Quotes from Peter Enns

That model is built on seeing God as a relentless, compassionate inner presence in my life, always beckoning me forward. That model is one of peace, curiosity, and hopefulness and rests on my embrace of the mystery and love of God.

Getting there is all about dying, and each cycle of dying and rising we come to in our lives brings us, I believe, to greater insight into our deep selves, where Christ lives "in us" and our lives are "hidden" in God.

A faith that rests on knowing, where you have to "know what you believe" in order to have faith, is disaster upon disaster waiting to happen. It values too highly our mental abilities. All it takes to ruin that kind of faith is a better argument. And there's always a better argument out there somewhere.

Of course, we all know that dying, rising again, Christ in me, hidden in God, seated in heaven are metaphors—the use of common language to grasp the uncommon, a reality too deep and thick for conventional vocabulary. Following Jesus is an inside-out transformation so thorough that dying and coming back to life is the only adequate way to put it.

I am seeking to live into the sacred space of God's Presence with curiosity, hope, peace, and love of others. I believe this is the type of relationship God seeks to have with us.

More than anything, studying the Bible with Jews dislodged my parochial thinking about God, and it's had a lasting impact. Over time, I came to appreciate firsthand the richness and depth of that tradition. I also felt some shame for never really being exposed to it before,

Doubt signals that this process of dying and rising is underway. Though God feels far away, at that moment God may be closer than we realize—especially if "know what you believe" is how we're used to thinking of our faith.

Strict legalism is a myth. Laws have a knack for ambiguity, and it only takes a moment of reflection to see that they have to be interpreted, which isn't exactly breaking news. The entire history of Judaism and Christianity bears witness to people of faith doing just that.

Doubt is sacred. Doubt is God's instrument, will arrive in God's time, and will come from unexpected places—places out of your control. And when it does, resist the fight-or-flight impulse. Pass through it—patiently, honestly, and courageously for however long it takes. True transformation takes time.

In the entertaining story in 1 Kings 18: 20—40, the prophet Elijah* teases and mocks the priests of the Canaanite god Baal when their god does not show up for a divine duel with Yahweh. At one point Elijah even suggests that perhaps Baal needed to use the restroom, which is to say he isn't a god at all. I'm not kidding. He has wandered away in verse 27 is a euphemism for going potty.

Rather, it was written to tell the Israelites that their God, and not the gods of the other nations, was the chaos tamer, and therefore, this God and this God alone was worthy of worship. And they made this point in ancient terms, using ancient ways of thinking.

Over the years I've grown more and more convinced that "storytelling" is a better way of understanding what the Bible is doing with the past than "history writing.