Daily Inspiration Quote by E. Stanley Jones

Jones is trying to smuggle a devotional claim into the cool language of an argument. He starts with a tidy, almost market-like logic: redemption has “power” the way an investment has yield, determined by two variables - the “richness” of the self offered and the “depths” of the giving. That framing matters. It makes the cross sound less like mystical spectacle and more like an evaluative test: if you want to measure salvation, measure the caliber of the giver and the totality of the gift.

“Richness of the self” is a loaded phrase, and Jones knows it. He’s not talking about personality or charisma; he’s pointing to ontological weight. If Jesus is merely admirable, the gift is inspirational. If Jesus is singular - divine, sinless, uniquely capacious - the gift becomes cosmic in scale. The second criterion, “depths of the giving,” shifts the focus from identity to cost: not just that Christ gave, but how far down the ladder of suffering and humiliation the giving went. Jones is subtly preempting a common modern move: reducing Christianity to ethics. He insists the engine is sacrificial totality, not merely teaching.

The clincher is the rhetorical feint: “Friend and foe alike are agreed...” It borrows the authority of opponents to authenticate the premise, as if even skeptics concede Jesus’ extraordinary character. That move is both apologetic and strategic: it narrows the debate. If everyone grants the greatness, the only remaining question is what that greatness is for - admiration, or redemption. In Jones’s era of missionary Christianity and rising religious pluralism, it’s a way to argue for Christ’s supremacy without sounding like he’s shouting.