Justo L. Gonzalez Quotes & Sayings

To be priests does not mean primarily that we are our own individual priests, but rather that as part of the priestly people of God we are priests for the entire community of belief, and that they are priests for us - while all of us, as the believing community, are priests for the world. Rather than setting aside the need for the community of the church, the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers strengthens it. It is true that access to God is no longer controlled by a hierarchical priesthood. But we still stand in need of the community of believers, the body of Christ, in which each member is a priest for the rest, and feeds the rest. Without such nourishment, an isolated member cannot live. — Justo L. Gonzalez

A person wearing tinted glasses can avoid the conclusion that the entire world is tinted only by being conscious of the glasses themselves. — Justo L. Gonzalez

The eastern part of the Roman Empire spoke mostly Greek, and the western parts spoke mostly Latin. So very soon, you begin getting different emphases between the Eastern church and the Western church. — Justo L. Gonzalez

What good is it for you to be able to discuss the Trinity with great profundity, if you lack humility, and thereby offend the Trinity? Verily, high sounding words do not make one holy and just. But a life of virtue does make one acceptable to God. Were you to memorize the entire Bible and all the sayings of the philosophers, what good would this be for you without the love of God and without grace? Vanity of vanities. All is vanity, except loving God and serving only God.49 — Justo L. Gonzalez

In his Word we can never go astray. We can never be deluded or confounded or destroyed in his Word. If you think there can be no assurance or certainty for the soul, listen to the certainty of the Word of God. The soul can be instructed and enlightened ... so that it perceives that its whole salvation and righteousness, or justification, is enclosed in Jesus Christ."8 — Justo L. Gonzalez

If this were simply a story about the past, it would be appropriate to write, at the conclusion of Acts 28 as at the conclusion of a film, "The End." But since the story is unfinished, it is more appropriate to conclude it with, "RSVP," like an invitation that awaits a response. This is what Luke demands from us: not satisfied curiosity about the past, but a response here and now. RSVP! — Justo L. Gonzalez

It's a matter of each of the two churches being very deeply enculturated in its own setting and having difficulty understand the other. — Justo L. Gonzalez

All creation has come to existence because of God and continues existing because of God. Were God's sustaining power suddenly removed from creation, it would immediately vanish into nothingness. This includes the soul, which - precisely because it is a creature and not the Creator - cannot subsist without God's sustaining power. It is not that we live because we have a soul, but rather that we have a soul and we live thanks to God's sustaining grace. — Justo L. Gonzalez

Finally, Christians were accused of being subversive, for they refused to worship the emperor and thus destroyed the very fiber of society. The apologists answered that it was true that they refused to worship the emperor or any other creature, but that in spite of this they were loyal subjects of the empire. What the emperor needs - they said - is not to be worshiped, but to be served; and those who serve him best are those who pray for him and for the empire to the only true God. — Justo L. Gonzalez

According to Augustine, the power of sin is such that it takes hold of our will, and as long as we are under its sway we cannot move our will to be rid of it. The most we can accomplish is to struggle between willing and not willing, which does little more than show the powerlessness of our will against itself. The sinner can will nothing but sin. Within that condition, there certainly are good and bad choices; but even the best choices still fall within the category of sin. — Justo L. Gonzalez

The notion that we read the New Testament exactly as the early Christians did, without any weight of tradition coloring our interpretation, is an illusion. It is also a dangerous illusion, for it tends to absolutize our interpretation, confusing it with the Word of God. — Justo L. Gonzalez

As a result, much of what Luke has to say on the matter of gender lies hidden under layers of interpretation that we have received from earlier generations. It is therefore urgent, for the good of the church, that we continue unearthing what has been hidden. In this task, the many women who today are devoted to the careful study of the biblical text are making an important contribution. — Justo L. Gonzalez

History is not the pure past; history is a past interpreted from the present of the historian. — Justo L. Gonzalez

The Church must be one because a fragmented church is not much help to a fragmented world. — Justo L. Gonzalez