John H. Walton > Quotes

“The most central truth to the creation account is that this world is a place for God's presence.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Volume 2)

“When Jesus talks about the Sabbath, he makes statements that seem unrelated to rest if we think of it in terms of relaxation. In Matthew 12:8, he is the Lord of the Sabbath. When we realize that the Sabbath has to do with participating in God’s ordered system (rather than promoting our own activities as those that bring us order), we can understand how Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Throughout his controversies with the Pharisees, Jesus insisted that it was never a violation of the Sabbath to do the work of God on that day. Indeed, he noted that God is continually working (Jn 5:17). The Sabbath is most truly honored when we participate in the work of God (see Is 58:13-14). The work we desist from is that which represents our own attempts to bring our own order to our lives.2 It is to resist our self-interest, our self-sufficiency and our sense of self-reliance.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate

“Since all people are in the image of God, all deserve to be treated with the dignity the image affords.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“The Bible's message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the culture in which it originated, but the form in which the message was imbedded was fully permeated by the ancient culture.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“We might find it easy to look at some majestic view like a glorious sunset or the grandeur of the mountains and ponder the magnificence of God's handiwork. But this sense needs to extend beyond the "wow" moments to encompass all of our experience of his world. We have the same problem when we only recognize God in some incredible occurrence in our lives and forget that he provides for us, cares for us and protects us moment by moment, day after day. God did not just create at some time in the past; he is the Creator - past, present and future." (The Lost World of Genesis One.)”
― John H Walton

“It seems to many that they have to make a choice: either believe the Bible and hold to a young earth, or abandon the Bible because of the persuasiveness of the case for an old earth. The good news is that we do not have to make such a choice. The Bible does not call for a young earth. Biblical faith need not be abandoned if one concludes from the scientific evidence that the earth is old.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“But when we adopt the biblical perspective of the cosmic temple, it is no longer possible to look at the world (or space) in secular terms. It is not ours to exploit. We do not have natural resources, we have sacred resources. Obviously this view is far removed from a view that sees nature as divine: As sacred space the cosmos is his place. It is therefore not his person. The cosmos is his place, and our privileged place in it is his gift to us. The blessing he granted was that he gave us the permission and the ability to subdue and rule. We are stewards.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“We must be cautious that as we accept by faith that nothing is too hard for God, we do not begin to dictate to him which hard thing he must do. He tends to have things in mind that go far beyond what we are able to ask or even think.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“Whatever humanity does, it should be directed toward bringing order out of non-order. Our use of the environment should not impose disorder. This is not just a house that we inhabit; it is our divinely gifted home, and we are accountable for our use of it and work in it.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate

“But our God is a God of grace. If we desire to be like him, we need to go beyond being people who are saved by grace to be people who are characterized by grace.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“The friends believe that Job is on trial—the defendant in a criminal case—and that he has been found guilty. But this is a backward trial. In their assessment, the judge has passed down the verdict, and now they, as the jury, need to try the case and find the evidence to uphold the verdict. To this end, Job is intensely cross-examined.”
― John H. Walton, Job

“The Old World science found in the Bible would not be considered “wrong” or “false” as much as it would just offer a perspective from a different vantage point. Even today we can consider it true that the sky is blue, that the sun sets and that the moon shines. But we know that these are scientifically misleading statements. Science, however, simply offers one way of viewing the world, and it does not have a corner on truth. The Old World science in the Bible offers the perspective of the earthbound observer.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“The Bible is written for us (i.e., we are supposed to benefit from its divine message as we interact with our cultural river), but it is not written to us (not in our language or against our culture). The message transcends culture, but it is given in a form that is fully ensconced in the ancient cultural river of Israel. This message may well give us meaningful information as we think about our cultural river, but it does not address the specifics of our cultural river.”
― John H. Walton, Old Testament Theology for Christians: From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief

“Mesopotamian literature is concerned about the jurisdiction of the various gods in the cosmos with humankind at the bottom of the heap, the Genesis account is interested in the jurisdiction of humankind over the rest of creation as a result of the image of God in which people were created.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“It is not unusual for the question to be raised, “Is the Sabbath a law that we Christians have to keep?” The answer is that if we have to be reminded, commanded, or coerced to observe it, it ceases to serve its function. The Sabbath is not the sort of thing that should have to be regulated by rules. It is the way we acknowledge that God is on the throne, that this world is his world, that our time is his gift to us.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“Our world does not reduce God by distributing his power to other deities. Rather, we reduce God by making him a figurehead. We too often portray him as standing back from a world that runs on its own. We banish him to the hidden corners of our lives while we amble through life, pursuing our own ambitious goals driven by narcissism, hedonism, and materialism and refusing to allow God to bridle our self-sufficiency.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“The Bible is not a book of rules. The Bible reveals the God whom we serve, and we serve him gladly.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“We live in a world of rights that has no sense of purpose; we live in a world of tolerance that has no sense of dignity for those tolerated or conscience concerning what is to be tolerated; we live in a world of leisure and squander it on empty pursuit; we live in a world of comfort and convenience where we can accumulate anything we want except that which matters most.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“Audience (Matt. 25:14–30; Luke 19:12–27). Some have seen the parable as addressing an audience who would see themselves at the beginning of the story (the master, Jesus, is ready to leave), while others understand the audience to be those who see themselves at the end of the story (the master, Jesus, is “returning” in the Triumphal Entry and the destruction of Jerusalem is imminent). The issue centers on whether the parable concerns the kingdom of God as it should be managed when Christ departs to heaven or how it has been managed by the Jews throughout history and more recently during the teaching ministry of Christ. It theoretically could be interpreted either way. Most likely, Matthew intended the former and Luke the latter.”
― John H. Walton, The Bible Story Handbook: A Resource for Teaching 175 Stories from the Bible

“It is difficult to think of the “natural world” as sacred (because we just designated it “natural”).”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“BY nature we are all pagans caught in the Babel syndrome. When we think we can manipulate God by praying in Jesus’ name to achieve selfish purposes, our paganism is showing. When we “claim promises” as a means of making God do what we want him to do, our paganism is showing. When we come to think we are indispensable to God because of the money we donate, the talents we have, the ministries we engage in, or the worship we offer, our paganism is showing. When we treat God as a child to be cajoled or a tyrant to be appeased, the Babel syndrome is surging in our veins. We want a manageable “God-lite.”
― John H. Walton, Genesis

“Instead of offering a statement of causes, Genesis 1 is offering a statement of how everything will work according to God’s purposes. In that sense the text looks to the future (how this cosmos will function for human beings with God at its center) rather than to the past (how God brought material into being).[9] Purpose entails some level of causation (though it does not specify the level) and affirms sovereign control of the causation process.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“The Bible considers it much more important to say that God has made everything work rather than being content to say that God made the physical stuff.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“Invoked a curse and swore (Matt. 26:74; Mark 14:71). The text does not specify on whom Peter called down curses, though the ESV and other translations include “on himself,” implying that he was calling for curses to come upon him if he was lying. Alternatives are that he was cursing the ones who were accusing him of knowing Christ or that he was actually cursing Christ, amplifying his sense of guilt. Certainty is not possible.”
― John H. Walton, The Bible Story Handbook: A Resource for Teaching 175 Stories from the Bible

“In the ancient Near East people were created as slaves to the gods. The world was created by the gods for the gods, and people met the needs of the gods.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“Because the conversation in heaven is never revealed to Job or his friends, they understandably misjudge precisely what is at stake. This hidden information is especially poignant because, as Job argues his case before God, he believes that he can “win” if he can force God into court to account for himself, to give an explanation for his actions. In reality, Job has nothing to win because he is not on trial.”
― John H. Walton, Job

“We must learn to ask better questions so that we might find the more significant answers. To this end, the book of Job repeatedly shows us that what we thought were the most poignant questions are not significant enough, and it dismisses them. At long last it leads us to the most momentous questions by introducing a whole series of answers, answers that at first seem oblique. In fact, many have been willing to dismiss the answers as a mere smokescreen and turn away from the book disillusioned and disappointed. But if we allow the answers to prompt us to the right questions, we will discover the wealth that the book has to offer.”
― John H. Walton, Job

“If we follow the sense of the literature and its ideas of creation, we find that people in the ancient Near East did not think of creation in terms of making material things—instead, everything is function oriented. The gods are beginning their own operations and are making all of the elements of the cosmos operational. Creation thus constituted bringing order to the cosmos from an originally nonfunctional condition. It is from this reading of the literature that we may deduce a functional ontology in the ancient world—that is, that they offer accounts of functional origins rather than accounts of material origins.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“I contend that there is a line between the seven days of Genesis 1 and the rest of history, making Genesis 1 a distinct beginning that is located in the past. If we see this as an account of functional origins, the line between is dotted rather than solid, as the narrative of Genesis 1 puts God in place to perpetuate the functions after they are established in the six days. In this way, day seven, God taking up his rest in the center of operations of the cosmos, positions him to run it. This continuing activity is not the same as the activity of the six days, but it is the reason why the six days took place.”
― John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

“We cannot have all the answers, Job; we don’t even know all the questions.”
― John H. Walton, Job