Quotes About Christianity

The possibility that Jesus didn't think he was the messiah has often seemed to threaten the truth of Christianity itself. Could Jesus be the messiah if he didn't think he was?

Within the framework of justification by grace, the Christian life is about becoming conscious of and entering more deeply into an already existing relationship with God as known in Jesus. It is not about meeting requirements for salvation later but about newness of life in the present. And living by grace produces the same qualities as life "in Christ": freedom, joy, peace, and love.

The Roman vision incarnated in the divine Augustus was peace through victory. The Christian vision incarnated in the divine Jesus was peace through justice. It is those alternatives that are at stake behind all the titles and countertitles, the claims and counterclaims.

It is a life of deep commitment and gentle certitude. Deep commitment, because it involves one's whole being. Gentle certitude, because it is gentle, soft, regarding particular verbal formulations of Christianity, including precise doctrinal statements. These are always human products. They are to be valued as such and to be reformulated when necessary. Depth of commitment and dogmatic certainty about a particular set of beliefs are not the same thing.

Moreover, such a claim is difficult to reconcile with the centrality of grace in the Christian tradition. If one must be a Christian in order to be in right relationship with God, then there is a requirement. By definition, then, even though we may use the language of grace, we are no longer talking about grace.

The result: the monarchical model of biblical authority is replaced by a dialogical model of biblical authority. In other words, the biblical canon names the primary collection of ancient documents with which Christians are to be in a continuing dialogue.

Marcus J. Borg

The modern preoccupation with factuality has had a pervasive and distorting effect on how we see the Bible and Christianity.

To be Christian means to live within the world created by the Bible. We are to listen to it well and let its central stories shape our vision of God, our identity, and our sense of what faithfulness to God means. It is to shape our imagination, that part of our psyches in which our foundational images of reality and life reside. We are to be a community shaped by scripture. The purpose of our continuing dialogue with the Bible as sacred scripture is nothing less than that.14

This relationship with God, and all that flows from it, are the purpose of the Christian life. The invitation of the Christian gospel is to enter into that relationship in which our healing and wholeness lie, that relationship which transforms us by beginning to heal the wounds of existence and makes our lives in the here and now a life with God.

Because believing in the inerrancy and absolute authority of the Bible is so widespread today, it is important to realize that this is a Protestant phenomenon. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians (together the vast majority of Christians who have ever lived) have never taught it.

Christianity in the modern period became preoccupied with the dynamic of believing or not believing. For many people, believing "iffy" claims to be true became the central meaning of Christian faith. It is an odd notion—as if what God most wants from us is believing highly problematic statements to be factually true. And if one can't believe them, then one doesn't have faith and isn't a Christian

The Bible's function as sacrament is familiar to many Christians in its private devotional use. This common Christian practice involves spending time with a passage from the Bible and lingering over it. The passage is not read rapidly or for information, but space is left around it in the hope that a phrase or sentence will become the means for the Spirit to speak to us as individuals in the particularity of our lives, in the dailiness of our lives.

As we know from the study of history, no new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter, as witness the pagan elements in medieval Christianity and the evolution of the Russian KGB from the czarist secret service that preceded it

The very concept of sin comes from the Bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?

I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.

The Christian who walks with the Lord and keeps constant communion with Him will see many reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving all day long.

This is the holy reasoning of love; it draws no license from grace, but rather feels the strong constraints of gratitude leading it to holiness.

There are people who love those who agree with them and admire them, but have no time for those who oppose and dislike them. A Christian's love must be universal!

A Christian is not his own master, since all his time belongs to God.

Paul the apostle recounted that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of His followers at one time, the majority of whom were still alive and who could confirm what Paul wrote.

I have watched hundreds of Christians in my time become financially blessed then develop an acquisitive streak that in turn makes their souls as metallic as the coins they seek.

We cannot be part-time Christians! We should seek to live our faith at every moment of every day.

It is important for Christians to spend time praying with or in the spirit-that is, praying in tongues. The Bible says, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"