Dug Down Deep Quotes

“I especially loved the Old Testament. Even as a kid I had a sense of it being slightly illicit. As though someone had slipped an R-rated action movie into a pile of Disney DVDs. For starters Adam and Eve were naked on the first page. I was fascinated by Eve's ability to always stand in the Garden of Eden so that a tree branch or leaf was covering her private areas like some kind of organic bakini.

But it was the Bible's murder and mayhem that really got my attention. When I started reading the real Bible I spent most of my time in Genesis Exodus 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. Talk about violent. Cain killed Abel. The Egyptians fed babies to alligators. Moses killed an Egyptian. God killed thousands of Egyptians in the Red Sea. David killed Goliath and won a girl by bringing a bag of two hundred Philistine foreskins to his future father-in-law. I couldn't believe that Mom was so happy about my spending time each morning reading about gruesome battles prostitutes fratricide murder and adultery. What a way to have a "quiet time."

While I grew up with a fairly solid grasp of Bible stories I didn't have a clear idea of how the Bible fit together or what it was all about. I certainly didn't understand how the exciting stories of the Old Testament connected to the rather less-exciting New Testament and the story of Jesus.

This concept of the Bible as a bunch of disconnected stories sprinkled with wise advice and capped off with the inspirational life of Jesus seems fairly common among Christians. That is so unfortunate because to see the Bible as one book with one author and all about one main character is to see it in its breathtaking beauty.”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

“God’s purpose for the Christian’s involvement in the church was radically different from my gas-station approach. The church wasn’t merely a place to swing by for a fill-up. The journey of the Christian faith was supposed to be made with other believers. The church isn’t a gas station, I realized. It’s the bus I’m supposed to be traveling on.”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

“How rare it is, even among Christians, for a person to say “I was wrong. I sinned, and I’m fully responsible. My sinful desires motivated me, and what I did dishonored God and hurt you. Please forgive me.”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

“What we say we believe makes very little difference until we act on our belief”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

“Be like Josiah. When our lives disagree with the Word of God. I want to say, “This Word is true, and I must change.”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

“The irony of all this is that God of perfect justice is both the one for whom we long and the one whom we dread. We long for someone to set things right, to punish those who terrorize, molest, kills and enslave the innocent... we want a judge with total power and piercing commitment to righteousness. But when his eyes turn on us, we realize that we too, are guilty. We, too, deserve his judgement.”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

“Jesus calls his disciples to exert a double influence by bringing light into its darkness. For it is one thing to stop the spread of evil; it is another to promote the spread of truth, beauty and goodness.”
― Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters