I (Still) Believe Quotes

“5. We are always the “junior partner” in interpretation. The senior partner is God’s own Spirit. It is the Spirit who occupies not only the text, but the entire long procession of readers whose heirs we are. To confess the “one, holy, apostolic catholic church” is to acknowledge that we belong to a wondrous reading community. Such a company can protect us from excessive anxiety, for that company that invites us to read always reassures us in the midst of our reading, “Do not fear.”
― John Byron, I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

“the process of study is not simply (a) to defend old certitudes or (b) to abandon them in light of new critical learning. It is rather an agile readiness to reformulate in light of new awarenesses (and revelation!) that comes from being led by the Spirit out beyond our comfort zone through this strange book with its strange voice that brings us to the strange God who refuses to submit to our certitudes or our cultural expectations.”
― John Byron, I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

“In the latter stages of our failed society, I am increasingly convinced that the life and practice of the church may provide a radical and real alternative to the toxic ways of our society.”
― John Byron, I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

“I can only say that my own faith would be superficial had I known nothing but happiness.”
― John Byron, I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

“to go on hearing the Bible as the Word of God we must also do creative theology rooted in the Bible, theology that is not just a painstaking arrangement of proof-texts but draws on all the rich resources of understanding and experience that are available in our context and that engages the concerns and the challenges of our context.”
― John Byron, I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

“I don’t think I ever thought the early chapters of Genesis should be read “literally” in the creationist sense. But I did develop a strong commitment to reading Scripture as the word of God, which I have never lost, though I no longer find it necessary to say that, to be the word of God in human words, it needs to be inerrant. (I would now say that the Bible is trustworthy for the purposes for which God has given it.)”
― John Byron, I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship