Rob Bell Quotes & Sayings

To say it again, eternal life is less about a kind of time that starts when we die, and more about a quality and vitality of life now in connection to God.
Eternal life doesn't start when we die;
it starts now. It's not about a life that begins at death; it's about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death. — Rob Bell

Wherever you find truth, wherever you discover something new, affirm it, embrace it, enjoy it. — Rob Bell

At the center of the Christian tradition since the first church have been a number who insist that history is not tragic, hell is not forever, and love, in the end, wins and all will be reconciled to God. — Rob Bell

People aren't static; they're dynamic - endlessly complex and capable of tremendous surprise and change. — Rob Bell

Be honest about your joy. — Rob Bell

God gives us what we want. For people who want nothing to do with peace, joy, reconciliation and peace ... God will give you what you want. I see people make unbelievably destructive choices. — Rob Bell

The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination. — Rob Bell

There's nothing wrong with possessions; it's just that they have value to us only when we use them, engage them, and enjoy them. They're nouns that mean something only in conjunction with verbs. That's why wealth is so dangerous: if you're not careful you can easily end up with a garage full of nouns. — Rob Bell

At any moment in the day, you can only do one thing at a time. And the more intentional you are about knowing what your 1 is, the more present you will be. — Rob Bell

It's all - let's use a very specific word here - miraculous. You, me, love, quarks, sex, chocolate, the speed of light - it's all miraculous, and it always has been. — Rob Bell

When you forgive somebody, when you are generous, when you withhold judgment, when you love and when you stand up to injustice, you are, in that moment, bringing heaven to earth. — Rob Bell

I thought that Christian was a noun, a person looking for authenticity. I never understood that idea that a band could be Christian or something could be Christian. But it just can be and is. — Rob Bell

One of the oldest aches in the bones of humanity is loneliness. I mean it's one of the things that goes way back; loneliness is not good for the world. And so, whoever you are, gay or straight, it is totally normal, natural, and healthy to want somebody to go through life with. It's central to our humanity. — Rob Bell

Atoms are a relationship of energy. You are a relationship of energy interacting with another person who is another complex relationship of energy. We all exchange more than words with each other ... We are made of the same substance as rocks and stars.. We are an exotic cocktail living on this planet.. We live in this universe which is a self-transcending reality — Rob Bell

The myth of redemptive violence - Caesar, peace, and victory - is in people's bones so deeply, we aren't even aware of it. You crush the opposition; that's how we bring peace. — Rob Bell

I'm convinced being generous is a better way to live. I'm convinced forgiving people and not carrying around bitterness is a better way to live. I'm convinced having compassion is a better way to live. I'm convinced pursuing peace in every situation is a better way to live. I'm convinced listening to the wisdom of others is a better way to live. I'm convinced being honest with people is a better way to live. — Rob Bell

Fear wants us to become obsessed with some event or person in the future, a year, a month, even a day. It also wants us to look backwards not at our successes, but our short-comings and our failures. Fear losses it's grip when we stay in the now. — Rob Bell

The world is desperately in need of people who will break themselves open and pour themselves out for the reconciliation of all things- that's what the world needs. — Rob Bell

This is a book about seeing, about becoming more and more alive and aware, orienting ourselves around the God who I believe is the ground of our being, the electricity that lights up the whole house, the transcendent presence in our tastes, sights, and sensations of the depth and dimension and fullness of life, from joy to agony to everything else. — Rob Bell

A lot of Christians have been taught a story that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis, instead of chapter 1. If your story doesn't begin in the beginning, but begins in chapter 3, then it starts with sin, and so the story becomes about dealing with the sin problem. So Jesus is seen as primarily dealing with our sins. — Rob Bell

The Bible itself is a book that constantly must be wrestled with and re-interpreted ... Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader's bias and current realities. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. — Rob Bell

Are you breathing? Are you here? Did you just take a breath? Are you about to take another? Do you have a habit of regularly doing this? Gift. Gift. Gift. Whatever else has happened in your life - failure, pain, heartache, abuse, loss - the first thing that can be said about you is that you have received a gift. Often — Rob Bell

Suffering, it turns out, demands profound imagination. A new future has to be conjured up because the old future isn't there anymore. — Rob Bell

I feel like I've gotten an extraordinary opportunity to experience a sort of collective humanity. If you hug many people in such a short period of days you pick up on a communal energy, almost like feeling a giant heartbeat that everyone is beating together. — Rob Bell

I am for love, whether it's a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. — Rob Bell

People have a view of a God who is terrible that they can't even imagine being loving or wanting anything to do with. — Rob Bell

When someone sets out to be controversial or provocative or shocking as an end in itself, I don't think that's a noble goal. — Rob Bell

In every life there is an energy field created because we are energy, giving out energy, creating energy . — Rob Bell

Whatever we say about God always rests within the larger reality of what we can't say; meaning always resides within a larger mystery; knowing always takes place within unknowing; whatever has been revealed to us surrounded by that which hasn't been revealed to us. — Rob Bell

when people debate faith vs. science they've already missed the point. Faith is about embracing truth wherever it's found, and that of course includes science.) He's — Rob Bell

God is always present. We're the ones who show up. — Rob Bell

It's absolutely crucial that we come face to face with the power of our choices. — Rob Bell

It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything, or achieve anything, or accomplish one more thing. That, exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance. — Rob Bell

What would it look like for you to approach tomorrow with a sense of honor and privilege, believing that you have work to do in the world, that it matters, that it's needed, that you have a path and you're working your craft? — Rob Bell

It's easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams ... that is being naked. — Rob Bell

Boredom, cynicism, and despair are spiritual diseases because they disconnect us from the most primal truth about ourselves - that we are here. — Rob Bell

This breath, and this moment, and this life is a gift and we are all in this together. We all have countless choices every day to close down or stand up straight and open up, and take a big breath and say YES to the gift. — Rob Bell

Your deepest, darkest sins and your shameful secrets are simply irrelevant when it comes to the counterintuitive, ecstatic announcement of the gospel. So are your goodness, your rightness, your church attendance, and all of the wise, moral, mature decisions you have made and actions you have taken. — Rob Bell

For many people, God is primitive, behind, trying to drag everything back to some prehistoric era as opposed to spirit, force, love, drawing us into a better future, which to me is - that story has done something in me and I've seen it do things in other people. — Rob Bell

I actually think there is hell because we see hell every day. — Rob Bell

God is in the best, and also the worst. God is in the presence, and also in the absence. God is in the power, and also in the powerlessness. — Rob Bell

But when we talk about God, we're talking about the very straightforward affirmation that everything has a singular, common source and is infinitely, endlessly, deeply connected. — Rob Bell

The hardness of the human heart makes no sense. — Rob Bell

People deal with their shadow side in a number of ways, the most common way being to find outside enemies and point to them, demonizing them and blaming them for long lists of perceived evils. This strategy often does a very effective job of helping us avoid that which lurks within us. Politicians and radio talk-show hosts and pastors can become very skilled in this, constantly pointing out the darkness and evil and twisted ways of others to avoid dealing with the doubts and insecurities and questions they bear in their own bones. — Rob Bell

Find your rituals, develop your routines, create those practices that ground and center you. Stick to them, don't apologize for them, treat them, even the small things, like they're big things. — Rob Bell

This is why for thousands of years Christians have found the cross to be so central to life. It speaks to us of God's suffering, God's pain, God's broken heart. It's God making the first move and then waiting for our response. — Rob Bell

The question, then, the art, the task, the search, the challenge, the invitation is for you and me to become more and more the kind of people who are aware of the divine presence, attuned to the ruach, — Rob Bell

What we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like. — Rob Bell

Whether we are reading the Bible for the first time or standing in a field in Israel next to a historian and an archaeologist and a scholar, the Bible meets us where we are. That is what truth does — Rob Bell

I embrace the term 'evangelical,' if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That's a beautiful sort of thing. — Rob Bell

Suffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise. — Rob Bell

For Jesus, the question wasn't, "How do I get into heaven?" but "How do I bring heaven here? — Rob Bell

My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged. — Rob Bell

The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true. — Rob Bell

Jesus did not use hell to try and compel "heathens" and "pagans" to believe in God, so they wouldn't burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God's love. — Rob Bell

This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear, — Rob Bell

My experience as a pastor is lots of people have really toxic, dangerous, psychologically devastating images of God in their head, images of a God who's not good. — Rob Bell

This is because conviction and humility, like faith and doubt, are not opposites; they're dance partners. It's possible to hold your faith with open hands, living with great conviction and yet at the same time humbly admitting that your knowledge and perspective will always be limited. — Rob Bell

Nerves are God's gift to you, reminding you that your life is not passing you by,

Make friend with the butterflies.

Welcome them when they come,
revel in them,
enjoy them,
and if they go away,
do whatever it takes to put yourself in a position where they return.

Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like life is passing you by. — Rob Bell

What we see in these passages is God meeting people, tribes, and cultures right where they are and drawing and inviting and calling them forward, into greater and greater shalom and respect and rights and peace and dignity and equality. It's as if human history were progressing along a trajectory, an arc, a continuum; and sacred history is the capturing and recording of those moments when people became aware that they were being called and drawn and pulled forward by the divine force and power and energy that gives life to everything. — Rob Bell

That breath that you just took, that's a gift! — Rob Bell

But sometimes when I hear people quote the Bible, I just want to throw up. — Rob Bell

It's important to embrace several truths about yourself and those around you, beginning with this one: who you AREN'T isn't interesting. — Rob Bell

No one has the last word other than God. — Rob Bell

First, I'm a Christian, and so Jesus is how I understand God. I realize that for some people, hearing talk about Jesus shrinks and narrows the discussion about God, but my experience has been the exact opposite. My experiences of Jesus have opened my mind and my heart to a bigger, wider, more expansive and mysterious and loving God who I believe is actually up to something in the world. — Rob Bell

There are moments when we have to return to our roots. — Rob Bell

What we do comes out of who we believe we are. — Rob Bell

On the Sabbath- we are reminded that we are not human doings, but human beings. — Rob Bell

In those moments when the two of you see things differently, you can hold on to your view, defending it and protecting it and arguing for its superiority, or you can allow your perspective to be broadened, enriched, expanded, and deepened. — Rob Bell

All work is ultimately creative work because all of us are taking part in the ongoing creation of the world. There's — Rob Bell

When in doubt, assume that they're seeing something that you aren't. — Rob Bell

Being a Christian then is more about celebrating mystery than conquering it. — Rob Bell

Far too often, we don't start because we can't get our minds around the entire thing. We don't take the first step because we can't figure out the seventeenth step. But you don't have to know the seventeenth step. You only have to know the first step. Because the first number is always 1. Start with 1. — Rob Bell

The Psalms show us what healthy spiritual life looks like. You name everything that's happening inside of you. You give it language and expression, You articulate exactly what the desolation feels like. If you don't drag it up and give it words, then it's buried down in your being somewhere. And it will come out in other ways. Unhealthy, destructive ways. You'll keep it bottled up. And you'll be miserable. — Rob Bell

Why would we ever be surprised when truth turns up in strange places? — Rob Bell

The life you want begins by embracing the life you have. — Rob Bell

I'm very comfortable in a room with thousands of people. — Rob Bell

May you see drops like stars. — Rob Bell

You turn the light on, you get all kinds of bugs. — Rob Bell

When a leader comes along who eliminates the tension and dodges the paradox and neatly and precisely explains who the enemies are and gives black-and-white answers to questions, leaving little room for the very real mystery of the divine, it should not surprise us when that person gains a large audience. Especially if that person is really, really confident. — Rob Bell

A good sermon is going to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. It inspires you. It provokes you. It should make your soul soar. — Rob Bell

When the lab rats hear the bell ringing, they freeze. That's what fear does to you - fear stops you dead in your tracks. Fear can keep you from harm, but fear can also rob you of your potential. Fear can rob you of an experience. Fear can rob you of happiness. Fear can rob you of real life ... Darkness has a way of scaring us ... — Rob Bell

If there's any place where you would express your deepest doubts, it would be church. — Rob Bell

Before anything else, you have received breath - the gift of life itself. The first word about you is GIFT. — Rob Bell

I believe that God is love. I believe that Jesus came to show us this love, to give us this love, to teach us about this love, so that we could live in this love and extend it to others. — Rob Bell

You cannot control how people are going to respond to you and your work in the world. Surrendering the outcomes does not mean that we don't care or we aren't emotionally involved or we are indifferent to the results. We want to connect with people and move them and inspire them - and we want more kids to learn to read. Surrendering the outcomes is making peace with our lack of control over how people respond to us and our work. Surrendering the outcomes is coming to terms with the freedom people have to react to us and our work however they want. — Rob Bell

Because with every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth. — Rob Bell

The priest's work, the priest's service, was understoon as an act of worship. Theis was Gods desire at Sinai - thst everybody would understand their roles as priests. Thst everybody would worship God by serving each other. — Rob Bell

Every generation has to ask difficult questions about what does it mean to follow Jesus. — Rob Bell

What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? — Rob Bell

It's absurd and quite tragic the way people have managed to pit science against faith. They aren't in conflict at all - they're long lost dance partners. I don't divide the world up into Christians and other people - we are all human beings, brothers and sisters, and we embrace truth wherever we find it, whether that's in a lab, a field or a cathedral. Because sometimes you need a scientist and sometimes you need a poet. — Rob Bell

I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me. — Rob Bell

Decide now that you will not spend your precious energy speculating about someone else's life and how it compares with yours. — Rob Bell

There's way too much wonder and mystery all around us to not stay open to more that's going on here. You can wake up, and sense and feel and taste and hear a whole world right here within this one, right here in this breath you're about to take. — Rob Bell

Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it. — Rob Bell

There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously. — Rob Bell

It is better to be fully present and rested and engaged for one thing than rushed, distracted, and scattered for ten. — Rob Bell

To be honest with you, I am passionate about all the people out there who want to know Jesus, they want to know God, and they are sick of a system that is hung up on a bunch of things that have nothing to do with the love of God. — Rob Bell

We shape our God, and then our God shapes us. — Rob Bell

The intellect has a way of building a fence around the heart, cutting us off from what we know to be true in a way that is hard to prove according to the categories in which proof matters. — Rob Bell