Bethke Quotes & Sayings

When I think of whisper, I think of tenderness, gentleness, beauty. And that was God's voice. The hard part with whispers, though, is we have to be listening for them. They are just loud enough that only the people listening will hear and those who are distracted won't. — Jefferson Bethke

We children of God have been acting the same since the beginning of time toward our Father God. Yet he invites us to enjoy him and all that is his. Like both the older and younger brothers, we must learn that the joy of our lives is not in what we get from the Father but how we get to be with him as his children. He's throwing a party, and we are all invited. — Jefferson Bethke

Grace always wins. — Jefferson Bethke

As Christians, God doesn't promise us an easy life, but he does promise to be with us in whatever we go through. He will never leave us or forsake us. — Jefferson Bethke

God wants us to pursue him first. — Jefferson Bethke

There is much: recognition of the fact that human beings live indeterminate and incomplete lives; recognition of the power exerted over and upon us by our own habits and memories; recognition of the ways in which the world presses in on all of us, for it is an intractable place where many things go awry and go astray, where one may all-too-easily lose one's very self. The epistemological argument is framed by faith, but it stands on its own as an account of willing, nilling, memory, language, signs, affections, delight, the power and the limits of minds and bodies. To the extent that a prideful philosophy refuses to accept these, Augustine would argue, to that extent philosophy hates the human condition itself. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

Because the truth is, no matter how ugly or how deep the scars, there is always hope. — Jefferson Bethke

God gets glory for everything, and everyone eventually will glorify God, be it his grace or his justice. — Jefferson Bethke

God's grace is so much more powerful of a motivator than fear. Love is the deepest motivator. Only love can produce not only willing obedience but also lasting obedience. If you are being motivated by fear, rules, anger, or some other emotion, it usually only lasts while that emotion is there. Love, being a state of the heart, lasts even past the initial emotion. — Jefferson Bethke

A crooked stick can still draw a straight line, and a messed-up dude like me can still write about an awesome God. — Jefferson Bethke

Many people had been sold religion with a nice Jesus sticker slapped on it. Many people had been burned by so-called Christians. Many people had been abused, hurt, mistreated, and maligned all in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But what their souls were craving was the true Jesus. The One who heals. The One who redeems. The One who gives life. — Jefferson Bethke

I think too many times as Christians, we confuse benefits with essence. We pursue the benefits of a relationship rather than the essence of that relationship. — Jefferson Bethke

Our lives on earth aren't just placeholders until we go to heaven. We are to create, cultivate, and redeem while we're here. The misconception, I've realized, has come from a lack of knowledge of why we were created. — Jefferson Bethke

Proper worship is living a life in spirit and truth. — Jefferson Bethke

The Bible isn't a rule book. It's a love letter. I'm not an employee. I'm a child. It's not about my performance. It's about Jesus' performance for me. Grace isn't there for some future me but for the real me. The me who struggled. The me who was messy ... He loves me in my mess; he was not waiting until I cleaned myself up. — Jefferson Bethke

Many Christians don't really care about God; they just want to use him to get what they truly want - status, a nice job, a car, forgiveness - you name it. — Jefferson Bethke

We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are. — Jefferson Bethke

I think thanksgiving is the secret to a healthy Christian life. — Jefferson Bethke

There is something so tough about grace, though, that some people refuse to accept it. Other world religions or worldviews make ladders we need to climb to get to heaven, when the real Christian faith can only be lived by army crawling to get it. We have to get low. We have to humble ourselves. And I promise joy is on the other side. — Jefferson Bethke

The dualistic presuppositions of the revisionist position are fully on display in the frequent references by Macedo and others to sexual organs as "equipment." 60 Neither sperm nor eggs, neither penises nor vaginas, are properly discussed in ethical discourse in such terms. Nor are reproductive and other bodily organs "used" by persons considered as somehow standing over and apart from these and other aspects of their personal reality. In fact, where a person treats his body as mere equipment, a mere means to extrinsic ends, the existential sundering of the bodily and conscious dimensions of the self that he effects by his choices and actions brings with it a certain self-alienation, a damaging of the good of personal self-integration. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

There is no allusion to marriage or family in the Constitution. It is barely mentioned in the Federalist Papers or elsewhere in the ratification debates. The reason why the founders "ignored" the family was that it was not an issue for them. It was not a social problem. On the contrary, the family was the accepted substratum of society. It — Jean Bethke Elshtain

We've lost the real Jesus - or at least exchanged him for a newer, safer, sanitized, ineffectual one. We've created a Christian subculture that comes with its own set of customs, rules, rituals, paradigms, and products that are nowhere near the rugged, revolutionary faith of biblical Christianity. In our subculture Jesus would have never been crucified - he's too nice. — Jefferson Bethke

If getting more girls and drinking more beer meant I'd be 'cool,' then why not? But I soon discovered that lifestyle was like drinking saltwater. If you are extremely thirsty, you'll settle for it, but it just makes you thirstier. — Jefferson Bethke

Persecution, like fire, burns up the weak elements (wood and hay) but actually purifies the strong ones (silver and gold). It — Jefferson Bethke

His face, and his face alone, needs to be the driving force of our lives. If it's not, we are worshiping something else, and sooner or later that idol will be taken from us by a trial, circumstance, or death. — Jefferson Bethke

Thinking you can earn eternal life by just reading the Bible a lot is like staring at the windshield while driving, hoping you'll get where you want to go. The windshield isn't there to be looked at; it is designed to be looked through. — Jefferson Bethke

Jesus says you can read the Bible as a checklist, but if you do, you miss the whole point. — Jefferson Bethke

God doesn't give us a nice tidy answer on why suffering and evil exist, but he does blatantly and explicitly show us what the reason isn't. Knowing what Jesus did on the cross, his love is too potent and too obvious for us to say he must not care. A God who hates suffering and evil just as much as we do was willing to subject himself to it in order to reconcile us to him. He got involved in our mess. He got involved in our hurt. He got involved in our pain. — Jefferson Bethke

People don't flaunt their brokenness when trying to prove themselves. — Jefferson Bethke

We have branded Jesus beyond recognition. Church has become a business. Jesus is our marketing scheme. We create bookstores, T-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers, and board games all in the name of Jesus. — Jefferson Bethke

The Bible rarely tells me to fight against someone who doesn't believe what I believe, but it frequently tells me to fight against my sin and the disease in me that's drawing me away from Jesus. — Jefferson Bethke

God should get a lot more glory for things than we give him. — Jefferson Bethke

When I was trying to earn Jesus by being good, I missed the real Jesus who wants us to love him and serve him not for what he gives but for who he is - dangerous, unpredictable, radical, and amazing. — Jefferson Bethke

Only when we humbly call on God to speak into our lives - knowing if he doesn't, we won't succeed - are we actually in a safe place. — Jefferson Bethke

Both fear and love might cause obedience, but only love causes joy. — Jefferson Bethke

Etymologically, "compassion" means to suffer together. "Together," however, is different from "identically." Compassion is not the same as selflessness, and not really the opposite of selfishness. Rather, it provides a basis for helping other people that is materially disinterested but emotionally self-regarding. As Rousseau wrote in Emile, "When the strength of an expansive soul makes me identify myself with my fellow, and I feel that I am, so to speak, in him, it is in order not to suffer that I do not want him to suffer. I am interested in him for love of myself ... " Or, as Jean Bethke Elshtain has said, "Pity is about how deeply I can feel. And in order to feel this way, to experience the rush of my own pious reaction, I need victims the way an addict needs drugs. — William Voegeli

If you have a thankful heart and are using that domain to reflect God's beauty as a Creator, then you are worshiping. Listening to Hillsound United isn't worship; it's and aid for worship. I found a deeper level of joy and connection with Jesus when I realized that eating a good meal with thankfulness was just as holy as my prayer time. The truth is, Go doesn't just want your "Christian" things. He wats it all. When we realize the beauty of God's grace in the mundane, not just the religious, that's when we will begin to see him correctly. — Jefferson Bethke

You can bring God glory wherever he has already placed you. You don't need to feel guilty that you're a chef. You don't need to feel guilty that you only paint, but your dad wants you to be a pastor. Too many times Christians want to go into ministry because of outside pressures by their parents or pastors, not realizing where they already are is their mission field. — Jefferson Bethke

I don't know where you are or where you're coming from, but I know Jesus has a better plan for your life than you do. He is a better king of your life than you are. No one has caused me more hurt, shame, guilt, and pain than me. He knows, and he rescues me. He can do the same for you. Just come as you are. — Jefferson Bethke

So what do we do then? What do you do when the only thing you want to do is yell at God and tell him how awful it is? You do exactly that. Cry. Yell. Scream. Be honest. Be transparent. And be vulnerable. For the first nineteen years of my life, I wanted God to give me an answer, but now I've found it is better when I get him. An answer isn't going to bring that spouse back. An answer won't ease that pain. But what will is God's Grace in the depths of our souls. — Jefferson Bethke

To this, it is countered that the same-sex conception of marriage and family is, and must be, parasitic upon the demise of conjugal society, wherein biological parents are not taking responsibility for the rearing and education of their own children. Having no natural justification, the dominion of two adults of the same sex over children in their custody is crucially dependent upon the state to enforce their claim to these children as against the claims of the biological parent(s). Same-sex marriage is necessarily a political form of social order, invoking the power of the state to make it so. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

Trying to be good enough to earn heaven is like trying to jump to Hawaii from the coast of California. Everyone looks like an idiot, some drown, some get three feet, some get ten feet, but no one even gets close to Hawaii. — Jefferson Bethke

But Jesus isn't rocking a cardigan, and he doesn't talk softly through his nose. He's a roaring lion. — Jefferson Bethke

Too many times people portray God as the ultimate judge, waiting to sentence us for our sins. The truth is, he is a loving husband who compels us with his love and not fear. — Jefferson Bethke

The problem with trying to be relevant is it makes us copy what culture is already doing. To be relevant, you have to copy what is cool. So we put our mouths on the tailpipe of secular culture in hopes we can recycle some of it and use it for ourselves. The problem with this is that it automatically puts us ten to fifteen years behind culture because rather than setting the precedent, we are copying their systems. This is where we get a huge section of Christian apparel and coffee mugs that simply copy secular logos. My favorite is the shirt with the words "Holy Spirit" printed in the same font and logo as Sprite. Or the one with "A bread crumb and a fish" instead of Abercrombie and Fitch. We call it redeeming, but it's actually stealing. Making bad art is bad in and of itself, but if we are Christians, this takes on a whole other level of weight. Because we are called to mirror and reflect God, everything we do should give people a proper picture of who he is. — Jefferson Bethke

Work sucks. That's why it isn't called 'fun'. — Bruce Bethke

God is most glorified in our lives when we show him to be most glorious regardless of what is thrown our way. — Jefferson Bethke

He actually does the opposite. He says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."1 If Jesus wanted to grow a church, didn't he know telling people they need to daily pick up an instrument of torture, death, and shame wasn't the way to do it? Jesus opposed the pharisaical legalism of his time, but he also opposed the watered-down, flimsy, cultural religion. He was essentially saying, "I know my miracles are awesome. I know I have immense power. But don't follow me for the wrong reason. The cost is high. The road to follow me is tough, it's painful, it hurts, and you might even face death, but I promise there is joy on the other side. Do you want in? — Jefferson Bethke

Having joy in God not because of circumstances but despite circumstances is what makes God look great - and it's a true joy that comes from within. — Jefferson Bethke

In a time of dislocation, the Manichean view- we, the "good versus them, the "bad" -is, though comfortable, also false and dangerous. False, as I myself know remembering a little girl who wanted a gun and a brother who did not[...]. Dangerous because this simplistic view depends on rigid notions of what men and women are in relation to war and of war itself as an absolute contrast to peace. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

One of the best barometers of a true Christian's heart is to see what kind of people he attracts and what kind of people he repels. — Jefferson Bethke

The problem with becoming a public intellectual is that over time you grow more and more public but less and less intellectual. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

if you care more about flaunting your Christian freedom than promoting Christian unity, you're probably not free. You are actually a slave to your so-called freedom. — Jefferson Bethke

If something is done with a thankful heart, then that is Christian behavior. — Jefferson Bethke

I realized we had created a Jesus who's safe for the whole family. But if we were honest, we'd ask, how is a homeless dude who was murdered on a cross for saying he was God safe for the whole family? Not to mention that Paul told us if we choose to follow his example as a follower of Jesus, we will be treated the way that he was. — Jefferson Bethke

Are you a Genesis 1 Christian or a Genesis 3 Christian? Do you start your story with shalom or with sin? Shalom is the Hebrew word for "peace." For rhythm. For everything lining up exactly how it was meant to line up. Shalom is happening in those moments when you are at the dinner table for hours with good friends, good food, and good wine. Shalom is when you hear or see something and can't quite explain it, but you know it's calling and stirring something deep inside of you. Shalom is a sunset, that sense of exhaustion yet satisfaction from a hard day's work, creating art that is bigger than itself. Shalom is enemies being reconciled by love. — Jefferson Bethke

Grace just flows. It's a one-way type of love that runs the conduit directly from God's heart to ours. — Jefferson Bethke

The issue isn't whether someone is good or bad, but whether he is repentant or unrepentant. — Jefferson Bethke

Religious people see "them" as the problem; Jesus-followers see "us" as the problem. — Jefferson Bethke

That's the truth with any idol - it will rock you to your core when it leaves. When a good thing leaves you, it might make you sad. But when an ultimate thing leaves you, you feel like you can't live anymore. — Jefferson Bethke

Moreover, the attempt by advocates of same-sex marriage to sever marriage from procreation is more chimerical than real.35 One would be hard-pressed to find an advocate of same-sex marriage who would accept the proposition that same-sex couples should be given the right to marry but that right does not entail a right to procreate and rear children. Were marriage and family truly severable, as the contractual view suggests, the one would not entail the other. However, advocates of same-sex marriage want it both ways. They want the contractual view of marriage plus the option of raising children. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

One of the most dangerous things about the Bible is that it is big enough to say whatever we want it to say if we are willing to remove the context. — Jefferson Bethke

We often miss that our "righteous acts" are "filthy" before God. Not just our bad days, but our extremely good days too! — Jefferson Bethke

The quill has pricked my soul and each word bleeds onto the parchment of my life. My freedom is in my words, therefore, I write.

— Mona Bethke

Marriage does not serve primarily to accommodate or to mitigate social tragedy of this sort. Its principal function is to prevent or limit the occurrence of such tragedies in the first place. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

Be honest about your weakness, be honest that you're scared, and be honest about the fact that it's Jesus who defeats the sins that trip you up, not you. God cast us as Israel, not the hero. — Jefferson Bethke

All the other religions essentially say, "This is what you have to do to be in right standing with God." Jesus comes to earth and says, "This is what I've freely done for you to put you in right standing with God." Religion says do. Jesus says done. Religion is man searching for God. Jesus is God searching for man. Religion is pursuing God by our moral efforts. Jesus is God pursuing us despite our moral efforts. Religious people kill for what they believe. Jesus followers die for what they believe. — Jefferson Bethke

Sometimes how we dialogue in today's culture is just as important as why we dialogue. — Jefferson Bethke

How stupid would it look if when someone broke a hand, the foot started criticizing the hand? That what we look like when Christians begin to criticize the church. One part of the body should lead itself to the healing process of another hurting member. That's love. That's the gospel. And that is Jesus. — Jefferson Bethke

I didn't know it then, but God broke me to fix me because he loved me. — Jefferson Bethke

So let's be done with the comparison game. Let's be done with constantly fighting for the higher moral ground to stand on and look down on everyone else. Let's be done with thinking we can actually earn something that is impossible to earn. Let's stop trying to be perfect and righteous because those are not the people God is looking for. God is looking for people who can admit their needs and surrender to a Savior, because if the Bible is any indication, it doesn't matter how messed up you are. If you love him, he can and will use you. — Jefferson Bethke

Trying to live without community is like trying to live without oxygen. We weren't created to do it. — Jefferson Bethke

Suddenly a great sense of despondency comes over me. To-morrow we shall take the prepositions, I think to myself - and next week we shall have a dictation. In a year's time you will have by heart fifty questions from the Catechism; in four years you will start the larger multiplication tables. - And so you will grow up, and Time will take you in his pincers - one dumbly, another savagely, or gently or shatteringly. Each will have his own destiny and thus or thus it will overtake you. What help shall I be to you then with my conjugations and enumerations of all the rivers of Germany? Forty of you - forty different lives standing behind you and waiting. How gladly would I help you, if I could. But who can really help another here? Have I even been able to help Adolf Bethke? The bell rings. The first lesson is over. — Erich Maria Remarque

God is faithful. — Jefferson Bethke

Shalom is the Hebrew word for "peace." For rhythm. For everything lining up exactly how it was meant to line up. Shalom is happening in those moments when you are at the dinner table for hours with good friends, good food, and good wine. Shalom is when you hear or see something and can't quite explain it, but you know it's calling and stirring something deep inside of you. Shalom is a sunset, that sense of exhaustion yet satisfaction from a hard day's work, creating art that is bigger than itself. Shalom is enemies being reconciled by love. Shalom is when you are dancing to the rhythm of God's voice. — Jefferson Bethke

My "Christianity" was once again just the American religion of work hard, do good, feel good, and maybe God will say, "We good. — Jefferson Bethke

Without the rain there is no beauty in the summer. Rain gives depth, it gives beauty, and it gives roots. If a plant is only exposed to sun and no rain, it becomes dry, flimsy, and dead. Too many times we curse the rain in our lives-suffering, trials, hardships-but the truth is without rain nothing grows. — Jefferson Bethke

As God's children, we are to use our lives knowing they reflect back to him and bear his image. Too often, instead of acting like mirrors pointing back to Jesus, we try to act like billboards, advertising ourselves. — Jefferson Bethke

A grace economy is backward to most of us - those who think they qualify, don't; and those who admit they don't qualify, do. — Jefferson Bethke

New Testament Christians were most known by their love for their neighbors, but today we are most known for our segregation of the lowly. — Jefferson Bethke

Let me be straight with you: I'm not really qualified to write this book. I don't have a Bible or seminary degree. I'm not a pastor or a counselor. I don't know biblical languages and don't know how to do exegesis - whatever that even is. Again, I'm just a messed-up twenty-three-year-old guy. But I know that God has quite the sense of humor. It only takes a quick peek into Christian history to realize I'm almost the exact type of person he is looking for. A wise man two thousand years ago put it this way: "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong."1 Paul tells us that God loves using people who are useless by worldly standards - because then he gets all the credit. A crooked stick can still draw a straight line, and a messed-up dude like me can still write about an awesome God. I've tasted grace and can't help but tell others about it. — Jefferson Bethke

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep lowing concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. — Jefferson Bethke

No one is more religious than the Christian who gives grace to everyone except the religious older-brother types. God gives grace to the younger and the older. No one is past redemption. No one is past grace. All God wants is for both the religious and the rebellious to come into the party. We can wallow in self-righteousness, or we can enjoy all that is our Father's. — Jefferson Bethke

Heaven isn't a place for people who are scared of hell; it's for people who love Jesus. — Jefferson Bethke

Like the market, conjugal society, consisting of marriage and family, is not the creation of the state. It is a pre-political institution, rooted in sex difference and procreation. Given the pre-political nature of conjugal society, the state regulates it rightly by recognizing it as a natural fact with its own norms and purposes. The state ought not treat conjugal society as its own creation. Where there is evidence that parents are failing in their duties to each other or to their children, the state may intervene. Absent this, however, the state ought to leave conjugal society, rooted in the union of one man and one woman, alone. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

Even though there are few to no credible passages - properly interpreted - in Scripture that call things such as alcohol and tattoos utterly sinful, some fundamentalists insist they are. — Jefferson Bethke

Our job as Christians is to stick so close to Jesus that when people are around us, they sense him. — Jefferson Bethke

Nonetheless, by the time we arrive at the eighteenth century and the time of the founders, marriage and the family came to look very much as Aristotle had pictured it. In the previous centuries, Lutheran reforms had lodged marriage into the civil structure of society and made it more a concern of civil law,11 but, joined by Calvin, Protestantism retained parental control over the right of children to marry. John Locke, however, saw marriage as contracted political society, and thus his image of the family as a commonwealth made up of combined individuals parallel his image of the formation of the larger political commonwealth as well.12 Furthermore, Locke declares that parents are, "by the law of nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish and educate" their children.13 Since government is instituted to enforce the laws of nature, Locke states that government should make laws that enforce "the security of the marriage bed.'14 What — Jean Bethke Elshtain

Eat food for the sake of eating food, and it'll never satisfy. Eat food for the sake of nourishment, and give thanks to God for creating food, and it strangely begins to satisfy. Am I the only one who's been caught in this cycle hundreds, if not thousands, of times? We short-circuit whenever we pursue the benefits and not the essence because it's God's way of getting our attention and showing us he's the true satisfaction. God wants us to pursue him first. — Jefferson Bethke

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their mouths and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. — Jefferson Bethke

We give our entire lives on the altar of false gods - money, sex, reputation, work, etc. - and God continues to pursue us. He continues to chase us. He continues to woo us. That is the God of the Bible. — Jefferson Bethke

True freedom is being able to give up all your rights for another out of love. Just ask Jesus. He willingly came to earth. Willingly lived life for thirty-three years. Willingly let himself be beaten, scourged, and crucified. All for others. All for us. — Jefferson Bethke

As I've heard said, "Of 100 unsaved men, one might read the Bible, but the other 99 will read the Christian."1 Ouch. — Jefferson Bethke

I was just lying there, swimming in my own shame and guilt, when this still small voice whispered into the depths of my soul: I love you. I desire you. I delight in you. I saw you were going to that before I went to the cross, and I still went. — Jefferson Bethke

In a postmodern world where all religious activity is seen as what we do for God, we need to proclaim Christianity is about what God has done for us. — Jefferson Bethke

We love God by loving his people. — Jefferson Bethke

The problem with wearing masks is even when we receive love, it's really the mask that is receiving the love, not us. Whatever gets thrown at us will always hit the mask and can't penetrate our souls. So it is with God's grace. Every second of every day he pursues us and offers grace, but until we take off our masks, we will never be able to accept it. — Jefferson Bethke

One of my favorite things about following Jesus is I get to drop the act, admit I'm not good enough, walk in freedom-and that's good news. — Jefferson Bethke

When you concentrate on God, you can actually enjoy his gifts in a meaningful way. But when you pursue just the gifts themselves, they become the product of despair rather than joy. — Jefferson Bethke

God is constant. Always forgiving. Always loving. Never changing. — Jefferson Bethke