Scot McKnight Quotes

Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. Its that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.

What the church most needs is not heroes of faith, but faithful followers of Jesus.

We don't ask what the Bible says, we ask what God says to us in that Bible. The difference is a difference between paper and person.

Jesus wanted far more than to be accepted into one's life. He wanted to take over, and his essential call was to trust him enough to surrender one's entire being to him.

Prayer is the way to die to our own wishes and surrender everything to God.

God was on the move; God is on the move; and God will always be on the move. Those who walk with God and listen to God are also on the move. Reading the Bible so we can live it out today means being on the move—always. Anyone who stops and wants to turn a particular moment into a monument, as the disciples did when Jesus was transfigured before them, will soon be wondering where God has gone.

God's idea of redemption is community-shaped.

We need to shed our unearthly and nonsocial and idealistic and romantic and uber-spiritual visions of kingdom and get back to what Jesus meant. By kingdom, Jesus means: God's Dream Society on earth, spreading out from the land of Israel to encompass the whole world.

The assumption that the gospel can be reduced to a note card is already off on the wrong track.

Love one another strenuously because it's hard.

God is love so all God does is loving.

On politics I strive as much as possible to let my passions be for God and for the Church and for others (the Jesus Creed). I place no confidence in redemption by way of politics. The political hope ebbs and flows every 8 years now; I don't get all riled up if a Republican or a Democrat wins; I don't think it matters that much to what we are called to do on a daily basis.

Our biggest problem is that we have an entire culture shaped by a misunderstanding of the gospel. That so-called gospel is deconstructing the church

One reason why so many Christians today don't know the Old Testament is because their 'gospel' doesn't even need it.

The ultimate end of redemption is that we worship God with our whole being and in the whole company of the redeemed.

Many think Jesus came to earth so you and I can have a special kind of spiritual experience and then go merrily along, as long as we pray and read our Bibles and develop intimacy with the unseen God but ignore the others-oriented life of justice and love and peace that Jesus embodied.

The idea that relationships are not a strategy is potent; and the sad commentary proceeds to say that often relationships are seen as a strategy, a means to accomplish great things - except love and relationship are not what is really wanted. We want to appear relational so people will like what we have to offer. It's the difference between wanting a good marriage and loving the person you married.

I've never spoken with an angel, though one time I felt the awesome weight and glory of God's presence in an angel in my bedroom as I kneeled in prayer. I kept my eyes closed, good Baptist that I was at the time, so I never knew if it was an angel. (I now am reasonably confident it was.)

To walk into the Jefferson memorial is to be in a temple of the pure idolatry of reason

Angels, inasmuch as they come from the Throne Room of the Thrice-holy God, usher us into the presence of God once removed and such encounters with God are more powerful and overwhelming than ordinary moments with God.

God's love entails a covenant commitment on the part of with us, and that covenant commitment means a promise to be with us and for us, and God's covenant is shaped toward our redemption.

The angels of the Bible terrify the humans to whom they visit; they startle and scare and even stun the humans. Why? Because in the Bible angels are colossal figures, fiery in light and, more often than not, overwhelming in their power. Angels, then, in the Bible are supernatural beings that humble us in their presence.

... the Eucharist profoundly enables the grace of God to be received with all its glories and blessings.

God loves us and seeks our redemption, at times through angels.

Angels will frequently - even when they're comforting us with good news - touch the awe of God's eternal presence and drive us to our knees before our God of glory.