“God’s words are purposeful, nourishing, and invaluable. They are worth trusting, for God’s words come from God’s heart. We cling to them because God is the only trustworthy, unchanging rock upon which we can stand. And so we keep coming to God’s word, and we keep clinging to the promises we find there (p. 101).”
Quote by Kristen Wetherell
“It's always a bad move to invent a Jesus who agrees with us rather than challenge us”
Source: The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
“Samuel Gregg: Certainly, Smith notes, Einstein was right to claim that the theories designed by humans are important tools for comprehending reality. Yet before there is theory, Smith adds, there is thought and reason, a logical sequence that, he says, finds it parallel in the opening verse of the gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1 KJV).”
Source: The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reflections on Faith, Science, and Economics
“This is why when people debate faith vs science they've already missed the point. Faith is about embracing truth wherever it's found, and that of course includes science”
Source: What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
“Any book that tells you how how to treat slaves and also tell the slaves how to behave well, is disqualified as source of morality”
“I measure my leadership not by the answers I give, but by the questions I refuse to stop asking.”
“The Bible was written by people with perspectives grounded in their cultures and times and places. They're having experiences and undergoing events and then processing and interpreting those events and experiences. That's what the Bible is. It wasn't written by a third party somewhere in the sky who passively and objectively tells you what the plan is. It was written by real people in real places at real times doing their best to make sense of it all”
Source: What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
“This is why so many people are so confused when it comes to the Bible. They were taught by their pastor or parents or authority figures to submit to the authority of the bible, but that's impossible to do without submitting first to whoever is deciding what the Bible is even saying. And that requires trust. Because authority is a relational reality. Someone told you, This is how it is. The problem, of course, is that the folks who talk the most about the authority of the Bible also seem to talk the most about things like objective and absolute truth, truth that exists independent of relational realities.”
Source: What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
“The writer of the Bible were doing something far more significant than trying to write lessons and books and tell stories without errors. To describe the Bible as inerrant, then, is to use a word that actually minimises the importance of what these writers were up to”
Source: What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
“To argue for inerrancy is arguing for a different kind of library of books, a library we don't have”
Source: What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything
“There are a number of references to Satan in the Jewish Bible. It is doubtful if Jews ever took these references literally. In Judaism, Satan was the mythical figure of all the evil forces in the world. At times, he was identified with the Tempter, the evil impulse, which prompts peo¬ ple to heed the worst side of his nature. But even this notion was never too deeply rooted, for Judaism teaches that God is the Creator of both good and evil, and God’s dominion alone is real. [...] Satan in Jewish lore is most identified with the evil impulse, the lower passions that are a hindrance to man’s pursuit of the nobler things in life.”
Source: Ask the Rabbi: The Who, What, When, Where, Why, & How of Being Jewish