Suffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise. Rob Bell More Quotes by Rob Bell More Quotes From Rob Bell Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death. Rob Bell hell earth people My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged. Rob Bell straightforward honest parent If your faith is threatened by something that's true, then it wasn't much of a faith to begin with, was it? Rob Bell threatened ifs To elevate abstract doctrines and dogmas over living, breathing, embodied experiences of God's love and grace, then, is going the wrong direction. It's taking flesh and turning it back into words. Rob Bell doctrine breathing grace The best team does not always win, it's the team that plays the best. Rob Bell team winning play Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new. Rob Bell embrace all-things made Suffering, it turns out, demands profound imagination. A new future has to be conjured up because the old future isn't there anymore. Rob Bell imagination suffering profound To be honest with you, I am passionate about all the people out there who want to know Jesus, they want to know God, and they are sick of a system that is hung up on a bunch of things that have nothing to do with the love of God. Rob Bell sick people jesus 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. Rob Bell our-world joy jesus What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Rob Bell religious christian jesus I'm very comfortable in a room with thousands of people. Rob Bell comfortable people rooms 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. Rob Bell giving believe people 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. Rob Bell maintaining fairness weight 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. Rob Bell loneliness christian jesus The first word about you is that you received this life. Rob Bell this-life inspiring firsts It often takes suffering and lost in order to remind us of how precious life is. Rob Bell suffering inspiring order It's as if Thomas Kinkade and Dante were at a party, and one turned to the other sometime after midnight and uttered that classic line "You know, we really should work together sometime. Rob Bell party midnight working-together One truth is that suffering raises profound questions with the universe. The other truth is that grace, gift and generosity also raise profound questions. Rob Bell generosity inspiring profound Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want. Rob Bell rebel demand want I live with the understanding that truth is bigger than any religion and the world is God's and everything in it. Rob Bell truth-is understanding world
