John Shelby
John Shelby
John T. Shelbyis a former center fielder in Major League Baseball who played from 1981 to 1991. His nickname was "T-Bone" for his slight frame. He currently is a coach in the Colorado Rockies minor league system...
ability believe beyond calls capacity experience fullness god life limits love people taught
I believe that is what the God experience does for us. It calls us beyond our limits into the fullness of life - into a capacity to love people we are not taught to love - and into an ability to be who we are.
life tells
The Bible tells me that every life is holy; the Bible tells me that every life is loved; the Bible tells me that every life is called to be all that it can be.
author disciples fourth gospel john layered period single work written
There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. The author of this book is not a single individual, but is at least three different writers/editors, who did their layered work over a period of 25 to 30 years.
asked god
When I'm asked to define God, I'm almost wordless.
billion cannot centre conceive earth galaxy hundred middle planet possibly rather star stars within
I cannot possibly conceive of my planet Earth as the centre of a three-tiered universe. I know rather that the sun, around which my planet Earth revolves, is a middle sized star in a galaxy called the Milky Way that has over a hundred billion other suns or stars within it.
essence life literally longer mean reads spend studying treats value written
I spend my life studying that book, and every book I've written has in some sense been a book about the Bible, and that's what I mean by reclaiming its value and its essence for a world that no longer treats it literally and no longer reads it traditionally.
human paradigm shift
Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order.
believer christian consider deep define doubt experience faith god might people quite reality
Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. I might define God quite differently from the way some people in the Christian faith would do so, but I do not doubt the reality of that experience.
appears christ invited last nail physically prints risen spear thomas time wound
In the first gospel, Mark, the risen Christ appears physically to no one, but by the time we come to the last gospel, John, Thomas is invited to feel the nail prints in Christ's hands and feet and the spear wound in his side.
beyond categories develop enable english god language says sterile talk trying
Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. What I'm trying to do is develop a language that will enable us to talk about God beyond the, what I think, are sterile categories of theism and atheism.
trying
I am trying to understand what it means to be a Christian without being religious.
appear author characters creations fourth history intended literary pages understood
Many of the characters who appear in the pages of the Fourth Gospel are literary creations of its author and were never intended to be understood as real people, who actually lived in history.
children understanding
I find that children have very little trouble understanding non-literal stories.
attacking interest interested people
A lot of people hear me attacking their certainty. I don't have any interest in doing that. I'm interested in penetrating the meaning of certainty.