Explore Quotes by Rob Bell

We often rush through the experiences that have the greatest shift.

The life that you want begins the moment you embrace the life you have because all of it is a miracle.

The first word about you is that you received this life.

The fundamental story arc of the Bible is God is passionate about rescuing this world, restoring it, renewing it.

When someone sets out to be controversial or provocative or shocking as an end in itself, I don't think that's a noble goal.

My experience as a pastor is lots of people have really toxic, dangerous, psychologically devastating images of God in their head, images of a God who's not good.

For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one.

I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs -- I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.

Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective

The historical orthodox Christian faith is extremely wide and diverse.

The ancient Hebrews had a word for this awareness of the importance of things. They called it kavod. Kavod originally was a business term, referring to the heaviness of something, which was crucial in weights and measures and the maintaining of fairness in transactions. Over time the word began to take on a more figurative meaning, referring to the importance and significance of something.

When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter--they are all hell on earth. Jesus' desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth. What's disturbing 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.

The world is desperately in need of people who will break themselves open and pour themselves out for the reconciliation of all things- that's what the world needs.

Do we get what we want? Yes, we get what we want. God is that_x000D_ loving. If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own_x000D_ god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our_x000D_ God-given pwer to make the world in our image, God allows us that_x000D_ freedom; we have the kind of license to do that.that's how love_x000D_ works. It cant be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves_x000D_ room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want,_x000D_ because love wins.

I would say that the powerful, revolutionary thing about Jesus' message is that he says, 'What do you do with the people that aren't like you? What do you do with the Other? What do you do with the person that's hardest to love?' . . . That's the measure of a good religion, is - you can love the people who are just like you; that's kind of easy. So what Jesus does is takes the question and talks about fruit. He's interested in what you actually produce. And that's a different discussion. How do we love the people in the world that are least like us?

God is bigger than the Christian faith.

The Christian faith is mysterious to the core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can't be put into words. Language fails. And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not.

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.

It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die.

It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything, or achieve anything, or accomplish one more thing. That, exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance.

Any time someone makes you feel guilty about how you are living, that is part of the old system (pre-Christ).