Joseph Parker Quotes on the Bible, the Cross, Faith and Preaching
Joseph Parker preached at the City Temple in London for more than thirty years, and he had a gift for the short, sharp sentence. He could set two ideas side by side so that one line did the work of a paragraph. That's why his sayings still turn up in sermons more than a century later.
Many Joseph Parker quotes online come without a source, and a few aren't his. Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter, so you can read each one in its setting. For his life story, see who was Joseph Parker. For a guide to his books, see Joseph Parker books.
On the Bible
Parker wrote None Like It when higher criticism was unsettling British churches. He spoke as a preacher who needed a Bible he could trust.
The Bible was not written to tell me what the Jews did, but to tell me what God did through the Jews.
None Like It, The Permanent Quantity
It takes us back to our ignorance, our weakness, and our shame, that it may take us forward to God's wisdom, Christ's almightiness, and the Spirit's miracle of holiness.
None Like It, The Permanent Quantity
Its meaning does not come through criticism, but through spiritual illumination; it is the gift of God.
None Like It, The Living Word
He respected scholarship, but he had no patience for pride on either side:
The dogmatism of ignorance never rendered any real service to the truth.
None Like It, The Permanent Quantity
I go to the infidel for infidelity; I never go to him for faith.
None Like It, Epilogue
On Christ and the cross
The Priesthood of Christ asks what Jesus did for us that we could not do for ourselves. These lines carry his answer.
Science is for experts; the cross is for sinners.
None Like It, The Living Word
The purpose of Jesus Christ was not to set an example, but to give life.
The Priesthood of Christ, Conclusion
It is evident, therefore, that we are to be saved by a Fact and not by a Speculation; by Christ, and not by any theological construction of His work.
The Priesthood of Christ, The Point of Rest
He saw the cross already present in the garden, where Jesus gave up His will to the Father:
On Calvary we see the crucifixion of Christ; in Gethsemane we see the crucifixion by Christ.
The Priesthood of Christ, Gethsemane and Calvary
As I read the life of Christ, I say, This Man always begins where He can; that is, where people will allow Him to begin.
The Priesthood of Christ, The Personality of the Priest
Thus, too, we have found it to be with God: implacable, yet most placable; far off, yet nigh at hand; a consuming fire, yet infinite in love.
The Priesthood of Christ, The Revelation of the Father
In his City Temple sermons on Matthew, the cross is never far away.
We have seen the cross, and that has made us glad; we have beheld the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, and in his sight all other sights have perished.
The Inner Life of Christ, Volume 3, Chapter LXVIII: Christ's Personality Defined
God is love, infinite love: we need it all: we sin every day, and every day we need the cross.
The Inner Life of Christ, Volume 3, Chapter XCII: The Crucifixion
Christ is not a picture to be admired; He is a Saviour to be trusted and served.
A Preacher's Life, Inner Life
On the Holy Spirit
In The Paraclete Parker traced a movement in God's dealings with us: from the outward Christ of the Gospels to the inward work of the Spirit.
In the person of Jesus Christ truth was outward, visible, and most beautiful: In the person of the Holy Ghost truth is inward, spiritual, all-transfiguring.
The Paraclete, The Historic Movement Towards Spirituality
Jesus Christ did not pass away as a figure complete in itself; He ascended that He might conduct His work from a higher level and by a more energetic and universal agency.
The Paraclete, The Historic Movement Towards Spirituality
The human Saviour does the outward and visible work; the Eternal Spirit sets up the inward and spiritual kingdom; the man heals the body, the Spirit renews the soul.
The Paraclete, The Miracles of the Holy Ghost
The reformer works by program; the Regenerator works by the silent, subtle, infinite power of God the Holy Ghost.
None Like It, Fundamentals
And on how a new heart changes everything we see:
The world is shadowed or brightened by our own heart rather than by anything in itself; our joy makes the cloudiest day glad, and our grief finds night in the sunniest sky.
The Paraclete, Regeneration
On faith and surrender
The chapter of his autobiography called "Inner Life" is full of lines like these. Parker wanted a faith that took the whole person.
The Christian has no will; he has, by the Spirit of God, willed to have no will; he has surrendered his will to Christ.
A Preacher's Life, Inner Life
If my faith be outside of me, a ghostly haze in the air, it is but a superstition; it must be in me, part of me — yea, my very soul, my truest, holiest self.
A Preacher's Life, Inner Life
Christ can do better without us than with us if our allegiance be hesitant.
A Preacher's Life, Inner Life
The discipline of Christianity proves the truth of Christianity.
A Preacher's Life, Inner Life
He drew a sharp line between a creed, which can be written down, and faith, which lives:
Creed is weather, faith is climate; creed is geographical, faith is astronomical.
A Preacher's Life, Heresies and Heretics
On work, money and character
Parker had a hard start in life himself, and he spoke plainly to young people about getting on.
What you have in your hands may be taken out of them, therefore have something in your heart that no man can get at and steal.
The Inner Life of Christ, Volume 1, Chapter XXII: Christ Anxious About the Heart
My young friend, do not imagine that you can jump into eminence: if you can jump into it, you may easily jump out of it.
The Inner Life of Christ, Volume 1, Chapter XXVI: The Straitness of the Gate
Be honest in copper, and in gold thy honesty will be sure.
Well Begun, The Commercial Decalogue
"Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth." Remember that, and industry is turned into a sacrament.
Hidden Springs, Sermon XIII: The Theology of Money
On preaching
Most of these come from Ad Clerum, his letters to a young man entering the ministry. They're blunt, and they still sting.
Be earnest, and you will be eloquent; let your soul speak, and your words will be wise and good.
Ad Clerum, Naturalness
Know you not that you preach in God's hearing as well as man's?
Ad Clerum, Naturalness
Should we preach merely as if we had learned a lesson, or as if we had seen God face to face and received a message from His lips?
Ad Clerum, Sensational Preaching
To know Jesus Christ is to know man; to be as Jesus Christ was, will be to draw all men unto you.
Ad Clerum, Unsuccessful Men
We shall grow cold in our work, if the fires of our heart be not renewed by the love of the Saviour.
Ad Clerum, The Guarantees of a Successful Ministry
If you honour Christ in your ministry, you will be honoured by Him in return.
Ad Clerum, Figures, Parables, and Anecdotes
Twenty years later, in None Like It, he gave a second set of counsels to ministers:
You were not called to the ministry by the will of man, but by the will of God.
None Like It, Ad Clerum
His sermon is modern: his gospel is everlasting; his illustrations are a thousand: his Message is one.
None Like It, Ad Clerum
And in Pulpit Notes he said the pattern for all of it is Jesus Himself, whose preaching was full of compassion.
There is no coldness in the preaching of Jesus Christ.
Pulpit Notes, An Essay upon the Preaching of Jesus Christ
On prayer
Parker cared about public prayer as much as preaching. He thought it needed just as much preparation.
The length of a prayer ought not, in my opinion, to be measured by time. A prayer of a dozen sentences may be long, a prayer occupying an hour may be short.
Ad Clerum, The Minister in the Pulpit
We shall know the nearness of God by the obliteration of ourselves; by our sense of unworthiness; by our eagerness to bless others; by our hatred of sin.
None Like It, Ad Clerum
Read the books
These lines read best in their setting. For the cross, read The Priesthood of Christ. For the Bible, read None Like It. For the Holy Spirit, read The Paraclete. For preaching, read Ad Clerum. And for Parker himself, read A Preacher's Life. For his sermons, start with The Inner Life of Christ. All twelve of his books in the library are on the Joseph Parker author page.