“Traditionally, at Christmastime we think about the story of Christ’s birth. It feels like Christmas when we picture Joseph and Mary, the shepherds, the angels, and the manger containing the Christ child. But to appreciate the magnitude of the main point of the story — that the eternal Son of God assume our flesh-and-blood human nature — we need to learn from the res of the Bible why Christ came to earth” (Joel R. Beeke & William Boekestein, Why Christ Came: 31 Meditations on the Incarnation,  vii).

“What [Van Til’s] students often overlook is that to separate Van Til the apologist from Van Til the churchman is to eclipse the very heart and underlying simplicity of his thought and life. Thus, many of his followers are searching for Van Til’s significance apart from the context in which he served. Van Til’s theological commitments cannot be understood apart from his ecclesiology. The faith that Van Til sought to defend was the faith of Reformed churches that found expression in Reformed creeds” (John R. Muether, Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman, 15).

“For there is hardly a page of Scripture on which it is not clearly written that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble [James 4:6]” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 565).

“But the man who cannot speak both eloquently and wisely should speak wisely without eloquence, rather than eloquently without wisdom” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 596).

“Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor. Every man, moreover, has hope in his own conscience, so far as he perceives that he has attained to the love and knowledge of God and his neighbor” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 561).

“Poor is all the useful knowledge which is gathered from the books of the heathen when compared with the knowledge of the Holy Scripture” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 555).

“The man who fears God seeks diligently in Holy Scripture for a knowledge of His will” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 556).

“What then is purity of speech, except the preserving of the custom of language established by the authority of former speakers?” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 541).

“Accordingly the Holy Spirit has, with admirable wisdom and care for our welfare, so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetites” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 537).

“The man who has accustomed himself to caution in his communications will not fall into many absurdities, into which talkative and prating persons fall into from time to time, but, by constant practice, will acquire for himself expertness in making proper and suitable replies; as, on the other hand, it must necessarily happen, that silly talkers expose themselves to derision whenever they are interrogated as to anything; and in this they pay the just punishment of their silly talkativeness” (John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle to the Colossians, 226).