“A tender heart and a backbone of steel”

John Piper, reflecting on the life of John Newton:

It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender, durable and delightful, courageous and compassionate -- wimping out on truth when we ought to be lionhearted, or wrangling when we ought to be weeping….Some readers need a good kick in the pants to be more courageous and others confuse courage with what William Cowper called 'a furious and abusive zeal.' Oh, how rare are the Christians who speak with a tender heart and have a theological backbone of steel.

The Roots of Endurance, p. 42