The following collection of aphorisms is the third installment. The previous installment can be found here.

Preface

In the spirit of what follows, I’ll try to keep this short. I’ve compiled here a hundred aphorisms of mine in no specific order. For those who don’t know, aphorisms, most simply, are words which convey concisely. To put it another way, it is to take a big idea and place it in a small package, and the big idea fits in the small package because it has been carefully condensed. Let me illustrate this further. Say you have a package about the width of your palm and along with it you have two objects which you hope to place in it: a ball of lead which is also about palm-width and a ball of yarn which is about the size of your head. Which one of these objects will fit in the package? Well the ball of lead, of course, as it is much smaller and able to just fit. But even though the ball of lead is much smaller in appearance, it carries more weight. So it is with aphorisms—they are dense by design. As the writer Mike Bull once put it, their power is their ability “to pack gravity into a grain of sand.”1

Perhaps the best and most well-known example of a proper aphorism is in the Proverbs of Solomon. But aphorisms ultimately are not relegated to the Holy Scriptures, they crop up in all kinds of people who, in a moment of especial clarity, express it with their words. You don’t have to be a Marcus Aurelius or a William Shakespeare to drop a few truth bombs; your grandparents, no doubt, have dropped a few themselves, whether or not they (or you) knew it.

In terms of what to expect here, I’ll say this: Some may not make sense to you—and that’s sometimes the point. This is partly because aphorisms trade nuance for conciseness, and just like any trade, there’s value on both sides. Aphorisms are valuable in that they can not only provide you with a nugget of wisdom, but more so with an exercise in thought. Some are shorter while others are longer. Some are more prosaic while others are more poetic. Some are more straightforward while others are more cryptic. And some are more light-hearted in their subject matter while others are much more deep. Also, it is not my intention to preach to you in any way, but only to share with you that which I have preached to myself.

Finally, a note on how to generally approach aphorisms. Just as I would not recommend reading the Proverbs of Solomon in a single sitting, I would not recommend the same here. Matthew Henry, in his famous commentary on the whole Bible, once said that the Proverbs are like “a chest of gold rings, not a chain of gold links.”2 So reading straight through a lengthy narrative of Moses in Scripture, for instance, is an easier and more sensical thing than reading through a large number of Solomon’s proverbs all at once because, in the narrative, each thought follows the next—like a linked chain—whereas the proverbs (for the most part) are designed to stand alone—like individual gold rings. Aphorisms are designed not only to stand alone, but often to stand alone while being veiled in ambiguity. That is to say, they’re designed to give you pause and to make you think. So I recommend that you choose, either in order or at random, a single aphorism to carefully consider for a moment before moving on to the next.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the words of another fool like me.

Aphorisms

The numbering is purely for navigational means and does not reflect a specific order or any kind of ranking.

1

A forgiven man ought to be a forgiving man.

2

Children are not to be thought of as costly expenditures but as priceless blessings.

3

A king of the world has nothing on a slave of Christ.

4

To be a Christian is to perform for an audience of one.

5

Only when you understand the holiness of God will you then understand the sinfulness of man.

6

A witness in a court gets up on the stand and swears by God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; but God is the judge of every court who swears by Himself because He is the truth.

7

We are ready to be exalted when we are content in being nothing.

8

Loving your enemies is a lovely idea until you have enemies to love.

9

The humble have nowhere to go but up. The prideful, while they can yet climb, only increase the height of their eventual fall.

10

Our default hermeneutic should be that of a child’s before that of a scholar’s.

11

A proverb a day keeps the folly away.

12

A respectable writer becomes a disreputable performer when the thesaurus becomes a tool not to find the most precise word but the most impressive word.

13

Weakness is never welcome, but weakness makes us humble, and humility is our greatest strength.

14

Christian unity is not about being indifferent to the importance of sound doctrine but, quite the contrary, is about being attentive to the important doctrine of Christian unity.

15

To live off praise is to die from criticism.

16

People will judge you for trying to do the right thing in what they perceive as the wrong way of doing it but will never judge themselves for not trying at all. Imperfect action will always beat perfect inaction.

17

No matter who you are, with the Bible in your hand, humility on your heart, and prayer on your lips, you can be wiser than the wisest of worldly men.

18

You won’t find fulfillment in entertainment, but you can find distraction from your lack of fulfillment, and sadly for most people, that’s good enough.

19

It’s okay to vote like a partisan so long as you don’t begin to think like a partisan.

20

God is relational within Himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and thus it is no wonder that we, being made in His image, crave relationship.

21

Word and prayer, word and prayer, word and prayer—let this be the rhythm of your life; be in constant conversation with your God.

22

The Bible is not as much a book to read as much as it is a foundation to stand upon.

23

The wisest men, contrary to what one might think, are perhaps the ones who simply realize how sinful and stupid they really are.

24

Terminal “onlineness” is the illness of the age.

25

Judaism is perhaps the most heartbreaking of all the religions as it will be forever waiting for a messiah who has already come; it is a religion which can be summed up in just five words: so close, yet so far.

26

The Bible becomes more clear and life more simple when we, as Tozer says, “read our Bibles with the thought that God means exactly what He says.” The Bible has great depth, but such depth has no hope of making sense until we first accept its surface-level truths.

27

People not only tend to underestimate how much evil is in the world but, so too, how much evil is in themselves. The former is a dire lack of awareness and the latter a dire lack of humility.

28

It shouldn’t surprise us that Adam lived over 900 years when he was created with a body which was made to live forever.

29

To say you get to heaven by being a good person is technically correct, but the rub exists in how you become a good person and that it has nothing to do with you.

30

People need to realize: The government offering you free stuff is not an example of their benevolence with their own resources but is almost always an example of their irresponsibility with yours.

31

The best children’s stories are always beloved by adults alike.

32

Many are willing to profess that Jesus is Lord of the land but far fewer are willing to profess that Jesus is Lord of their life, for such a reign is much closer to home, much closer to the sins they cherish.

33

Some people try to detach our bodies from our minds and our minds from our souls. But we are not one-dimensional beings; we do not exist on a single plane. For our bodies are to be raised, our minds are to be renewed, and our souls are to be redeemed.

34

I post like I invest: Set it and forget it.

35

Pride is both the beginning and the end of all sin. Pride is responsible for sin’s small beginnings where it is hardly detectable and for sin’s puffed-up ends where it has warped a man beyond recognition. Think of the sin of greed, for instance. Greed starts by saying, “I deserve more,” and then greed, once it’s had its fill, says: “I am more.” Pride is and always has been the cardinal sin. Pride is found from the garden of Eden all the way to the gates of hell.

36

Being angry at God will never be a winning strategy. It’s a self-righteous war you can never win. Swallow your pride, take the loss, and watch and wait for healing to come to your soul.

37

When it comes to the Bible, an ounce of obedience far outweighs a mountain of study.

38

Blind trust in the “authorities” is of course foolish, but blind distrust is just as foolish.

39

Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not true. In fact, you can’t disprove something until you understand it enough to dismantle it.

40

In the long run, a good product can overcome bad marketing, but even the best of marketing cannot overcome a bad product.

41

The first step in preventing yourself from committing a grave sin is to stop believing that you could never commit such a thing.

42

“@grok is this true?” is becoming the new discernment of the masses. Concern for truth is good, but continually confiding in that which does not (and cannot) know Truth is the reason one needs the ability to discern on their own in the first place.

43

Bitcoin’s finitude makes it valuable and its divisibility practical—paradoxically fixed on the one end and near infinite on the other, there’s a balance to it. Whereas gold has the finitude but not the divisibility, and the dollar has the divisibility but not the finitude.

44

We’re not to take Scripture literally but literarily (which will then of course at times necessitate taking it literally).

45

Sin is deadly serious because it is seriously deadly, for the wages of sin is death.

46

If Solomon was on X, posting his God-breathed proverbs, the relentless nitpickers would have a field day with him.

47

Adam was made to live, while Jesus was born to die—the image of God was made to live, while God Himself was born to die, born to die so that His image may again live and this time forevermore.

48

Great fiction is not non-fiction, but it’s true enough.

49

To write aphorisms is to be okay with being misunderstood because there is a greater purpose at play.

50

Better an hour less of quality sleep than an hour more of poor sleep.

51

Marriage is about two becoming one only to have one become many, for to unify is to multiply.

52

Life is too short to finish every book you start. But it’s also too short to finish too few, always jumping from one to the next. You’ll never get to them all, so you might as well finish some while you can. Don’t be the person who’s always starting and never finishing. Rather, live your life with a bias towards completion, in reading and in everything. You may miss out on a few things along the way as a result, but to do otherwise would be to miss out on one of the most rewarding words there is: “done.”

53

The “love is love” crowd often loves to hiss hate.

54

Moral superiority is a hell of a drug, and virtue signaling is the prime symptom.

55

“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much,” God says to us. “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish this,” we say back to God, “for I am that righteous man in Christ.”

56

There’s paradox present in the very being of God: The Father is God, but the Father is not the Son, and the Son is God, but the Son is not the Father, and so on and so forth. And if there’s paradox in the being of God, we should fully expect to find the same thing in the creation of God, as well as in His ways and doings. This is why you should not allow those cosmic tensions to trouble you. Just as you will never get to the bottom of the trinity, you will never get to the bottom, for instance, of the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom. Ponder it, yes. Meditate on it, surely. But find rest in allowing it to be the eternal mystery that it is. This is part of what it means to have faith.

57

Theology is and always has been and always will be the base science, because you cannot go any lower, nor any higher for that matter, than God; He is not only boundless but out of bounds; He is not like a molecule that can be measured within space and time but the one who measured out space and time as He pleased.

58

“Money isn’t everything” is not a mere cliche and is not a cope. It’s perhaps a cope for the lazy, the foolish, the derelict, but mostly it’s just true. Money is not everything in life, and the love of it is actually a root of all sorts of evils and a thing to be rightly wary of.

59

*…

*This collection is currently in-progress as it has not hit that hundred mark as of yet. More aphorisms will be added as I write them until it is complete. The early publishing of this can be thought of as a “soft opening” of sorts, similar to that of a store’s soft opening only to have the grand opening at a later date; not everything here is quite in order yet, but it seems to me better to open the doors early than to leave the people waiting (not that anyone’s actually waiting)—and, to be honest, I’d rather not wait myself to share my thoughts! The reason I feel more than comfortable in the early publishing of this is because while although the collection is incomplete as a whole, each individual aphorism here is already complete on its own. Also, while aphorisms may be relatively short in length and quick to write, I don’t really sit down to work on them in the same way as I do with my other writing, so compiling a hundred of them can take some time which is another reason why I’d rather just “open the doors” now rather than later. Because, ultimately, while I do write for the sake of writing, I write also for the sake of being read. And the fact is, they can’t be read hidden away nor can they do any good buried in the dirt. Putting them out there, hopefully, is putting them to work.

The following collection of aphorisms is the second installment. The previous installment can be found here; the next installment can be found here.

Preface

In the spirit of what follows, I’ll try to keep this short. I’ve compiled here a hundred aphorisms of mine in no specific order. For those who don’t know, aphorisms, most simply, are words which convey concisely. To put it another way, it is to take a big idea and place it in a small package, and the big idea fits in the small package because it has been carefully condensed. Let me illustrate this further. Say you have a package about the width of your palm and along with it you have two objects which you hope to place in it: a ball of lead which is also about palm-width and a ball of yarn which is about the size of your head. Which one of these objects will fit in the package? Well the ball of lead, of course, as it is much smaller and able to just fit. But even though the ball of lead is much smaller in appearance, it carries more weight. So it is with aphorisms—they are dense by design. As the writer Mike Bull once put it, their power is their ability “to pack gravity into a grain of sand.”1

Perhaps the best and most well-known example of a proper aphorism is in the Proverbs of Solomon. But aphorisms ultimately are not relegated to the Holy Scriptures, they crop up in all kinds of people who, in a moment of especial clarity, express it with their words. You don’t have to be a Marcus Aurelius or a William Shakespeare to drop a few truth bombs; your grandparents, no doubt, have dropped a few themselves, whether or not they (or you) knew it.

In terms of what to expect here, I’ll say this: Some may not make sense to you—and that’s sometimes the point. This is partly because aphorisms trade nuance for conciseness, and just like any trade, there’s value on both sides. Aphorisms are valuable in that they can not only provide you with a nugget of wisdom, but more so with an exercise in thought. Some are shorter while others are longer. Some are more prosaic while others are more poetic. Some are more straightforward while others are more cryptic. And some are more light-hearted in their subject matter while others are much more deep. Also, it is not my intention to preach to you in any way, but only to share with you that which I have preached to myself.

Finally, a note on how to generally approach aphorisms. Just as I would not recommend reading the Proverbs of Solomon in a single sitting, I would not recommend the same here. Matthew Henry, in his famous commentary on the whole Bible, once said that the Proverbs are like “a chest of gold rings, not a chain of gold links.”2 So reading straight through a lengthy narrative of Moses in Scripture, for instance, is an easier and more sensical thing than reading through a large number of Solomon’s proverbs all at once because, in the narrative, each thought follows the next—like a linked chain—whereas the proverbs (for the most part) are designed to stand alone—like individual gold rings. Aphorisms are designed not only to stand alone, but often to stand alone while being veiled in ambiguity. That is to say, they’re designed to give you pause and to make you think. So I recommend that you choose, either in order or at random, a single aphorism to carefully consider for a moment before moving on to the next.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the words of another fool like me.

Aphorisms

The numbering is purely for navigational means and does not reflect a specific order or any kind of ranking.

1

There’s this yearning to believe in something bigger than ourselves, or to believe in ourselves by making ourselves out to be bigger than we are.

2

When God becomes your greatest fear, He becomes your greatest sanctuary, for there’s nothing left to fear but the One who perfects your fear in His perfect love.

3

It is only a convicted heart which can convict hearts, for our hearts are often more potent in speaking and perceptive in listening than even our minds.

4

Humility is like a garden that must be continually tended but never admired.

5

Scripture ought to find its place first in your heart, then in your actions, and then on your lips. Hypocrisy is when you skip straight to the last, when Scripture knows no place but your lips.

6

Those who are most faithful to God are most foolish to the world.

7

Suffering either purges sin or intensifies it. The choice is yours. But just know that to double down on your sin is to double down on your suffering.

8

Insecurities begin to melt away in the presence of true love.

9

Live not in the shadow of death but in the light of eternity.

10

Anyone who unironically states their pronouns either has no regard for truth or just no concept of truth.

11

Be looking to achieve great things without looking to achieve greatness.

12

Comparison is the thief of joy when comparing to those who have more but can be the source of joy when comparing to those who have less.

13

Calisthenics tests proportional strength rather than outright strength, for if you aren’t even strong against yourself, are you truly strong?

14

God Almighty becomes Mother Nature. Divine creation becomes Darwinian evolution. Pro-murder becomes pro-choice. Men become women and women become men. They suppress the truth—professing to be wise, they become fools.

15

Faith in God is like a child willingly falling into their father’s arms. Though the child cannot prove that the father will catch them, the father has given the child every reason to believe that he will.

16

Virtue signalers: prideful people who, for the sake of their own ego, wish to proclaim their supposed moral superiority to the world while having a complete and total lack of self-awareness.

17

Sin erodes a man while righteousness builds a man.

18

Voluntary suffering is nothing compared to involuntary suffering. Failure to participate in the former will likely subject you to the latter.

19

Distractions merely put anxiety on hold, allow it to compound, and delay its onset. Action, not distraction, alleviates anxiety.

20

I’m not a Christian because I’m after meaning or purpose or community or structure or conformity or guidelines or serenity or anything else of the sort—such things can be found elsewhere. I’m a Christian because I’m after truth, and I’ve found no truer truth to bet my life on.

21

Live as if God is real and His words are true and you will discover what it means to truly live.

22

The totality of what you know is much closer to nothing than it is to something.

23

One of the great things about the internet is that it enables community, and one of the terrible things about the internet is that it destroys community.

24

Better yourself not for the sake of being better but to be better for the sake of others.

25

While all sins are equally sinful, not all sins are equally consequential.

26

Love your neighbor as yourself, and love God above all else.

27

There are many issues, when dealing with, which I am happy to preface with the words: “I might be wrong.” But when it comes to the exceedingly clear-cut issue of sex and gender, my only response to the liars and the deceived is: “You are wrong. I am right. And I will not apologize for the most basic of truths.”

28

Love does not comfort lies but confronts lies.

29

Ceaselessly grind the blade of your sword and you go from wielding a sharp and formidable weapon to a dull and worthless stub. Grind with care.

30

A book ought to serve as a guide that allows for unlimited detours.

31

The only case study you need on human nature is yourself—humility is when you open that book and take an honest look.

32

Life as a whole can be overwhelming, but today is always manageable.

33

You may say silence is violence, well I say conformity is cowardice.

34

You are a niche of your own—monopolize yourself by being yourself.

35

Be a pragmatist without being a pessimist.

36

Not the origin of species, the origin of existence—this is where your thoughts ought to be, for the former is meaningless without an answer to the latter.

37

Gay marriage, accurately termed, is gay mirage.

38

There’s nothing more powerful than prayer because there’s no one more powerful than God.

39

An underrated skill is throwing perfectly good junk food in the trash because it’s either going in the trash or the trash is going in you.

40

Christians are not as much called to master ourselves as much as we are called to be mastered; for the latter is, after all, the means to achieving the former.

41

The best quotes need only be accompanied by quotation marks.

42

Work with sweat to make your leisure sweet.

43

Dating apps give hope only to crush hope.3

44

There’s a digital substitute for seemingly everything these days: sex, communication, ownership, community, and the list goes on and on. But the physical will always be more fulfilling.

45

The Christian with less money is no less secure than those with more and, perhaps, even more secure as they, unlike the other, are forced to cling to that which cannot be lost. You are not ready for worldly riches until you have taken hold of the greater riches of faith in the faithful One. To possess worldly riches before such faith is the treasure of your heart, will prove to be an affliction rather than a blessing.

46

Let your only fear be the fear of Yahweh.

47

Slow down the body to slow down the mind.

48

In my writing I seek to quote men, sparingly, and the Bible, always.

49

When catastrophe strikes, we often just want to get back to normal when perhaps its purpose is to help us to get forward to better.

50

The most beautiful Bible is the one where man’s fingerprints can be seen the least.

51

Mixed martial arts is a sport because it can be, not because it has to be. Football does not exist beyond the field; basketball does not exist beyond the court; hockey does not exist beyond the rink; golf does not exist beyond the course—but fighting knows no such bounds.

52

The writer seeks only to be writing while the author wrote merely to have written.

53

The gospel is, I think, by design so simple that a child can grasp it yet so deep and vast that it can keep theologians talking for millennia.

54

The true measure of a man is what he would have if he had everything taken from him and was left only with himself.

55

Our gods change while idolatry remains.

56

Abortion is a sacrifice to the god of self on the altar of conceit.

57

I think one reason Protestantism is more valid than Catholicism is for the simple fact that it comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Just like the early Christians, no one told them to thrive, they just did, because they had truth on their side.

58

Any person can make their friends laugh, but a funny person can make even strangers laugh.

59

Praying the Scriptures is lacing your lowly prayers with heavenly truths.

60

Quit reading books about the Book and just read the Book.

61

Any workout is better than no workout—get moving.

62

The starving artist need only seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and the artist will be starving no more.

63

To say you can plagiarize the Bible is like saying you can plagiarize the words listed in a dictionary. The Bible, like a dictionary, is not a mere source you can pull from but an essential foundation you must stand upon. Just as you cannot speak without the words of a dictionary, you cannot exercise an ounce of reason without the truth of revelation under your feet. It is truth to be properly quoted, certainly; but more so it is truth to be infused in a way where Scripture simply becomes your vocabulary, where you know no other words to speak and no other thoughts to think.

64

Great writing is downstream of great reading.

65

While all are not children of God, all are creations of God, and every creation can become a new creation and thus can become children of God.

66

Thy will be done, not my own; let me embrace, by Your grace, whatever Thy will may be.

67

The most valuable people are simultaneously both the interviewer and the interviewee no matter which side of the desk they happen to be sitting on.

68

Very rarely will one’s life change drastically for the better in a single day—do not place your bets here. But very often will one’s life change drastically for the better by simply embracing life one day at a time—place your bets here. Therefore, do not bet your life on a single day, but also, bet your life on a single day.

69

There is but one rule in grammar: Don’t confuse your reader. Anything beyond this is pedantry.

70

Aphorisms trade nuance for conciseness, and just like any trade, there’s value on both sides.

71

It is the height of arrogance to think that you can be a great writer without being an even greater reader.

72

The placement of a single asterisk is what separates false advertising from sleazy advertising.

73

You can do all the right things and still have it all go wrong, but at least you can have the peace of mind knowing that you did all you could.

74

Brokenness is just one of many such uncomfortable yet effective treatments for this mortal disease called pride.

75

If living in the Information Age has taught me anything, it’s that ignorance really is bliss after all.

76

Godly obedience is to obey without delay.

77

Doing nothing is one of the most productive things one can do.

78

The irony—beauty, even—of the cross is that what was a great instrument of death was, simultaneously, the greatest means to life. And therein lies the majesty of our God who glories in paradox, in whom darkness is light, weakness is strength, and death—yes, even death—is life.

79

Think of your failures as lessons in humility and your successes as tests for pride.

80

I’m not looking to work a job; I’m looking to live my life and make a living while doing it.

81

One of the jobs of a writer is to put into words what you’ve been thinking all along but could never quite articulate yourself.

82

You were faithful then; You are faithful now; You will be faithful always.

83

Any man who claims to fully understand the trinity has most certainly lost his mind and found his pride.

84

To take every thought captive is to interrogate every thought with truth.

85

Do not ever treat the grand promises of God as “wishful thinking” when nothing has ever been more sure.

86

The timeless truths of God will never grow stale—no matter how many times they are read or said, no matter how many times they are sung on one’s tongue—they will never lose their power.

87

I’m a Christian nationalist just as I’m a Christian townsman and a Christian husband and a Christian friend and a Christian worker because to be a Christian is to have all of Christ for all of life, and to be secular in anything is to risk losing Christ in everything.

88

Cutting social media out of your life gives you one less thing to do and a million less things to think about.

89

A book should be as long as it needs to be and as short as it can be.

90

If Satan’s offer to give Jesus the world teaches us anything, it’s that the absolute most Satan can ever offer us is dust.

91

When you’re creating something that will last, you can afford to take your time.

92

I believe in local churches like I believe in local businesses because just as you lose the heart of a town without local businesses, without local churches you lose the heart of the church.

93

If the trinity has taught me anything, it’s that two things can be true at once.

94

Let us all be like Jesus in that we always cut straight to the heart of every issue, every person.

95

Cheap today is often expensive tomorrow.

96

Writing is just a means to a greater end called conversation.

97

A writer is an entrepreneur whose product just happens to be a book.

98

You can be sure that the Bible does not provide a man with the hubris of knowing everything but only with everything a man needs to know. The Bible does not tell us all there is to know, for such a task would give us a scroll which is entirely inaccessible for the very fact that it would just keep scrolling; but it does, like I said, tell us all we need to know. It gives us the black and white while providing us with the necessary principles to navigate the endless sea of gray. It doesn’t tell us everything, but it provides us with the foundation for everything.

99

Reading without critical thinking is simply programming.

100

Truth is the foundation for wisdom. For how can you expect to be wise when you are stooped in lies?

If you enjoy nuggets of wisdom like these, then you might enjoy my other Twitter account, @parrotedwords, where I seek to share quotes that will stir your mind and feed your soul. Feel free to check it out below and follow along if you like.

Parroted Words

The following collection of aphorisms is the first installment. The next installment can be found here.

Preface

In the spirit of what follows, I’ll try to keep this short. I’ve compiled here a hundred aphorisms of mine in no specific order. For those who don’t know, aphorisms, most simply, are words which convey concisely. To put it another way, it is to take a big idea and place it in a small package, and the big idea fits in the small package because it has been carefully condensed. Let me illustrate this further. Say you have a package about the width of your palm and along with it you have two objects which you hope to place in it: a ball of lead which is also about palm-width and a ball of yarn which is about the size of your head. Which one of these objects will fit in the package? Well the ball of lead, of course, as it is much smaller and able to just fit. But even though the ball of lead is much smaller in appearance, it carries more weight. So it is with aphorisms—they are dense by design. As the writer Mike Bull once put it, their power is their ability “to pack gravity into a grain of sand.”1

Perhaps the best and most well-known example of a proper aphorism is in the Proverbs of Solomon. But aphorisms ultimately are not relegated to the Holy Scriptures, they crop up spontaneously in all kinds of people who, in a moment of especial clarity, express it with their words. You don’t have to be a Marcus Aurelius or a William Shakespeare to drop a few truth bombs; your grandparents, no doubt, have dropped a few themselves, whether or not they (or you) knew it.

In terms of what to expect here, I’ll say this: Some may not make sense to you—and that’s sometimes the point. This is partly because aphorisms trade nuance for conciseness, and just like any trade, there’s value on both sides. Aphorisms are valuable in that they can not only provide you with a nugget of wisdom, but more so with an exercise in thought. Some are shorter while others are longer. Some are more prosaic while others are more poetic. Some are more straightforward while others are more cryptic. And some are more light-hearted in their subject matter while others are much more deep. Also, it is not my intention to preach to you in any way, but only to share with you that which I have preached to myself.

Finally, a note on how to generally approach aphorisms. Just as I would not recommend reading the Proverbs of Solomon in a single sitting, I would not recommend the same here. Matthew Henry, in his famous commentary on the whole Bible, once said that the Proverbs are like “a chest of gold rings, not a chain of gold links.”2 So reading straight through a lengthy narrative of Moses in Scripture, for instance, is an easier and more sensical thing than reading through a large number of Solomon’s proverbs all at once because, in the narrative, each thought follows the next—like a linked chain—whereas the proverbs (for the most part) are designed to stand alone—like individual gold rings. Aphorisms are designed not only to stand alone, but often to stand alone while being veiled in ambiguity. That is to say, they’re designed to give you pause and to make you think. So I recommend that you choose, either in order or at random, a single aphorism to carefully consider for a moment before moving on to the next.

I hope you enjoy, and I hope there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the words of another fool like me.

Aphorisms

The numbering is purely for navigational means and does not reflect a specific order or any kind of ranking.

1

A Christian’s worldly ambition is tethered by the realization that one need not build Babel when Zion awaits.

2

Reading allows you to tune out the world without tuning out yourself.

3

Instead of thinking about what you would tell your past self, think about what you could tell your future self. The former is just a wish; the latter can be achieved by picking up a pen.

4

Laws that can be changed by the next man in line for the reins of power have little bearing on my moral compass.

5

To understand the story of the gospel, you must first understand the story of the Bible. Once you understand the story of the Bible, you’ll realize that it was the story of the gospel all along.

6

Cultivate boredom in a world where entertainment grows on trees.

7

Great fiction bleeds truth.

8

Censorship is meant to either “protect” you or deceive you. They “protect” you when they fear for you; they deceive you when they fear of you. The former think they are doing it out of benevolence; the latter know they must do it out of necessity.

9

I’ve heard it said that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. It’s a nice thought, but I think the opposite is actually more true. I think humility is literally thinking less of yourself—only then can you even begin to think of others.

10

Ultimately, any decision is better than indecision, and indecision thrives where leadership dies.

11

It’s not hypocrisy when you denounce something that you have done yourself; it’s only hypocrisy when you denounce something that you yourself continue to do.

12

Facts in and of themselves are never biased. But when you start to pick and choose which facts to include and which to omit, that is when bias starts to creep in under the guise of “truth.”

13

Abortion is the death penalty imposed on innocent souls who are charged with the crime of inconvenience.

14

God gave the Israelites “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.” Any good father does not always feed his children what they want but in his wisdom and love, feeds them what they need.

15

When I think of Kepler and Galileo, for instance, it’s a wonder how they managed to discover the things they did about the heavens above while being so far removed from them, but I suppose a telescope is not that much different than a microscope in that sense.

16

Do not confuse a slick tongue with a sound argument.

17

Humility is hard to cultivate because it is so contrary to our very nature. There’s a reason we’re told to love our neighbor as ourselves—it speaks to what we know—for loving ourselves comes more naturally than anything. Humility in practice is the redirection of that familiar self-love.

18

Sometimes you need to look up at the stars to realize how small you are, and sometimes you need to look up at the stars to realize how significant you are too.

19

To sacrifice oneself for the sake of another is noble; to sacrifice another for the sake of oneself is pure evil. The former has no greater love than this; the latter is abortion.

20

No theological education (or any education for that matter)—whether through elite schooling, renowned teachers, or best-selling books—will surpass the simple act of approaching God’s word each and every day with humility and prayer.

21

If you never contradict yourself, you’re either thinking too hard or not thinking hard enough.

22

Lies tend to chase the liar. And sooner or later, they tend to catch up.

23

Evolution robs man of his sense and God of His glory.

24

You can bet your life on His word because the Word gave His life for your soul.

25

The media loves to make something out of nothing and nothing out of something.

26

Great architecture strikes a balance between strength and beauty. Its strength keeps it standing while its beauty makes it worthy to stand.

27

The sad irony of Pride Month is not only pride in sin but also the celebration of the sin of pride.

28

Evolutionists often romanticize their theory as a beautiful process from which we all came, though I don’t know what’s beautiful about a process where death is both the means and the end.

29

Social media’s point of diminishing returns is when mindful scrolling becomes mindless scrolling.

30

There’s such a thing as a healthy distrust of authority but no such thing as a healthy disrespect.

31

Tolkien’s genius is his ability to conceal a treasure trove of wit and wisdom in a simply good story.

32

To flirt with sin is to dig your own grave.

33

Control what you can, embrace what you can't.

34

The concept of karma is just the unbeliever’s conscience seeking to satisfy its intrinsic, inescapable yearning for ultimate justice.

35

The great fallacy is that evolutionism is naturalism. There’s nothing natural about order arising from disorder, life arising from nonlife—this is the definition of supernatural. The only difference between evolutionism and any other religion is its god is simply left undefined.

36

Social media echo chambers are a problem, but the real problem is the echo chamber of social media itself.

37

True power is not defined by what someone is able to do to you. True power is defined by what someone is able to make you do to yourself.

38

An orphaned child can satisfy the pain of a barren woman, and a barren woman can satisfy the pain of an orphaned child. A pair of seemingly unfortunate circumstances can make for a most fortunate match.

39

Porn drains the body, poisons the mind, and damages the soul.

40

If you never play devil’s advocate against your ideas, you’ll be a terrible advocate for your ideas.

41

As a general rule, give people a little more leeway in their spoken words and a little less leeway in their written words.

42

Don’t be a philosopher with too soft a body or a warrior with too hard a mind.

43

The religions of men put the focus on men, whereas the religion of God puts the focus on God.

44

Enjoy the process, because getting what you want typically lasts a lot longer than having what you want.

45

As we step into eternity, we can say with confidence to our fellow believers: I'll see you soon, and then I'll see you forever.

46

If God did not even come down from His crucifix of pain to appease us then, should we any more expect Him now to descend from His heavenly throne to allay our doubts?

47

Take life seriously without taking yourself too seriously.

48

There is perhaps no drug more potent than porn: Always on hand, free of charge, endless supply, continually enhanced, limitless variety, hidden side-effects, socially accepted, culturally encouraged. This is a recipe for addiction and, more so, destruction. Beware.

49

Everyone has problems. You may have a unique set of problems, but having problems is not unique to you. For every problem you have, someone else has an equal or opposite problem which they are dealing with as well. While you struggle with eating too much, someone else struggles with eating too little. While you struggle with pain, someone else struggles with pleasure. While you struggle with your relationship, someone else struggles with their lack of relationship.

50

Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but it’s the stimulant of the faithful few.

51

True healthcare is preventative. Conventional healthcare is damage control.

52

The Bible is the book of books, in both senses of the phrase.

53

When you don’t know what to pray, simply pray as Jesus taught you.

54

If you allow temptation to linger, it’s not a matter of if but when.

55

Many so-called “skeptics” are just dogmatists in disguise.

56

The Bible is a book which can speak to peasants and kings alike because the Author knows what it’s like to be both.

57

Do more listening than speaking. Do more asking than telling.

58

Do you have ideas or do ideas have you?

59

Great shows become better as you go on because you become more emotionally invested while bad shows become worse as you go on because you become more time-invested.

60

There are lessons to be learned in fiction just as much as there are in non-fiction. After all, fiction is the product of real people who draw from real experience. There’s bound to be something of value there, whether on the surface or hidden beneath the tale.

61

There is no weapon more powerful and more harmless than words. This is why free speech is so important. It is the perfect weapon—powerful enough to resolve conflict, yet harmless enough to do so with peace, not violence. To restrict speech is to welcome violence, for violence is the final recourse at freedom’s end.

62

Long-term thinking tends to be overrated while short-term thinking tends to be underrated. Long-term results require short-term actions.

63

Entrepreneurship: zero barrier to entry, considerable barrier to success.

64

Cancel culture is a culture of hypocrisy.

65

How do you save finite men from eternal damnation? You sacrifice an eternal God in the form of finite men.

66

Your body is a temple, which means it is the means of worship, not the object of it.

67

All good things must come to an end, but the greatest good has yet to come, and when it does, it will never end.

68

The coward says nothing—the even greater coward says exactly what they want to hear.

69

I don’t know what my future holds, but I know Who holds it.

70

Your diet is won or lost at the store, not in the pantry.

71

The theist who rejects Christ is just as foolish as the atheist who rejects God.

72

Tomorrow is the thief of today.

73

Social media is like gossip: It’s not completely useless information, but it’s mostly useless information.

74

Pay close attention to that which you despise in others, and be sure not to repeat it in yourself. Pay close attention to that which you admire in others, and be sure to repeat it in yourself.

75

The standard to be a Christian is fairly low. But the standard to be a Christian is very, very high.

76

Brush off praise just as you would insult.

77

Reading an old book is like mining for gold. It’s hard, tedious work as you sift through its archaic words, but what rises to the surface tends to be worth it—anything that has stood the test of time usually is.

78

Our culture’s increasing insistence on stating one’s pronouns is not an early symptom of the gradual erosion of truth—for truth itself cannot be bent or broken—but rather an early symptom of the gradual erosion of the tolerance of truth. The closest you can come to destroying truth is by destroying the minds of those who regard it.

79

Do not hide your piety in shame, and do not exhibit your piety in pride. Only hide it so as not to exhibit it, and only exhibit it so as not to hide it.

80

Just because you were born into certain beliefs doesn’t mean they’re right, but it also doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong, either.

81

In low-stake matters, give the benefit of the doubt. In high-stake matters, trust, but verify.

82

I love all people. I hate all sin. Do not equate my hate for sin with hating the sinner.

83

Don’t let your own failings become a story of victimization. Call yourself a victim if you like, just admit that you’re the oppressor.

84

Time is the atheist’s best friend and worst enemy. With time they manage to explain away the existence of God and even explain the existence of everything. And yet time is the very thing which inches them closer to the end of everything as they know it.

85

War may bestow glory, but war itself is never glorious.

86

Ruthlessly minimize notifications. Be extremely selective with what you are willing to allow to divert your attention at any given moment.

87

That which is timeless will always be timely.

88

The only man without error in his theology is the man with no theology.

89

To overcome an addiction is not to abstain from it but to live life in the absence of it.

90

Empathize before you criticize.

91

If the choice is between one human being or another, it’s always a choice between the lesser of two evils.

92

Do not treat politics like sports. The stakes are too high to have winners and losers.

93

Animals miss out on the placebo effect but make up for it with the ignorance effect.

94

Imperfections serve as proofs of love.

95

Forgiveness doesn’t negate the seriousness of sin; forgiveness reinforces the seriousness of sin.

96

Eat like crap, feel like crap, live like crap.

97

Never sell your soul for a few extra bucks. You’ll always lose more than you gain, and it’s hard to recover such losses.

98

The greatest villains are insufferable without being cringeworthy—you can’t stand them, but you can’t get enough of them.

99

Instead of saying: We need more people like him or her. Say: I am going to be like him or her.

100

No large act of courage exists without a long history of small acts of courage.

If you enjoy nuggets of wisdom like these, then you might enjoy my other Twitter account, @parrotedwords, where I seek to share quotes that will stir your mind and feed your soul. Feel free to check it out below and follow along if you like.

Parroted Words