Eugene H. Peterson > Quotes

“The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar terrritory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

“When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

“When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves. ”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the ...moment.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

“To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that are often unsaid but always derivative from Jesus, formed by the influence of Jesus. To follow Jesus means that we can't separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the way that he is doing it. To follow Jesus is as much, or maybe even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes" (The Way of Jesus, Eugene H. Peterson, 22).”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“It is easier to find guides, someone to tell you what to do, than someone to be with you in a discerning, prayerful companionship as you work it out yourself. This is what spiritual direction is.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“American religion is conspicuous for its messianically pretentious energy, its embarassingly banal prose, and its impatiently hustling ambition.”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“The vocation of pastor(s) has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir

“Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

“... The witness is frequent and insistent that God is inherently relational and personal. So God cannot be either received or understood apart from our being personal and realtional as well. That most emphatically excludes the detached intellect as a way of knowing God. It excludes programmatic work as a way of knowing God. It excludes cultivation of the ecstatic and visionary as a way of knowing God. God is not an abstract idea that can be mastered, not an impersonal force that can be used, not a private experience that can be indulged." Eugene Peterson, "Living the Resurrection" (106).”
― Eugene H. Peterson

“Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity. But church is difficult. Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we have to deal with church. I say sooner.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ

“I was astonished to learn in one of these best-selling books (on church life) that the size of my church parking lot had far more to do with how things fared in my congregation than my choice of texts in preaching. I was being lied to and I knew it.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir

“Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but at least, in America, almost never against the crowds.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir