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The Syndrome of Size

Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984)
Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984)

No where more than in America are Christians caught up in the twentieth-century syndrome of size. Size will show success. If I am consecrated, there will necessarily be large quantities of people, dollars, etc. This is not so. Not only does God not say that size and spiritual power go together, but he even reverses this (especially in the teaching of Jesus) and tells us to be deliberately careful not to choose a place too big for us.

We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but all such emphasis is of the flesh. To think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, uncovered, egoist, self-centered me.

Francis Schaeffer, A Christian View of Spirituality (Westchester, Ill: Crossway, 1982), 9.