Al Armstrong

“With his birth, teachings, death, and resurrection, Jesus has started a revolution. It just doesn’t look the way anyone expects.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“A Bible that does things like this is not a disappointing problem that has to be explained away or made excuses for, but something to be embraced with thanksgiving as a divine gift of love, as we, in return, accept our sacred and biblical responsibility to walk daily the path of wisdom rather than looking to hitch an easy ride.”
― Peter Enns, How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That’s Great News

“The biblical writers were human like us, and nothing is gained by thinking otherwise. Someone might say, “Well, okay, sure they were human, obviously, but the biblical writers were also inspired, directed by God in what to write, and so not simply ordinary human writers.” I get the point. To see the Bible as inspired by God is certainly the mainstream view in the history of Christianity (and Judaism), but what that means exactly and how it works out in detail have proved to be quite tough nuts to crack. Answers abound (and conflict) and no one has cracked the code, including me. But any explanation of what it means for God to inspire human beings to write things down would need to account for the diverse (not to mention ancient and ambiguous) Bible we have before us. Any explanation that needs to minimize, cover up, or push these self-evident biblical characteristics aside isn’t really an explanation; it’s propaganda.”
― Peter Enns, How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That’s Great News

“Doesn’t God realize that we don’t share the common understanding that, say, Paul shares with the people in Corinth or Thessalonica? Doesn’t God realize that making twenty-one of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament letters means that we will have to think—really think—about what these letters were meant to do and then be really thoughtful and intentional, maybe even humble, about how to engage them for ourselves? Doesn’t God know that we will have to exercise tremendous—what’s that word again? Oh, yes—wisdom in order to know how or even if these words will apply to”
― Peter Enns, How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That’s Great News