Quotes from Leonard Sweet

The first word God speaks to human beings in the Bible—God's very first commandment—is "Eat freely" (Genesis 2:16, NASB). The last words out of God's mouth in the Bible—his final command? "Drink freely" (see Revelation 22:17).

Of the three traditional ways of making a living — mud, blood, and grease — preaching involves all three: the mud pies of creativity, the blood bank of living in the Word, and the grease pit of hard work and dirty hands.

To know the gospel . . . to really know the gospel . . . is to know him who is the good news.

The more I discover what I am, the more miserable I get; the more I discover who God is and who God made me, the happier I become.

preachertainment"?

Jesus didn't care about a "holy table" as the religious establishment defined "holy." For Jesus a holy table was one that was open to anyone, a table where all God's children were present.

In sum, if Jesus isn't surprising you, you've probably stopped growing spiritually.

True love frees us, and at the same time it binds us:

You never get a blessing for yourself. You get a blessing to bless others. In the words of the black church, "a blessing can't get to you unless it first can go through you." We are blessed to bless.

As science turns toward the realm of the Spirit to understand the physical universe, Space, Matter, Time are more prone to induce reverence than arrogance among scientists, who are sounding more like Isaiah in the temple than Isaac Newton under the apple tree.

It is more important that our churches have tables that are relationally correct than liturgically correct. Rules aren't "truth"; we don't follow out of slavish obedience to something absolute. We follow preestablished rules because we want to signal our love of community….

The meal is the message. The gospel is an invitation to go to Jesus' house for a meal. The life we live is the journey to that banquet….