Quotes About Scripture

The Christian churches in general have always been subject to the temptation to use the Bible to annotate the story we want to tell for ourselves, rather than allow the Bible to tell its own story and invite us to join in.

My third note is that when we therefore use scripture in little bits, cut off from their proper context and made to dance to our tunes instead, all sorts of doubts can creep in, like weeds among the wheat.

make sure we are doing justice and honour to scripture itself, rather than simply using it within schemes of our own making.

Actually, the public reading of scripture in the course of the church's worship is not about 'teaching'; it's not there to impart information. It is part of the worship and praise of God; it is a way, a central way, a more central way even than the best hymns and worship songs, of praising God for his mighty

Hope" in this sense is not a feeling. It is a virtue. You have to practice it, like a difficult piece on the violin or a tricky shot at tennis. You practice the virtue of hope through worship and prayer, through invoking the One God, through reading and reimagining the scriptural story, and through consciously holding the unknown future within the unshakable divine promises. Saul had learned to do this. Paul the Apostle, much later, would have to learn the same lesson all over again.

My fourth starting-point towards a fresh approach is to insist on some kind of lectio continua, both personally and publicly. There are, to be sure, many times and occasions when we need to choose special readings to suit a particular moment or challenge. But the church's staple diet ought to be to work through the books of the Bible on a more or less continuous loop.

Hope" in this sense is not a feeling. It is a virtue. You have to practice it, like a difficult piece on the violin or a tricky shot at tennis. You practice the virtue of hope through worship and prayer, through invoking the One God, through reading and reimagining the scriptural story, and through consciously holding the unknown future within the unshakable divine promises.

Since these are themselves "scriptural" statements, that means that scripture itself points—authoritatively, if it does indeed possess authority!—away from itself and to the fact that final and true authority belongs to God himself, now delegated to Jesus Christ.

Put tradition first, and scripture will be muzzled and faded. Put scripture first, and tradition will come to new life. Better

Whenever you see, in an official lectionary, the command to omit two or three verses, you can normally be sure that they contain words of judgment. Unless, of course, they are about sex. But

But in scripture itself God's purpose is not just to save human beings, but to renew the whole world. This is the unfinished story in which readers of scripture are invited to become actors in their own right. "The authority of scripture" is thus a sub-branch of several other theological topics: the mission of the church, the work of the Spirit

the ultimate future hope and the way it is anticipated in the present, and of course the nature of the church. Failure to pay attention to all of these in discussing how scripture functions is part of the problem, as we can see when people, hearing the word "scripture," instantly think of a rule-book—and then, according to taste, either assume that all the rules are to be followed without question or assume that they can all now be broken.

For such an important task, we need to have our thoughts and attitudes and our dreams and desires shaped by Scripture.

if it is contrary to the Word of God, it isn't right.

Frequently, I will read one or two selections from a devotional book as a means of tuning my heart before I open the Scripture. These books, written by human authors, should never take the place of the Word of God itself, but they can help us focus on spiritual matters and clear out any clutter that may be distracting to us.

faith is based not on what we see and know, but on what we believe to be true through the reading of God's word. The

The day will come, brothers and sisters, when we will have other books of scripture which will emerge to accompany the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Presently you and I carry our scriptures around in a "quad"; the day will come when you'll need a little red wagon.

Scripture has at its core such a powerful mythology that even the residue of that mythology is still sufficient to serve as an exacting control mechanism for some people. It provides, first of all, a theory about the meaning of life and therefore rules on how one is to conduct oneself.

Wherever I AM, everything is perfect. There's no reason for any argument, for that Body that you will wear in the Resurrection is a perfect body. And nothing is dead in your world; nothing can be imperfect in your world. Everything is perfect wherever you are. That is the Resurrection Body, and that is spoken of in Scripture as the "Kingdom of Heaven." So, the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, it's not a realm; it is a body!

There's no reason for any argument, for that Body that you will wear in the Resurrection is a perfect body. And nothing is dead in your world; nothing can be imperfect in your world. Everything is perfect wherever you are. That is the Resurrection Body, and that is spoken of in Scripture as the "Kingdom of Heaven." So, the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, it's not a realm; it is a body!

The Torah, it should be noted, makes no clear reference to the afterlife whatsoever.

I found it (the word 'mercy') occurs 261 times in the Bible-and seventy-two percent of them are in the Old Testament. That's a three-to-one ratio. Then I studied the word 'love' and found it occurs 322 times in the Bible, about half in each testament. So you have the same emphasis on love in both.

we Christians must show again that we are both people of the Word and people who believe in words. Words are never mere words for us

Daily scripture reading is like maintaining a healthy diet ... When we read and meditate on the Bible, the Holy Spirit strengthens our faith and nourishes us with a deeper understanding of God's will for our lives. We may not remember everything we read, but our hearts will glow with good health.