Rob Bell Quotes - Page 6

The cross is Gods way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.

A lot of Christians have been taught a story that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis, instead of chapter 1. If your story doesn't begin in the beginning, but begins in chapter 3, then it starts with sin, and so the story becomes about dealing with the sin problem. So Jesus is seen as primarily dealing with our sins.

For many, 'desire' is a bad word, something we're supposed to 'give up for God.' That kind of thinking can be really destructive because it teaches people to deny their hearts, their true selves.

What we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like.

And a lot of times, the religious discussion is almost a masquerade for the real question, is what stories that we tell ourselves and that we tell each other and what convictions and beliefs actually have the capacity to make us the kind of people who together can make the world the kind of world we all want it to be?

When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and whether they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit. It's that green stripe you get around the sole of your shoes when you mow the lawn. Life in the age to come. Earthy.

If there's any place where you would express your deepest doubts, it would be church.

Resurrection is a belief and hope in restoring this world.

In one of the accounts of Jesus's death we read that the curtain in the temple of God-the one that kept people out of the holiest place of God's presence-ripped.One New Testament writer said that this ripping was a picture of how, because of Jesus, we can have new, direct access to God.A beautiful idea.But the curtain ripping also means that God comes out, that God is no longer confined to the temple as God was previously.

I think that at the core of faith is trust.

Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.

We can choose the way of compassion, the way of forgiveness, the way of generosity. Or we can choose other paths and those have very real consequences in the world. This is absolutely crucial.

For many people, God is primitive, behind, trying to drag everything back to some prehistoric era as opposed to spirit, force, love, drawing us into a better future, which to me is - that story has done something in me and I've seen it do things in other people.

Before anything else, you have received breath - the gift of life itself. The first word about you is GIFT.

Doctrine is a wonderful servant and a horrible master.

You want people who are both great fans and supporters and believers of your work and people who are also ruthlessly honest. People who will tell you the truth about it. Over the years I've picked up some friends and I know who to show what to and they'll give me the proper read.

Many people need a new rewiring of their heart and mind.

Do we get what we want? Yes, we get what we want. God is that loving. If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given pwer to make the world in our image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to do that.that's how love works. It cant be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.

One truth is that suffering raises profound questions with the universe. The other truth is that grace, gift and generosity also raise profound questions.

When we deny the spiritual dimension to our existence, we end up living like animals. And when we deny the physical, sexual dimension to our existence, we end up living like angels. And both ways are destructive, because God made us human.

For a lot of people in our world today, God has become about believing the right stuff so you don't get in trouble.

To elevate abstract doctrines and dogmas over living, breathing, embodied experiences of God's love and grace, then, is going the wrong direction. It's taking flesh and turning it back into words.

It is such a letdown to rise from the dead and have your friends not recognize you.

Swords appear strong, but they're actually quite weak. Jesus appears weak, but he's actually quite strong.

Every generation has to ask difficult questions about what does it mean to follow Jesus.