and living relationship with each of the three persons of the Trinity.
Francis Schaeffer
#78. In a fallen world, we must be willing to face the fact that however lovingly we preach the gospel, if a man rejects it he will be miserable. It is dark out there.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#79. If you want a significant man, with absolutes, morality, and meaning, then you must have what the Bible insists upon - that God will judge men justly, and they will not be able to raise their voices because of the base upon which He judges them.
Francis Schaeffer
#80. So our building of the visible Church becomes much like any natural business function, using natural means and natural motives.
Francis Schaeffer
#81. The modern concept of separation is an argument for a total separation of religion from the state. The consequence of the acceptance of the doctrine leads to the removal of religion as an influence in civil government.
Francis Schaeffer
#82. If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#83. For a long time this Bohemian life was taken to be the ideal for the artist, and it has come in the last few decades to be considered an ideal for more than the artist.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#84. In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.
Francis Schaeffer
#85. If God exists and we are made in his image we can have real meaning, and we can have real knowledge through what he has communicated to us.
Francis Schaeffer
#86. How should an artist begin to do his work as an artist? I would insist that he begin his work as an artist by setting out to make a work of art.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#87. The Lord calls us to love all people, including those who are enemies of the gospel and those who blaspheme. This may not be comfortable, and it may not be easy, but this is the gospel of Christ, for He loved His enemies so much that He died to save us.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#88. Our trusting the Lord does not mean that there are not times of tears. I think it is a mistake as Christians to act as though trusting the Lord and tears are not compatible.
Francis Schaeffer
#89. We must stress that the basis for our faith is neither experience nor emotion but the truth as God has given it in verbalized, prepositional form in the Scripture and which we first of all apprehend with our minds.
Francis Schaeffer
#90. Art is a reflection of God's creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God.
Francis Schaeffer
#91. We are to have a forgiving spirit even before the other person expresses regret for his wrong.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#92. The ironic fact is that humanism which began with man's being central eventually had no real meaning for people. On the other hand, if one begins with the Bible's position that man is created by God and in the image of God, there is a basis for that person's dignity.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#93. Actually we do everything we can, whether it is in a philosophic sense or a practical sense, to put ourselves at the center of the universe.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#94. True spirituality consists in living moment to moment by the grace of Jesus Christ.
Francis Schaeffer
#95. The arbitrary division between church and state ... is used, as an easily identifiable rallying point, to subdue the opinions of that vast body of citizens who represent those with religious convictions.
Francis Schaeffer
#96. When my conscience under the Holy Spirit makes me aware of a specific sin I should at once call that sin sin and bring it consciously under the blood of Christ.
Francis Schaeffer
#97. The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so, in regard to society and in regard to government, is that they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals.
Francis A. Schaeffer
#98. If I'm going to be in the right relationship with God, I should treat the things he has made in the same way he treats them.
Francis Schaeffer
#99. If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking,I am not confessing Christ. (Martin Luther)
Francis A. Schaeffer
#100. We cannot deal with people like human beings, we cannot deal with them on the high level of true humanity, unless we really know their origin-who they are. God tells man who he is. God tells us that He created man in His image. So man is something wonderful.
Francis A. Schaeffer
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
