Eugene H. Peterson
Eugene H. Peterson
Eugene H. Petersonis an American-born clergyman, scholar, author, and poet. He has written over thirty books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, a paraphrase of the Bible...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth6 November 1932
CountryUnited States of America
appreciate greek use
If we don't understand how metaphor works we will misunderstand most of what we read in the Bible. No matter how carefully we parse our Hebrew and Greek sentences, no matter how precisely we use our dictionaries and trace our etymologies, no matter how exactly we define the words on the page, if we do not appreciate the way a metaphor works we will never comprehend the meaning of the text.
use ends careful
We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.
believe thinking use
I believe God takes the things in our lives - family, background, education - and uses them as part of his calling. It might not be to become a pastor. But I don't think God wastes anything.
wine water use
Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.
learning ordinary receiving scriptures thousand
Spirituality is no different from what we've been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. It's just ordinary stuff.
position-of-power people scary
Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people's lives, and you ruin your own life.
stupid ideas errors
The Spirit works through community. Somebody will have a stupid, screwy idea. That's okay. The point of having creeds and confessions and traditions is to keep us in touch with the obvious errors.
kicking attention want
I don't want to end up a bureaucrat in the time-management business for God or a librarian cataloguing timeless truths. Salvation is kicking in the womb of creation right now, any time now. Pay attention.
loyalty thinking people
People learn to shop for churches; there is no loyalty to the church. They're consumers being attracted to one product or another. I think it's sacrilege, to tell you the truth, it really is.
worship failing offers
I cannot fail to call the congregation to worship God, to listen to his Word, to offer themselves to God.
teaching thinking giving
I think pastors are the worst listeners. We're so used to speaking, teaching, giving answers. We must learn to be quiet, quit being so verbal, learn to pay attention to what's going on, and listen.
reading years two
Spirituality is no different from what weve been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. Its just ordinary stuff.
biblical interesting poet
Isn't it interesting that all of the biblical prophets and psalmists were poets?
religious lace sound
You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.