Famous Quotes & Sayings

John Shelby Spong

The Jesus experience expanded people into a position where they didn't have to have defensive tribal lives, "God loves my people, my tribe, anddoesn't like yours." The Bible is full of such references.

John Shelby Spong

I find it fascinating that Paul [the apostol], writing to the Galatians, responds to the question, "What does it mean to live in Christ?" by saying, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

John Shelby Spong

I'd like to turn the whole Jesus story around and look at it from a different vantage point, to consider that he was a human being who achieved such promise of humanity that he entered into what I think God is: mainly, the power of life, the power of love and what Paul Tillich, a German theologian of the mid-twentieth century, called "the ground of all being."

John Shelby Spong

The time has come for us to think of Christianity in a different way. Instead of thinking of God entering human life from outside in the person of Jesus, we have to begin to see human life evolving to the place where it opens itself into an experience of divinity.

John Shelby Spong

Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history.

John Shelby Spong

"I do not believe that Jesus, at the end of his earthly sojourn, returned to God by ascending in any literal sense into a heaven located somewhere in the sky. My knowledge of the size of this universe reduces that concept to nonsense."

John Shelby Spong

Jesus' power is the power of human wholeness that ultimately opens, invites and enables human beings to step beyond defense lines where incomplete humanity always hides in order to experience full humanity.

John Shelby Spong

Moral judgment is not life-giving; love that transcends the boundaries of judgment as Jesus' love did, is.

John Shelby Spong

If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable.

John Shelby Spong

I ... look at Jesus and see a humanity open to all that God is--open to life, open to love and open to being.

John Shelby Spong

I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. The primary reason the old idea of rescuing the fallen is no good is that there never was a time when we fell from perfection into sin.

John Robbins

Jesus prescribes a doctrinal test for false prophets because a behavioral test is unreliable.

James Lee Burke

The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us.

James Jordan

I feel for the first time in my life that I have really come to understand what the gospel actually is. It is about a Father who lost His kids and He simply wants them back...I look forward to the day when we will see sons and daughers in their full expression and freedom, rising up out of every nation of the world, exhibiting and expressing the person, nature and works of our Father and walking like Jesus in this broken world.

James Irwin

Jesus walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon,

James Joyce

Jesus was a bachelor and never lived with a woman. Surely living with a woman is one of the most difficult things a man has to do, and he never did it.

James Joyce

And Jesus was a Jew too. Your god. He was a Jew like me. And so was his father.

George Gillespie

The Lord Jesus will be revealed mightily, and will make bare his holy Arm, as well in the confusion of Antichrist, as in the conversion of the Jews, before the last judgment, and the end of all things.

George Foreman

When I found Jesus Christ, I learned to be a better athlete. I didn't have to go out there and knock them out in the first round. I've learned to be patient, skillful in the ring. At the same time, I wanted to prove to other boxers that you can take off this killer instinct stuff, you can be a great athlete, a great boxer, and love your brother.

Jon Meacham

Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of authority, then we would be more open to slavery, to the subjugation of women, to wider use of stoning. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against divorce in the strongest of terms.

Jon Foreman

Jesus Christ's mercy and power indwells us and gives us the strength to make a positive difference.

Johnny Cash

Well, I take great comfort in the words of the apostle Paul who said, ‘What I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do.’ And he said, ‘It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. But who,’ he asks, ‘will deliver me from this body of death?’ And he answers for himself and for me, ‘Through Jesus Christ the Lord.'

Johnny Cash

I knew Bob Dylan was searching for the truth and had been for years. And anyone who Really wants the truth ends up at Jesus

Luc de Clapiers

Newton, Pascal, Bossuet, Racine, F?nelon -- that is to say, some of the most enlightened men on earth, in the most philosophical of all ages -- have been believers in Jesus Christ; and the great Cond?, when dying, repeated these noble words, "Yes, I shall see God as He is, face to face!".

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Her new powers surging, she went to have a long overdue Come-to-Jesus talk with the goddess. (Tory)

Nick Vujicic

I preach with the hope that whoever is inspired, encouraged, intrigued, curious by my life on any level, whether it be parents saying they showed my video to their kids because they were complaining. It is the hope that that parent will go a bit deeper and know that ultimately Nick actually puts his hope into something bigger than himself. He puts it in Jesus Christ.

Nick Vujicic

I think 'Jesus' is the most offensive word in anyone's life. When we mention Jesus, He is the only one who says 'I am God. I am holy. I am the only way to a truthful life.' No one - not Mohammad, not Buddha, not anyone says that they were holy, not anyone says that they were God, not anyone says that they faced the devil face to face and won.

Nick Vujicic

Here is the difference between hope with Jesus and hope without Jesus. Hope without Jesus is waiting for your position or circumstance to change. To be waiting and hoping that someday things aren't how they are now. There is nothing wrong with waiting for a miracle, but some miracles don't always come. Life without Jesus is a life without purpose.

Nick Vujicic

The greatest news that I could ever say is that Jesus is Lord and Savior of my life. He is my friend. He is with me wherever I go. I'm so delighted to continue to grow in my relationship to Jesus.

Nick Vujicic

One thing I gained in my life is just the need for more Jesus in my life. You never come to a place in your walk with Jesus where you feel like you've had enough. That's a dangerous feeling to have.

Nick Vujicic

Faith is walking by faith, not by what you feel. You are not always going to feel that Jesus loves you or that God is good, but you know He is. It is the up and down of the journey.

Nick Vujicic

Hope is in the name of God, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hope is when you compare your suffering to the infinite, immeasurable love and grace of God.

Nora Roberts

You--Roarke." Eyes watering, she reached for more tissue. "Jesus, Eve. Jesus Christ, you never sleep with anybody. And you're telling me you slept with Roarke?" "That's not precisely accurate. We didn't sleep.