A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

by Winn Collier

Perhaps Eugene moved toward outsiders because he felt like one himself.

But he still felt like an outsider. This likely was due in part to his rigid Pentecostal upbringing that caused him to view others with suspicion. But it was also him. The sense of not quite fitting in was part of his interior reality, an inner quality that would eventually shape his gifting and legacy.

if we are ever to crown Jesus as king of our hearts, it will happen “among confession and tears and great laughter.”

For two hours every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I walk through the neighborhood and make home visits. There is no way that I can preach the gospel to these people if I don’t know how they are living, what they are thinking and talking about. Preaching is proclamation, God’s word revealed in Jesus, but only when it gets embedded in conversation, in a listening ear and responding tongue, does it become gospel.

Bono a true prophet, giving an unobtrusive Christian witness.

To be unbusy, you have to be disengaged from egos—both yours and others—and start dealing with souls. Souls cannot be hurried.

The strongest sign of authenticity in what you and I are doing is the inadequacy we feel most of the time.

All my instincts are on the universalist side—Barth and MacDonald and Buechner and many others. But, you’re right, the Bible doesn’t allow for dogmatism or certainty on it. So what I think is, the ambiguity of scripture is deliberate on God’s part. It wouldn’t be good for us to be too sure of ourselves in this regard. The tenor and thrust of both scripture and theology and yes, life itself is universalistic. But no good writer is interested in explaining everything so we have it nailed down, but in involving us in the relationships and plot and imagination of the world he/she is creating. God is the author in this case and there is a lot more going on than a saved/unsaved or hell/no hell in the story that he is pulling us into.

First, I need to say that [this] is the most difficult area to deal with that I have had to deal with in my lifetime. And I don’t have a clear “position” worked out. But I do have some reflections. Two, it is pretty clear that homosexual orientation as such is not a sin. I think the evidence is pretty clear on that by this time. Three, it is not at all clear that the citations of homosexuality in the Bible are covered by what is being discussed now by the church. The ancient world was rife with male prostitutes and temples were where they did their business. What Israel and [the] church were faced with was widespread promiscuity associated with pagan religion. Four, matters of sexuality are very much shaped by culture. Polygamy was common in the Hebrew world—David had nine wives! As for “adhering to scripture” there is a great deal that we commonly interpret contextually: the food laws in Leviticus, for instance; the acceptance of slavery; the rule to stone an adulterer; the death penalty for not honoring father and mother…and even more recently, citing Bible verses, adultery (even for the “innocent” party) disqualified a person from any leadership in church. Five, there are a considerable number of biblical scholars and theologians who are evangelical and take the Bible with utmost seriousness who are convinced that the homosexuality mentioned in scripture has to do with promiscuity and pagan religion (as I mentioned above). The biblical world had no notion of what is bei...

It takes an unhurried while. Then, There it is: absences become Presence.