While Christianity was able to agree with pagan writers that inordinate attachment to earthly goods can lead to unnecessary pain and grief, it also taught that the answer to this was not to love things less but to love God more than anything else. Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope. Timothy J. Keller
About This Quote

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, the city was rebuilt with a new mindset. The new buildings were designed to be fireproof with no glass in the windows. Each room even had a brick floor and heavy wooden beams as support. The bricks were burnt and hardened as they cooled, making them virtually unburnable.

However, this design made it impossible for people to escape the fire, and everyone died in the burning buildings. The idea behind this was that grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope.

Source: Walking With God Through Pain And Suffering

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More Quotes By Timothy J. Keller
  1. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything....

  2. Falling in love in a Christian way is to say, ' I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true...

  3. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God's saving love in Christ, however, is...

  4. ...Singles, too, must see the penultimate status of marriage. If single Christians don't develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their DREAM of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well.

  5. If believers in God don't honor the cries and claims of the poor, we don't honor him, whatever we profess, because we hide his beauty from the eyes of the world. When we pour ourselves out for the poor–that gets the world's notice.

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