“The gospel is not a tranquilizer for worried weaklings to help them sleep at night.
“It is not a mass of dead dogmas, deep frozen in some ancient cathedral to be carried as a burden through life and thawed out five minutes before death.
“The gospel is not a list of religious rules and regulations to be strung around the soul like a lucky charm in case of accidents.
“No, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a message — and what a message! It is a living message from the living God for living people, just like us, for people with sins just like us, for people with sorrows and heartaches just like us.
“It is the only message on the face of the earth with concrete promises and absolute assurances of an eternal inheritance that will withstand the impact of death and the collapse of the universe.”
— J. Boyd Nicholson