Rob Bell Quotes

If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control. And so in passage after passage, we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more.

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.

The Bible is not an argument. It is a record of human experience. The point is not to prove that it’s the word of God or it’s inspired or it’s whatever the current word is that people are using. The point is to enter into its stories with such intention and vitality that you find what it is that inspired people to write these books.

Of all the conceptions of the divine, of all the language Jesus could put on the lips of the God character in the story he tells, that’s what he has the Father say. “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” ...

Millions of people in our world were told that God so loved the world, that God sent his son to save the world, and that if they accept and believe in Jesus, then they’ll be able to have a relationship with God...

But there’s more. Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God will have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell... A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony... if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, acceptable, awful reality... sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting “the gospel” is that they sense that the God lurking behind Jesus isn’t safe, loving, or good. It doesn’t make sense it can’t be reconciled, and so they say no... God create, because the endless joy and peace and shared life at the heart of this God knows no other way. Jesus invites us into THAT relationship, the one at the center of the universe... so when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will “get into heaven,” that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club. The good news is better than that.

"It is possible for music to be labeled "Christian" and be terrible music. It could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled cliches. That "Christian" band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren't a great band. It is possible for a movie to be a "Christian" movie and to be a terrible movie. It may actually desecrate the art form in its quality and storytelling and craft."

I’m convinced being generous is a better way to live. I’m convinced forgiving people and not carrying around bitterness is a better way to live. I’m convinced having compassion is a better way to live. I’m convinced pursuing peace in every situation is a better way to live. I’m convinced listening to the wisdom of others is a better way to live. I’m convinced being honest with people is a better way to live.

When I look far enough inside of you, I’ll find me. When I look far enough inside me, I’ll find you.

God doesn’t wait for us to get ourselves polished, shined, proper, and without blemish — God comes to us and meets us and blesses us while we are still in the middle of the mess we created.

What's disturbing, then, is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now. As a Christian I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth: poverty, injustice, suffering — they're all hells on earth and as Christians we oppose them with all of our energies.

Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you feel better — you feel cleansed — when you're done.

Pain has a way of making us more honest.

If you are working on something, about to deliver it, moments from opening the doors, an hour from everybody arriving, a week from the release date, two minutes from getting the results back, and you have butterflies in your stomach, be grateful.

You are in a wonderful place.
Nerves are God's gift to you, reminding you that your life is not passing you by.

Make friends with the butterflies.
Welcome when they come, revel in them, enjoy them, and if they go away, do whatever it takes to put yourself in a position where they return.

Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like your life is passing you by.

God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2). So does God get what God wants?

I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me.

I can’t find one place in the teachings of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to identity ourselves first and foremost as sinners.