Quotes from Rob Bell

The actual word "hell" is used roughly twelve times in the New Testament, almost exclusively by Jesus himself. The Greek word that gets translated as "hell" in English is the word "Gehenna." Ge means "valley," and henna means "Hinnom." Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, was an actual valley on the south and west side of the city of Jerusalem. Gehenna, in Jesus's day, was the city dump.

We're these strange, exotic cocktails of dust and quarks and blood and soul and all that can't be named, containing infinite depth and dimension and spirit, featherless bipeds arguing and dividing ourselves up about all sorts of things that are, in the end, completely meaningless.

This extraordinary technology that makes it possible for us to connect with someone on the other side of the world also disconnects us from the person on the other side of the table. Be intentional about what you're doing and when you're doing it. If you're with a person, be with them.

Our external environments mirror our internal lives. If your desk is cluttered, don't be surprised if you find it hard to focus. If your closet and garage are piled with stuff you don't use, don't be shocked when you are easily distracted. If things are lying around your living and working space that don't serve a clear purpose, don't be amazed that you aren't very calm and centered.

We want a little risk in our lives because it keeps things interesting. It wakes us up, it gives us a sense that we're alive and breathing and doing Something! Throwing yourself into it begins with being grateful that you even have something to throw yourself into.

I believe the discussion itself is divine.

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.

A lot of Christians have been taught a story that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis, instead of chapter 1. If your story doesn't begin in the beginning, but begins in chapter 3, then it starts with sin, and so the story becomes about dealing with the sin problem. So Jesus is seen as primarily dealing with our sins.

The myth of redemptive violence - Caesar, peace, and victory - is in people's bones so deeply, we aren't even aware of it. You crush the opposition that's how we bring peace.

As a pastor, you get invited into the most poignant moments of people's lives. Whether it's a wedding or a funeral or a hospital visit, you get invited into the center of the event, whether or not you know the people.

My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged.

Well, I affirm orthodox Christian faith. I affirm the Nicene Creed. I don't think I'm doing anything terribly new.

Suffering, it turns out, demands profound imagination. A new future has to be conjured up because the old future isn't there anymore.

The historical orthodox Christian faith is extremely wide and diverse.

What we do comes out of who we believe we are.

Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, "God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts." The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments. The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, "Me too.

It's easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being naked.

Love is giving up control. It's surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two—love and controlling power over the other person—are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.

Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn't as bright as it could be.

Agape doesn't love somebody because they're worthy. Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love. Agape doesn't love somebody because they're beautiful. Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful.

Freedom is not having everything we crave, it's being able to go without the things we crave and being OK with it.

Because with every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth.

It takes quite a spine to turn the other cheek. It takes phenomenal fortitude to love your enemy. It takes firm resolve to pray for those who persecute you. (with reference to Matthew 5)

Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there [...] You see God where others don't. And then you point him out. So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst.