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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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Eugene H. Peterson
Age: 85 †
Born: 1932
Born: November 6
Died: 2018
Died: October 22
Author
Bible Translator
Theologian
Translator
University Teacher
Stanwood
Washington
Wisdom
Whatever
Living
Art
Find
Skillfully
Actuality
Actual
Conditions
More quotes by Eugene H. Peterson
Love is not a word that describes my feelings it is not a technique by which I fulfill my needs it is not an ideal, abstract and pure, on which I meditate or discourse. It is acting in correspondence with or in response to God in relation to persons.
Eugene H. Peterson
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
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
The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract.
Eugene H. Peterson
You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.
Eugene H. Peterson
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
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
My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.
Eugene H. Peterson
The religious leader is the most untrustworthy of leaders in no other station do we have so many opportunities for pride, covetousness and lust, and with so many excellent disguises to keep such ignobility from being found out and called to account.
Eugene H. Peterson
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
The minute the church and pastors start saying what do people want and then giving it to them, we betray our calling. We're called to have people follow Jesus. We're called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies.
Eugene H. Peterson
There is nothing terribly difficult in the Bible - at least in a technical way. The Bible is written in street language, common language. Most of it was oral and spoken to illiterate people. They were the first ones to receive it. So when we make everything academic, we lose something.
Eugene H. Peterson
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
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
In high school I was very much involved in poetry. You cannot read a poem quickly. There's too much going on there. There are rhythms and alliterations. You have to read poetry slow, slow, slow to absorb it all.
Eugene H. Peterson
Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.
Eugene H. Peterson
If you don't take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You're doing too much, you're being too much in charge. You've got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you're not doing anything.
Eugene H. Peterson
That's the whole spiritual life. It's learning how to die. And as you learn how to die, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable now of true intimacy and love.
Eugene H. Peterson
Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.
Eugene H. Peterson
Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness gets headlines.
Eugene H. Peterson
