444 Surprising Quotes About Jesus: A Treasury of Inspiring Thoughts and Classic Quotations - Softcover

DR. ISABELLA D. BUNN is both an international lawyer and a theologian, specializing in Christian social ethics. She serves as associate director of the Center for Christianity and Culture at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Isabella collaborates with her husband, novelist T. Davis Bunn, on a variety of writing projects. In selecting these compelling quotes, Isabella has drawn on many antiquarian and academic sources, including her personal library of more than 400 quotation books and spiritual anthologies.

JESUS AND HISTORY

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." --Revelation 22:13

"I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him." --Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), FRENCH GENERAL AND EMPEROR

"Christianity introduced no new forms of government, but a new spirit, which totally transformed the old ones." --Lord Acton (1834–1902), BRITISH HISTORIAN

"Man’s ultimate destiny depends not on whether he can learn new lessons or make new discoveries and conquests, but on the acceptance of the lesson taught him close upon two thousand years ago." --Inscription at Entrance to Rockefeller Center, New York City

"Who is the greatest leader in history? Of all the names that might be given in response to that question, one name stands out above the rest. Jesus Christ." --Bob Briner and Ray Pritchard, THE LEADERSHIP LESSONS OF JESUS, 1998

"The effects, then, of the work of Christ are even to the unbeliever indisputable and historical. It expelled cruelty; it curbed passion; it branded suicide; it punished and repressed infanticide. There was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy. It rescued the gladiator; it freed the slave; it protected the captive; it nursed the sick; it sheltered the orphan; it elevated the woman; it shrouded as with a halo of sacred innocence the tender years of the child. In every region of life its ameliorating influence was felt.... It created the very conception of charity and broadened the limits of its obligation from the narrow circle of a neighbourhood to the widest horizons of the human race." --F. W. Farrar (1831–1903), CHAPLAIN TO THE QUEEN AND CANON OF WESTMINSTER, THE LIFE OF CHRIST, 1874

"Time—the sequence of days, months and seasons—can be taken up into Christ, and so be sanctified and transfigured." -- Seasons of the Spirit, 1984, PREFACE TO READINGS SELECTED BY GEORGE EVERY, RICHARD HARRIES AND KALLISTOS WARE

"The most potent figure, not only in the history of religion, but in world history as a whole, is Jesus Christ: the maker of one of the few revolutions which have lasted. Millions of men and women for century after century have found his life and teaching overwhelmingly significant and moving. And there is ample reason ... why this should still be so." --Michael Grant, PRESIDENT OF THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF ENGLAND, JESUS, 1977

"When the drama of history is over, Jesus Christ will stand alone on the stage. All the great figures of history ... will realize that they have been but actors in a drama produced by another." --Helmut Thielicke (1908–1986), GERMAN THEOLOGIAN

"I have always considered Christ to be one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of humanity." --Fidel Castro, CUBAN PRESIDENT AND MARXIST REVOLUTIONARY

"The first Christians were Jews. They differed from their fellow-countrymen by their faith that in Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah of the nation’s expectation had now come.... If something new had happened, it was the action of one and the same God, Creator of the world, Lord of history, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs. His new word to his people must be consistent with that spoken in the past by the prophets." --Henry Chadwick, BRITISH THEOLOGIAN AND HEAD OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, AND PETERHOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, THE EARLY CHURCH, 1993

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from: 444 Surprising Quotes About Jesus compiled by Isabella D. Bunn Copyright - 2006; ISBN 0764201611 Published by Bethany House Publishers Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.