Quotes about Meaning

The deeper problem here is the unspoken need for our thinking about God to be right in order to have a joyful, freeing, healing, and meaningful faith. The problem is trusting our beliefs rather than trusting God.

The Bible's diversity is the key to uncovering the Bible's true purpose for us.

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.

Wherever biblical writers talk about the past, we should expect them to be shaping the past as well.

Forty is a go-to number symbolizing a complete or "right" period of time, and "480" is twelve times forty—twelve likely symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel. The number is symbolic. It draws on ancient conventions of the symbolic value of round numbers to mark off a sacred moment.

Placeholder theology is the very nature of theology. By it we acknowledge the human need to say something about ultimate meaning concerning the Creator and the creation while also understanding that what we say will never say it all.

Christians should not search through the creation stories for scientific information they believe it is important to see there. They should read it, as the New Testament writers did, as ancient stories transformed in Christ.

Whether we are aware of it or not, behind our religious deliberations, in one form or another, we are really asking a deeply foundational question, "What kind of God do I believe in, really?" This is not a luxury question for those with idle time on their hands, but exactly the kind of question we should deliberately bring to the front of our consciousness as an expression of responsible faith; it is not evidence that our faith is weakening.

Wisdom, in other words, was not an add-on, but was always central for obeying any law in the Bible. Laws, once we begin thinking about what they mean and how they are to be obeyed, actually push us to seek wisdom, which goes beyond mechanical obedience. It's not surprising, therefore, that ancient Jews came to think of wisdom and Law as inseparable—they need each other to work, like needing a pin number to access your cash.

Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice" people, not heroes.

Jacob called the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.

both of these men—the Egyptian king’s cupbearer and baker, who were being held in the prison—had a dream on the same night, and each dream had its own meaning.