Quotes from Peter Enns

Christ is the ultimate example of how God enters the messiness of history to save his people.

Here is another strategy for the sentence completion exercise: Sure, Jesus talks about loving your enemies, but Jesus also talks about throwing sinners into hell to burn forever. Since eternal damnation is far worse than exterminating merely one ancient people for their land, the argument goes, don't get all worked up about the Canaanites. Crisis averted. No, it's not.

judging by how the Bible actually behaves—God did not design scripture to be a hushed afternoon in an oak-paneled library. Instead, God has invited us to participate in a wrestling match, a forum for us to be stretched and to grow.

Sticking to the Bible at every turn, like it's an owner's manual or book of instruction, as the way to know God misses what Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers show us again and again: the words on the page of the Bible don't drive the story, Jesus does. Jesus is bigger than the Bible. For

None of these modern adaptations is "in the Bible," and yet even the most committed "rulebook Bible" readers out there wind up adapting what the Bible says, because we have to—if we want that ancient text to continue to speak to us today.

Anyway, we don't need to get into all that. My point is simply, no, King David, the heavens are not telling the glory of God (Ps. 19:1)—at least not without a lot of heavy theological lifting and perhaps a double bourbon. The heavens actually freak me out and make me wonder whether there is a God at all

The broader we cast our net, the deeper we wind up owning our own thoughts.

We can well imagine Jews feeling a bit out of their element—maybe intimidated and shamed by their own story, which began in slavery, ended in exile, and with absolutely zero contributions to philosophy or science. "Some 'chosen people'! What kind of God did you say you follow? Apparently one who lets bad things happen to you.

I think of Christians who, having been raised to read the Genesis creation story as literal science and history, leave for college, watch the History Channel, or log onto the internet, and find out that fossils and radiometric dating are in fact not hoaxes. That's how nice Christian college freshmen become atheists by Christmas break. If your faith can unravel that quickly, it's enough to make you question whether your faith is worth the effort at all.

In the spiritual life, the opposite of fear is not courage, but trust.

The Bible looks the way it does because "God lets his children tell the story," so to speak.

I didn't know how to "do" faith without making sure my thoughts about God were lined up, and so, once those thoughts failed to be compelling, my faith sank.