Inspirational Quotes by William Barclay
“Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.”
“Prayer will never do our work for us; what it will do is to strengthen us for work which must be done.”
“But in one thing I would go beyond strict orthodoxy - I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God.”
“For Paul, the centre of the Christian faith was that we can never earn or deserve the favour of God, nor do we need to. The whole matter is one of grace, and all that we can do is to accept in wondering love and gratitude and trust what God has done for us.”
― William Barclay ,
“Loyalty to Christ may produce a cross on earth, but it brings a crown in eternity.”
“Even if we are separated from people, and even if there is no other gift which we can give to them, we can surround them with the strength and the defence of our prayers.”
― William Barclay ,
“The glory of God is not that of a despotic tyrant, but the splendour of love before which we fall not in abject terror but lost in wonder, love and praise.”
“The people who get the best out of others are those who insist on seeing them at their best.”
― William Barclay ,
“For the Christian, heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be for ever with Him.”
topics: Heaven
“Jesus' coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares.”
topics: Jesus
“There is no virtue in the Christian life which is not made radiant with joy; there is no circumstance and no occasion which is not illuminated with joy. A joyless life is not a Christian life, for joy is one constant recipe for Christian living.”
topics: Joy
“There is no joy in the world like the joy of bringing one soul to Christ.”
“Joy has nothing to do with material things, or with a man's outward circumstance ... a man living in the lap of luxury can be wretched, and a man in the depths of poverty can overflow with joy.”
topics: Joy
“A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing.”
topics: Justice
“There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”
topics: Life
“We will often find compensation if we think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away.”
topics: Life
“Love always involves responsibility, and love always involves sacrifice. And we do not really love Christ unless we are prepared to face His task and to take up His Cross.”
“When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive.”
topics: Love
“We are trying not so much to make God listen to us as to make ourselves listen to him; we are trying not to persuade God to do what we want, but to find out what he wants us to do. It so often happens that in prayer we are really saying, 'Thy will be changed,' when we ought to be saying, 'Thy will be done.' The first object of prayer is not so much to speak to God as to listen to him.”
topics: Prayer
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William Barclay was an author, radio and television presenter, Church of Scotland minister and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow.
While professor, he decided to dedicate his life to "making the best biblical scholarship available to the average reader". The eventual result was the Daily Study Bible, a set of 17 commentaries on the New Testament, published by Saint Andrew Press, the Church of Scotland's publishing house.
The 17 volumes of the set were all best-sellers and continue to be so to this day. Barclay wrote many other popular books, always drawing on scholarship but written in a highly accessible style.