Quotes from Rob Bell

It takes quite a spine to turn the other cheek. It takes phenomenal fortitude to love your enemy. It takes firm resolve to pray for those who persecute you. (with reference to Matthew 5)

That's what Spirit does, it brings about new creation. And what was true thirteen billion years ago is true now.

Jesus responds to almost every question he's asked with...a question. What do you think? How do you read it? he asks, again and again and again.

I believe God gives people the right to say no, to resist, to refuse, to reject, to cling to their sins, to cling to their version of their story.

This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

God is bigger than the Christian faith.

Is God our friend, our provider, our protector, our father—or is God the kind of judge who may in the end declare that we deserve to spend forever separated from our Father? Is God like the characters in a story Jesus would tell, old ladies who keep searching for the lost coin until they find it, shepherds who don't rest until that one sheep is back in the fold, fathers who rush out to greet and embrace their returning son, or, in the end, will God give up?

Heaven, for Jesus, wasn't less real, but more real.

We shape our God, and then our God shapes us.

I believe our world desperately needs Good News.

everybody is resting on a set of interpretations, and we need to be honest about it.

I believe the discussion itself is divine.