Jon Meacham Quotes

Yes, I think that when the Bible refers to a horse or a horseman, that's exactly what it means.

If we don't do as well as we know how and we are prepared to do, it'll be largely because we act and make choices as though we're going to stay here, as though this life is all there is, when that is not the case.

At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done.

What really matters is how God sees me. He isn't concerned with labels; he is concerned about the state of man's soul.

But even in the Christian religion, much of its real meaning is hidden by words that are misleading and symbols that but few understand.

For a believer, Christian faith is true to the human heart, not in the sense that any old thing we fancy believing in will become conveniently true - but because the complicated truth about our hearts, as we struggle to perceive it, tells us what we are and where we are, and consequently what we need.

They who are not induced to believe and live as they ought by those discoveries which God hath made in Scriptures would stand out against any evidence whatever, even that of a messenger sent express from the other world.

The Bible declares that on the sixth day God created man. Right then and there, God should have demanded a damage deposit.

I shall now proceed to my own experience, which hath truly convinced me, the Lord is awakened as one out of sleep; and the voice of the Lord will shake terribly the earth.

It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we're not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.

That I feel a desire, my friends, that we in this latter day of the world, in which light is fast spreading, that we should be willing to attend to those portions of the Scriptures of truth that direct us home to the foundation.

God isn't really interested in our batting averages.

We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or Canada, that they were real places.

For in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter.

When language was not transcendental enough to complete the meaning of a revelation, symbols were relied upon for heavenly teaching, and familiar images, chosen from the known, were made to mirror the unknown spiritual truth.

I don't feel confident at all in my beliefs about God. That's definitely scary. But I don't believe anymore that God hates almost all of mankind. I don't think that, if you do everything else in your life right and you happen to be gay, you're automatically going to hell. I don't believe anymore that WBC has a monopoly on truth.

The Gospel can stand up to scrutiny.

There's nothing simple when you're in this 'Good Place.'

If we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then we shouldn't be recognizing it only as a book of historical and economic significance.

When you look at the teachings of the Bible, it's pretty dark with Revelations, the Holy Ghost and everything, so hence the darkness upon me on my records.

Have you considered that the Bible, like all religious doctrine, may be allegorical and symbolic, to direct us toward one holy entity of love, as opposed to a simplistic litiginous text to direct the behavior of human beings?

Like Muslims we assume that God will judge us "on balance." If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we will arrive safely in heaven. But, alas, if our evil deeds outweigh our good ones, we will suffer the wrath of God in hell. We may be "marred" by sin but in no wise devastated by it. We still have the ability to balance our sins with our own righteousness. This is the most monstrous lie of all.

I don't think there's a petty system of heaven and hell. The love of God is much more forgiving. I'm not a believer in a wrathful God at all.

When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus. I said, That's where I got my information about hell.

The Bible is not primarily a science book. It is not written to tell us how the heavens go; it is written to tell us how to go to heaven. But when it speaks on science, it is accurate.