31 March 2006

"It's time to play... Mystery Quotation (#3)!"

by Dan Phillips 

Bwahh hahaha, you'll never get this. But remember, no fair using Google or any electronic search tool! (Kinda defeats the whole point of this.)
One becomes humble, not by opposing to the swellings of pride lowly or mean thoughts of himself, but one becomes humble by thinking upon Christ and exalting Him to others.
Have at it! 

In other news, I put out a search-inquiry on my blog, but no passers-by had the answer. This is a quotation I can't source, though I've searched for decades. I turn to my other resourceful readers here at the team-blog.

I could swear that I read, at some point, J. Gresham Machen saying that for a pastor not to know Greek makes about as much sense as a professor of French literature not knowing French. But I've never been able to source that quotation; and I'm a bit obsessive about not using quotations I can't source.

Does anyone know where that's from?

Dan Phillips's signature

33 comments:

Kim said...

Dan, is that graphic a big ball of rubber bands?

donsands said...

How about Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Matt Gumm said...

No one on the BGreek list has been able to produce it either, though someone suggested checking A.T. Robertson's A Minister and His Greek New Testament for a similar quote.

DJP said...

Yes Kim, it is. But that wasn't the question. (c;

So, Brian, you have the whole thing committed to memory? Whew!

No, Don. I've actually never read anything of his.

That's a really good idea, Matt. I've been through that book, searching; doesn't mean it isn't there, but I didn't find it there.

Kay said...

You know, I googled because I've never tried that with a quote before, and the first link that came up was a medical website all about swellings.
Won't be doing that again...

DJP said...

Libbie wins!





(jus' keedeen)

Richard D said...

I'm thinking either Eminem, Simon Cowell, or Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

DJP said...

Normally, it would be one of those.

But not today!

candy said...

C.J. Mahaney.

Unknown said...

John Owen?

Matthew Henry said...

........ Candy stole my answser....C. J. Mahaney

Anonymous said...

I know I have read this or heard it before I can't think of who. My guess is either one of these four men:

John Calvin
Martin Luther
Stephen Olford
John Piper

Anonymous said...

Belie my last.

Who is Francis Schaeffer?

Jeremy Weaver said...

Spurgeon.

DJP said...

I'm surprised Mahaney wasn't guessed sooner.

But no! No one's gotten it yet.

This one's obscure; I'll be surprised if anyone can get it. (Yes, before you ask -- it was published by a real-live major publisher.)

Terry Rayburn said...

Thinking out of the RB box, how about Nicholas Herman, AKA Brother Lawrence?

Regardless, it's a great quotation.

Incessentaly mean-mouthing ourselves often denies what God has done, while appearing to be humble. Many are proud because they are more self-abasing than the next guy.

Humility isn't, "I'm a worthless worm." It's, "What do you have, O man, that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you didn't?" And then with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor. 3:18)

Blessings,
Terry

Anonymous said...

Joel Osteen? (JUST KIDDING!)

Umm, how about....Richard Baxter?

Matthew Henry said...

Well, if it is Matthew Henry who said it, then I should win simply 'cause.....

Momo said...

Hoobastank?

Just thinking out loud through Phil's i-pod playlist here. . . .

Colin Maxwell said...

Gresham Machen wrote a NT Greek Text book i.e. to learn students learn the language. If he didn't say it there...

DJP said...

Here's the answer. This is by a prof back from the days when Fuller Seminary had leading professors who were noted for believing in the Bible.

Jesus and His Contemporaries, by Everett F. Harrison (Baker: 1949, reprint 1970), p. 23.

It is a book full of portraits from the gospel of John, including John the Baptist, Andrew, Peter, Nicodemus, Judas, Thomas, John; seventeen chapters in all. Good material; Harrison was a gracious man (I met him once) who believed the Bible. Perhaps you've used his intro to the New Testament, his shorter life of Christ, or other resources he's produced or edited.

Other little gems:

(On the man born blind):
"Jesus looked upn the man; the disciples saw a theological problem" (p. 118)

Several good ones form the chapter on the Samaritan woman:

"Where could one find a more powerful exhibition of the self-emptying of the Son of God than here, for the Creator sits exhausted under the glare of the created sun, with water underneath Him, but no means of procuring it" (p. 78)

"The Christian life, then, is like a lake that continues to pour forth its refreshing waters by an outlet, yet has no visible inlet to maintain its flow, its secret lying far below the surface in the hidden spring which bubbles forth its never-ceasing supply" (p. 82)

"The physician must sometimes hurt before he can heal. With simple directness, Jesus laid bare the woman's past without comment or open rebuke. He who was an authority on living water knew all about the life which needed it" (p. 83)

Phil Johnson said...

Coyote: "Just thinking out loud through Phil's i-pod playlist here."

:-)

Yeah, right. You wouldn't know Hoobastank from Elton John or David Bowie.

On my iPod right this moment:

Christus, der ist mein Leben--BWV 95

Screaming Pirate said...

i would like to know what a 95 BMW sounds like on an I-pod personaly.(Ohh. its BWV) And dont be to hard on phil he is just trying to stay hip trying to make seemingly general Christian lyrics like "I'm not a perfect person" fit in to his sermons and lessons.

DJP said...

Absolutely right. Fuller hated Lindsell's books exposing their defection, but if he were here today, he'd just be nodding and saying, "Well, duh, told you."

When a man puts himself, and his judgment, over the Bible, you can draw a line in many directions. All bad.

And the thing is, the prof himself may just have shifted at the base, but still cling to a lot of traditional Christianoid notions. But it's his students who apply his own core principles more consistently, and thus shift further.

Mike Ratliff said...

How about John Owen

Castusfumus said...

Hey Phil,
That Ipod got any Orff?
OK...I'll Bach-Orff

Kim said...

Dan:

I knew I'd never figure out who said that quote, so I was very happy with myself for recognizing the rubber band ball. You've made a home school mom at the end of the week very happy.

Jeremy Weaver said...

Dan (Dave, Fred, Jim or whatever your name is),
Stephen Nichols references a series of lectures given in 1932 at the meetings of the Bible League in London. He does not list the quote you are looking for but supplies this similar one,

"It never seems to occur to many modern teachers that the primary business of the teacher is to study the subject that he is going to teach. Instead of studying the subject that he is going to teach, he studies 'education'; a knowledge of the methodology of teaching takes the place of the particular branch of literature, history, or science to which a man has devoted his life."

Maybe it's might be around there somewhere?

4given said...

Major shots in the dark:

Bob Dylan
Rabbi Kook
A.W. Pink
The Pope
Thomas Boston
Wylie
Flavel

Neil said...

Libbie, you're not an English Muffin; you're an English Nutbar.

Chuck said...

I would have said Flavel, and I would have been wrong. Great quote.

Jacob Hantla said...

Dan,
As for that Greek & French quote, Bill Barrick used it at the beginning of his Shepherds Conference '05 Message, "Exegetical Preparation". He attributed it to HH Raley (sp?).

DJP said...

Jacob! You did it! I've been looking for this FOREVER!

I just translated your spelling into the scholar H. H. Rowley, Googled, and got it! I'll bet I originally read it as quoted in the Turner book, cited here. I'll have to check when I get home.

Thanks so very much, great job!