Quote

Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity. But church is difficult. Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we have to deal with church. I say sooner.

Eugene H. Peterson

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Eugene H. Peterson
Age: 85 †
Born: 1932
Born: November 6
Died: 2018
Died: October 22
Author
Bible Translator
Theologian
Translator
University Teacher
Stanwood
Washington
Christ
Deal
Difficult
Deals
Grow
Serious
Textured
Growing
Context
Grows
Maturity
Though
Sooner
Church
Later

More quotes by Eugene H. Peterson

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I cannot fail to call the congregation to worship God, to listen to his Word, to offer themselves to God.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Jesus almost never talked in terms of explaining. He was always using enigmatic stories and difficult metaphors. He was always pulling people into some kind of participation.
Eugene H. Peterson
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We've all met a certain type of spiritual person. She's a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She's not a selfish person. But she's always at the center of everything she's doing.
Eugene H. Peterson
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It is easier to find guides, someone to tell you what to do, than someone to be with you in a discerning, prayerful companionship as you work it out yourself. This is what spiritual direction is.
Eugene H. Peterson
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There's nobody who doesn't have problems with the church, because there's sin in the church. But there's no other place to be a Christian except the church.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.
Eugene H. Peterson
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I get asked, 'What do you miss most about being a pastor?' I think it's the intimacy, the incredible gift of intimacy. You go through death with somebody, with their families, and there's an intimacy that comes through that that is just incomparable.
Eugene H. Peterson
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No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.
Eugene H. Peterson
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The hard work of sowing seed in what looks like perfectly empty earth has a time of harvest. All suffering, pain, emptiness, disappointment is seed: sow it in God and He will, finally, bring a crop of joy from it.
Eugene H. Peterson
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One of the reasons that Christians read Scripture repeatedly and carefully is to find out just how God works in Jesus Christ so that we can work in the name of Jesus Christ.
Eugene H. Peterson
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A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she acquires an appetite for the world of grace.
Eugene H. Peterson
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People learn to shop for churches there is no loyalty to the church. They're consumers being attracted to one product or another. I think it's sacrilege, to tell you the truth, it really is.
Eugene H. Peterson
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I believe God takes the things in our lives - family, background, education - and uses them as part of his calling. It might not be to become a pastor. But I don't think God wastes anything.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...'I will do my best with what is here.'
Eugene H. Peterson
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It's essential for us to develop an imagination that is participatory. Art is the primary way in which this happens. It's the primary way in which we become what we see or hear.
Eugene H. Peterson
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If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to your life.
Eugene H. Peterson
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Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.
Eugene H. Peterson
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God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.
Eugene H. Peterson