Quotes by John R. W. Stott

While reading yesterday I came across some thoughts worth sharing by John R. W. Stott in The Cross of Christ.

The place of suffering in service and of passion in mission is hardly ever taught today.  But the greatest single secret of evangelistic or missionary effectiveness is the willingness to suffer and die.  It may be a death to popularity (by faithfully preaching the unpopular biblical gospel), or to pride (by the use of modest methods in reliance on the Holy Spirit), or to racial and national prejudice (by identification with another culture), or to material comfort (by adopting a simple lifestyle).  But the servant must suffer if he is going to bring light to the nations, and the seed must die if it is to multiply. (313)

We have to learn to climb the hill called Calvary, and from that vantage point survey all life's tragedies.  The cross does not solve the problem of suffering, but it supplies the essential perspective from which to look at it.  Since God has demonstrated his holy love and loving justice in a historical event (the cross), no other historical event (whether personal or global) can override or disprove it.  This must surely be why the scroll (the book of history and destiny) is now in the hands of the slain Lamb, and why only he is worthy to break its seals, reveal its contents and control the flow of the future. (320)

... I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness.  That is the God for me!  He laid aside his immunity to pain.  He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death.  He suffered for us.  Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his.  There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering. (327)