Top 100 Rob Bell Quotes
#1. What does happen constantly with all kinds of people I meet is they say "I had this encounter with Jesus, can you help me understand it ... " The labels, more than ever, simply aren't big enough to contain what the cosmic Christ is up to in the world.
Rob Bell
#2. People are rarely persuaded by arguments, but more often by experiences.
Rob Bell
#3. I get ideas about things I want to make and then I throw myself into it with everything I have.
Rob Bell
#4. Wherever you find truth, wherever you discover something new, affirm it, embrace it, enjoy it.
Rob Bell
#5. The priest's work, the priest's service, was understoon as an act of worship. Theis was Gods desire at Sinai - thst everybody would understand their roles as priests. Thst everybody would worship God by serving each other.
Rob Bell
#6. For a staggering number of people in our world the for of the Jesus message has been buried under a massive pile of againsts. Somewhere
Rob Bell
#7. When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of the God who is an endless giving circle of joy and creativity.
Rob Bell
#8. This is because conviction and humility, like faith and doubt, are not opposites; they're dance partners. It's possible to hold your faith with open hands, living with great conviction and yet at the same time humbly admitting that your knowledge and perspective will always be limited.
Rob Bell
#9. The cross is Gods way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.
Rob Bell
#10. You want people who are both great fans and supporters and believers of your work and people who are also ruthlessly honest. People who will tell you the truth about it. Over the years I've picked up some friends and I know who to show what to and they'll give me the proper read.
Rob Bell
#11. I thought that Christian was a noun, a person looking for authenticity. I never understood that idea that a band could be Christian or something could be Christian. But it just can be and is.
Rob Bell
#12. The first word about you is that you received this life ...
Rob Bell
#13. What's interesting is, if you take the scientists and the theologians, the really good ones, they end up both filled with this wide-eyed sense of wonder and awe about look at this world we live in.
Rob Bell
#14. For many, 'desire' is a bad word, something we're supposed to 'give up for God.' That kind of thinking can be really destructive because it teaches people to deny their hearts, their true selves.
Rob Bell
#15. God is bigger than the Christian faith.
Rob Bell
#16. I believe our world desperately needs Good News.
Rob Bell
#17. All work is ultimately creative work because all of us are taking part in the ongoing creation of the world. There's
Rob Bell
#18. People aren't static; they're dynamic - endlessly complex and capable of tremendous surprise and change.
Rob Bell
#19. When you forgive somebody, when you are generous, when you withhold judgment, when you love and when you stand up to injustice, you are, in that moment, bringing heaven to earth.
Rob Bell
#20. It is such a letdown to rise from the dead and have your friends not recognize you.
Rob Bell
#21. I am for you.
I've got your back.
I am committed to your best.
Help me understand things from your perspective.
What can we do together to change things?
Rob Bell
#22. This is why for thousands of years Christians have found the cross to be so central to life. It speaks to us of God's suffering, God's pain, God's broken heart. It's God making the first move and then waiting for our response.
Rob Bell
#23. Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.
Rob Bell
#24. We need a childlike trust that God is good ... ultimately we are OK. That is a simple, beautiful pure thing that can be complicated ferociously by all sorts of intellectual categories.
Rob Bell
#25. Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you feel better - you feel cleansed - when you're done.
Rob Bell
#26. To elevate abstract doctrines and dogmas over living, breathing, embodied experiences of God's love and grace, then, is going the wrong direction. It's taking flesh and turning it back into words.
Rob Bell
#27. When someone wrongs us, we rarely (if ever) want to do the same thing back. Why? Because we want to do something more harmful. Likewise, when someone insults us, our instinct is to search for words that will be more insulting.
Revenge always escalates.
Rob Bell
#28. Well, I affirm orthodox Christian faith. I affirm the Nicene Creed. I don't think I'm doing anything terribly new.
Rob Bell
#29. The interactions I have are with people who are very kind and very grateful and they say very overwhelming things to me. Somebody who doesn't like what I do or doesn't understand it, then it wasn't for them.
Rob Bell
#30. We live in a world where we have friends, neighbors, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, people we journey with for years who are gay. And we need to love, affirm and all of us together work on the real problems that we have in the world.
Rob Bell
#31. Any time someone makes you feel guilty about how you are living, that is part of the old system (pre-Christ).
Rob Bell
#32. Something is profoundly wrong and we are desperate for justice, for restoration and for somebody somewhere to do something about this.
Rob Bell
#33. Christian' makes a poor adjective
Rob Bell
#34. In every life there is an energy field created because we are energy, giving out energy, creating energy .
Rob Bell
#35. It is better to be fully present and rested and engaged for one thing than rushed, distracted, and scattered for ten.
Rob Bell
#36. Over the years, I've realized that I have as much in common with the performance artist, the standup comedian, the screenwriter, as I do with the theologian. I'm in an odd world where I make things and share them with people.
Rob Bell
#37. We are not only working on our game, we are working on ourselves.
Rob Bell
#38. An image of God doesn't contain God, in the same way a word about God or a doctrine or a dogma about God isn't God; it only points to God.
Rob Bell
#39. My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged.
Rob Bell
#40. Churches and religious communities and organizations can claim to speak for God while at the same time actually being behind the movement of God that is continuing forward in the culture around them ...
without their participation.
Rob Bell
#41. Whatever those things are that make you feel fully alive and like the universe is ultimately a good place and you are not alone, I need a faith that doesn't deny these moments but embraces them.
Rob Bell
#42. People received, affirmed and experienced grace in many different forms.
Rob Bell
#43. I'm interested in painting the most beautifully compelling pictures and images and metaphors and stories and explanations possible that will put Jesus in language for a world that desperately needs to hear it.
Rob Bell
#44. If it is true, if it is beautiful, if it is honorable, if it is right, then claim it. Because it is from God. And you belong to God.
Rob Bell
#45. I embrace the term 'evangelical,' if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That's a beautiful sort of thing.
Rob Bell
#46. It's easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams ... that is being naked.
Rob Bell
#47. There's way too much wonder and mystery all around us to not stay open to more that's going on here. You can wake up, and sense and feel and taste and hear a whole world right here within this one, right here in this breath you're about to take.
Rob Bell
#48. That breath that you just took, that's a gift!
Rob Bell
#49. When someone sets out to be controversial or provocative or shocking as an end in itself, I don't think that's a noble goal.
Rob Bell
#50. The Bible tells a story. A story that isn't over. A story that is still being told. A story that we have a part to play in.
Rob Bell
#51. It's all - let's use a very specific word here - miraculous. You, me, love, quarks, sex, chocolate, the speed of light - it's all miraculous, and it always has been.
Rob Bell
#52. But sometimes when I hear people quote the Bible, I just want to throw up.
Rob Bell
#53. How we respond to what happens to us - especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over - is a creative act.
Rob Bell
#54. When you get married you're starting a conversation that never ends,
Rob Bell
#55. I like to say that I practice militant mysticism. I'm really absolutely sure of some things that I don't quite know.
Rob Bell
#56. The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God.
Rob Bell
#57. It's in that place that we're reminded that true life comes when we're willing to admit that we've reached the end of ourselves, we've given up, we've let go, we're willing to die to all of our desires to figure it out and be in control. We lose our life, only to find it.
Rob Bell
#58. Holism is when two plus two equals infinity.
Rob Bell
#59. Celebrity seems totally at odds with authentic community and honest, real sorts of relationships.
Rob Bell
#60. Creating and sharing beautiful things has provided me with the inspiration that we can do things we never thought we could do and that we will get to see wonderful things we never thought we would see.
Rob Bell
#61. I do a meet and greet after every show in which I tell the audience that I would love to thank every single one of them for coming. Which a lot of people take me up on! So I get to meet hundreds and hundreds of people every night, night after night.
Rob Bell
#62. all of life matters, all work is holy, all moments sacred, all encounters with others encounters with the divine.
Rob Bell
#63. To be honest with you, I am passionate about all the people out there who want to know Jesus, they want to know God, and they are sick of a system that is hung up on a bunch of things that have nothing to do with the love of God.
Rob Bell
#64. If there's any place where you would express your deepest doubts, it would be church.
Rob Bell
#65. when people debate faith vs. science they've already missed the point. Faith is about embracing truth wherever it's found, and that of course includes science.) He's
Rob Bell
#66. One of the great "theologians" of our time, Sean Penn, put it this way: "When everything gets answered, it's fake. The mystery is the truth."21
Rob Bell
#67. I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs
I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.
Rob Bell
#68. At any moment in the day, you can only do one thing at a time. And the more intentional you are about knowing what your 1 is, the more present you will be.
Rob Bell
#69. The question, then, the art, the task, the search, the challenge, the invitation is for you and me to become more and more the kind of people who are aware of the divine presence, attuned to the ruach,
Rob Bell
#70. Swords appear strong, but they're actually quite weak. Jesus appears weak, but he's actually quite strong.
Rob Bell
#72. Jesus did not use hell to try and compel "heathens" and "pagans" to believe in God, so they wouldn't burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God's love.
Rob Bell
#73. One truth is that suffering raises profound questions with the universe. The other truth is that grace, gift and generosity also raise profound questions.
Rob Bell
#74. You can be living in a big house, driving a nice car, going on exotic vacations and still be empty inside, crippled with fear and dread.
Rob Bell
#75. You can set your intention to better understand your soul, your spirit, through daily practices like prayer, yoga and meditation, etc.
Rob Bell
#76. As a pastor, you get invited into the most poignant moments of people's lives. Whether it's a wedding or a funeral or a hospital visit, you get invited into the center of the event, whether or not you know the people.
Rob Bell
#77. My experience is that lots of people go to church, sing the songs, tell the story, etc but have profound ambivalence about God.
Rob Bell
#78. I believe that God is with you, that there is a presence. I believe this God is for you. I don't think the universe is a cold, dead place that is indifferent.
Rob Bell
#79. But it isn't a choice, because Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life." If you come across truth in any form, it isn't outside your faith as a Christian. Your faith just got bigger. To be a Christian is to claim truth wherever you find it.
Rob Bell
#80. The lesson that has been hardest for me to learn: there is nothing to prove.
Rob Bell
#81. Many people need a new rewiring of their heart and mind.
Rob Bell
#82. God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2). So does God get what God wants?
Rob Bell
#83. On the Sabbath- we are reminded that we are not human doings, but human beings.
Rob Bell
#84. Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.
Rob Bell
#85. The myth of redemptive violence - Caesar, peace, and victory - is in people's bones so deeply, we aren't even aware of it. You crush the opposition; that's how we bring peace.
Rob Bell
#86. We embrace truth wherever we find it from whoever says it however we come across it. It's a big beautiful exotic heartbreaking mysterious world we live in and it's our home and we get to explore and learn and affirm truth wherever we find it.
Rob Bell
#87. Decide now that you will not spend your precious energy speculating about someone else's life and how it compares with yours.
Rob Bell
#88. In those moments when the two of you see things differently, you can hold on to your view, defending it and protecting it and arguing for its superiority, or you can allow your perspective to be broadened, enriched, expanded, and deepened.
Rob Bell
#89. It takes quite a spine to turn the other cheek. It takes phenomenal fortitude to love your enemy. It takes firm resolve to pray for those who persecute you. (with reference to Matthew 5)
Rob Bell
#90. The Christian faith is mysterious to the core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can't be put into words. Language fails. And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not.
Rob Bell
#91. The best team does not always win, it's the team that plays the best.
Rob Bell
#92. Because sometimes you need a biologist, and sometimes you need a poet. Sometimes you need a scientist, and sometimes you need a song.
Rob Bell
#93. Grace is when you know you're loved exactly as you are.
Rob Bell
#94. I think that grace and love always rattle people.
Rob Bell
#95. Pain has a way of making us more honest.
Rob Bell
#96. I am for love, whether it's a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man.
Rob Bell
#97. When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of god.
Rob Bell
#98. The fundamental story arc of the Bible is God is passionate about rescuing this world, restoring it, renewing it.
Rob Bell
#99. I believe that God is love. I believe that Jesus came to show us this love, to give us this love, to teach us about this love, so that we could live in this love and extend it to others.
Rob Bell
#100. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear,
Rob Bell
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