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8b9e103
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When people stepped forward and said, "You have heard it interpreted this way, but I tell you it really means this," it was progressive for their day. They were making new claims about what it means to be true to the Bible. What is accepted today as tradition was at one point in time a break from tradition." --
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Rob Bell |
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3cda70e
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You cannot bring a fresh, new word about human flourishing and expect the old, established systems of oppression and power to stand by passively. Or, as Jesus put it, "You can't put new wine into old wineskins."
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Rob Bell |
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2870679
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Eternal life then is a certain kind of life I am living more and more now and will go on forever.17 I am living more and more in connection with God, and I will live connected with God forever. This has huge implications for when I do stumble, when I sin and the old person comes back from the dead for a few moments. I admit it. I confess it. I thank God I am forgiven. I make amends with anyone who has been affected by my actions. And then I..
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Rob Bell |
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4ef4c1e
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But when we talk about God, we're talking about the very straightforward affirmation that everything has a singular, common source and is infinitely, endlessly, deeply connected.
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Rob Bell |
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9a02d1f
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We cannot earn what we have always had. What we can do is trust that what God keeps insisting is true about us is actually true.
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Rob Bell |
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974589e
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But it's in that disappointment, in that confusion, in that pain--the pain that comes from things not going how I wanted them to--that I find the same thing happening, again and again. I come to the end of myself, to the end of my power, the end of my strength, the end of my understanding, only to find, in that place of powerlessness, a strength and peace that weren't there before.
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Rob Bell |
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b62d290
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Grace is when you aren't striving or controlling or trying to change or manipulate or make something happen. Grace is when you find yourself carried along, when all that's left to do is receive. Grace is when you know you're loved, exactly as you are. Grace is an entirely different way of experiencing life.
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Rob Bell |
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a8b66bd
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The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination.
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Rob Bell |
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e8cebe7
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This is how you remember God: you bless those who need it the most in the same way that God blessed you when you needed it the most.
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Rob Bell |
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ddd503a
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We need you to be you. We don't need a second anybody. We need the first you.
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Rob Bell |
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e57bd30
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all of life matters, all work is holy, all moments sacred, all encounters with others encounters with the divine.
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Rob Bell |
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1bfd465
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We are both large and small, strong and weak, formidable and faint, reflecting the image of the divine, and formed from dust.
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Rob Bell |
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543793d
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When you get married you're starting a conversation that never ends,
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Rob Bell |
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db15f86
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When in doubt, assume that they're seeing something that you aren't.
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Rob Bell |
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9148786
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People deal with their shadow side in a number of ways, the most common way being to find outside enemies and point to them, demonizing them and blaming them for long lists of perceived evils. This strategy often does a very effective job of helping us avoid that which lurks within us. Politicians and radio talk-show hosts and pastors can become very skilled in this, constantly pointing out the darkness and evil and twisted ways of others t..
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Rob Bell |
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005292d
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We are not only working on our game, we are working on ourselves.
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Rob Bell |
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8cdc906
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The best team does not always win, it's the team that plays the best.
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mental-toughness
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Rob Bell |
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82f5aca
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We are only as sick as our secrets.
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mental-toughness
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Rob Bell |
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3a53fba
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First, the Bible has to be interpreted. When someone says they're just doing what the Bible says to do, they didn't greet you with a holy kiss, they're probably wearing two kinds of fabric sewn together, and there's a good chance they don't have tassels sewn on the corners of their garments, all things commanded in the Bible. They don't do those things because they don't believe those commands are binding on them today. And they don't belie..
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Rob Bell |
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ed2967d
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To fully appreciate the Bible, you have to let it be what it is.
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Rob Bell |
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004439b
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When a leader comes along who eliminates the tension and dodges the paradox and neatly and precisely explains who the enemies are and gives black-and-white answers to questions, leaving little room for the very real mystery of the divine, it should not surprise us when that person gains a large audience. Especially if that person is really, really confident.
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Rob Bell |
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ac518bd
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One morning recently I was surfing just after sunrise, and there was only one other surfer out. In between sets he and I started talking. He told me about his work and his family, and then, after about an hour in the water together, he told me how he'd been an alcoholic and a drug addict and an atheist and then he'd gotten clean and sober and found God in the process. As he sat there floating on his board next to me, a hundred or so yards f..
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Rob Bell |
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89969db
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He talks of the life that will come from his own death, and he promises that life will flow to us in thousands of small ways as we die to our egos, our pride, our need to be right, our self-sufficiency, our rebellion, and our stubborn insistence that we deserve to get our way. When we cling with white knuckles to our sins and our hostility, we're like a tree that won't let its leaves go. There can't be a spring if we're still stuck in the f..
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Rob Bell |
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27d9623
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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."
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jesus
theology
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Rob Bell |
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dfad852
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Can your story be retold? Can all of the various things that have happened to you and the things you have done you'd prefer to never think about again and the embarrassing parts and the painful parts--can all of it be retold in such a way that the worst parts become the most powerful, poignant parts? And if that is possible for your story, is it possible for the history of the world? Can everything eventually be retold in such a way that th..
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Rob Bell |
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e7996dc
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Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?
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death
religion
god
life
hell
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Rob Bell |
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b173136
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God has to punish sinners, because God is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life. However true or untrue that is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach people that Jesus rescues us from God.
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jesus
death
religion
god
sin
hell
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Rob Bell |
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6c1a17a
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The Bible is a library of books reflecting how human beings have understood the divine. People at that time believed the gods were with them when they went to war and killed everyone in the village. What you're reading is someone's perspective that reflects the time and the place they lived in. It's not God's perspective-- it's theirs. And when they say it's God's perspective, what they're telling you is their perspective on God's perspecti..
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Rob Bell |
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f74c1b7
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Jesus didn't talk about a God who wants to burn this place down and take us somewhere else; he talked about the renewing of this place, the only home we've ever had. Central to the story of the Bible is the affirmation of trees and seas and rocks and air and soil and blood and sweat and skin and all the materiality and diversity and creativity that we know to be central to our life in this world. Jesus talked about a coming time when God wo..
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Rob Bell |
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3d9ec82
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Groups have a center of gravity. Families, friends, churches, offices, and schools all have a dominant consciousness, a center of gravity, a party line. It's the often unspoken agreement that keeps things running smoothly based on what to believe, how to behave, what's acceptable, and what isn't. So when you charge in all excited about whatever it is you've learned, you are a disruption. And systems don't take kindly to disruptions, often e..
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Rob Bell |
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6ceaef3
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Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like your life is passing you by.
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Rob Bell |
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0029ab5
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There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously.
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Rob Bell |
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aa6fde2
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What does it mean to never be separated from love? Is that how you live every day? In every thought, are you constantly reminded that love is the ground of your being?
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Rob Bell |
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1b18eec
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We rob ourselves of immeasurable joy when we compare what we do know about ourselves with what we don't know about someone else.
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Rob Bell |
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aa0438d
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This story... blasts to pieces our biases and labels with a declaration that God is on everyone's side, extending grace and compassion to everyone, especially those we have most strongly decided are not on God's side.
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Rob Bell |
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d3a9fb0
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Your ikigai is a work in progress because you are a work in progress. Knowing your ikigai, then, takes patience and insight, and courage, and honesty.
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Rob Bell |
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21e52ed
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You explore the possibilities because you can't steer a parked car.
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Rob Bell |
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382b868
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Great marriages have an ease about them, a back-and-forth nonreactive, nondefensive, open, and ongoing flow in which you never stop talking and figuring it out together.
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Rob Bell |
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6180cf3
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Your marriage will only be as healthy as the least healthy one of you.
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Rob Bell |
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88688cb
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Because the Jesus message is first and foremost an announcement of who you are. It's about your identity, about the new word that has been spoken about you, the love that has always been yours. If you start with instructions and commands, people might be mistaken into thinking that God loves us because of what we do or how religious or moral or good we are. That's not gospel. Gospel is the announcement of who God insists you are. You're a c..
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Rob Bell |
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f41ad82
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Of all the conceptions of the divine, of all the language Jesus could put on the lips of the God character in the story he tells, that's what he has the Father say. "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours." ... Millions of people in our world were told that God so loved the world, that God sent his son to save the world, and that if they accept and believe in Jesus, then they'll be able to have a relationship with God... B..
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heaven-and-hell
universalism
monster-god
gospel
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Rob Bell |
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9b6093c
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Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.
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Rob Bell |
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a0afa99
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I don't read the Bible like a flat line. I don't see all of the passages in the Bible sitting equally side by side so that you can pick one and then counter it with another and go back and forth endlessly, endlessly leading you to the barbaric and violent and random nature of life--and God. I read it looking for what the story is doing, what's happening within it. What new perspective is emerging? What new idea is being presented? What sens..
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Rob Bell |
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abf25fa
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Gospel is the announcement of who God insists you are. You're a child of God, not because of how great you are but because God has all kinds of kids and you're one of them.
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Rob Bell |