Quotes from Peter Enns

So much can be learned from other traditions. In the long history of the Christian church, so many different, even conflicting, points of view have been embraced as true and valuable.

We should not be surprised when we find ourselves in a similar spot, experiencing a God who is not beholden to our thinking, a God who doesn't act according to our sense of certainty, even if we can find a Bible verse or two to back it up. God can't be proof-texted. God will not be backed into a corner.

Belief and faith always have content—a what. But a faith that looks like what the Bible describes is rooted deeply in trust in God (rather than ourselves) and in faithfulness to God by being humbly faithful to others (as the Father and Son have been faithful to us). That's basically it—though it's anything but easy.

I believe that God is more interested in the who. And that means walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Better: it means walking the walk when no words are left. That is trust.

When we grab hold of "correct" thinking for dear life, when we refuse to let go because we think that doing so means letting go of God, when we dig in our heels and stay firmly planted even when we sense that we need to let go and move on, at that point we are trusting our thoughts rather than God. We have turned away from God's invitation to trust in order to cling to an idol.

There's an irony: the passionate defense of the Bible as a "history book" among the more conservative wings of Christianity, despite intentions, isn't really an act of submission to God; it is making God submit to us. In

I believe that the Bible does not model a faith that depends on certainty for the simple fact that the Bible does not provide that kind of certainty. Rather, in all its messy diversity, the Bible models trust in God that does not rest on whether we are able to be clear and certain about what to believe.

In other words, I believe that faith in the Creator is necessarily transrational (not antirational) and mystical. I try to remember that as I work through intellectual challenges—and I mean work through, not avoid.

I hear Aslan's words to Shasta: "'Child,' said the Lion, 'I am telling you your story. . . . I tell no one any story but his own.

Christianity is a setup for letting go of certainty. The two pillars of the Christian faith express the mystery of faith: incarnation and resurrection. Of course, there's more to the Christian faith, but two elements make Christianity what it is, and both dodge our powers of thought and speech.

followers of Jesus always have and always will meet Jesus and see him from where they are and they will experience Jesus differently as a result.

We should feel free to see a tension in Paul's thinking, a paradox as I mentioned earlier: what God has done in Jesus is deeply connected to Israel's story while at the same time breaking out of the confines of that story. As soon as we try to resolve that paradox in Paul we will misunderstand him.