Jay Parini Quotes

The conversion of Paul was no conversion at all; it was Paul who converted the religion that has raised one man above sin and death.

It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned.

I think the best way to view the Gospels is to view them as a magnificent portrait being painted by Jewish artists to try to capture the essence of a God experience that they believe they had with Jesus of Nazareth.

Sincere Christians can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology - absolutely.

The Bible has been trapped in modernity. Everything has to work perfectly. And if everything doesn't fit in a Lego-oriented functionality, then we don't deal with it as Christians.

There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.

The Bible should be taught, but emphatically not as reality. It is fiction, myth, poetry, anything but reality. As such it needs to be taught because it underlies so much of our literature and our culture.

People have been told so often that resurrection is just a metaphor, and means Jesus died and was glorified - in other words, he went to Heaven, whatever that means. And they've never realized that the word 'resurrection' simply didn't mean that.

No man … ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.

If the Apostles and the writers of the gospels were to enjoy a brief stay on earth and return to the company of men, they would be astonished at how many different analyses and approaches were being used to interpret their books, and how many bizarre constructions had been assembled from the trivial notions of the sophists.

I'm not cross about the idea of baptism; I just think the idea that when a child is born it is inherently sinful and carries sin and needs to be cleaned in order for it to be all right and all good with its creator, I just think that's an absurd notion.

There are Christians who think there were seven actual days, or that creation was over time. They have answers for dinosaurs and things of that nature. And I don't claim to have any of those answers. And I understand people wanting to have discussions about it.

Salvation is by repentance and faith, and if you have truly believed unto salvation, you have been regenerated, which means you have become a new creature, and you are going to live a different life. And so works do not result in salvation.

As I've taught our congregation, within the Christian faith the question of homosexuality is not a question of biblical authority, but biblical interpretation.

The gospel is not itself about you are this sort of a person and this can happen to you. That's the result of the gospel rather than the gospel itself.

Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.

Now, if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory, the Fall is an allegory and the need for a Savior is an allegory - but if we are all descendants of an allegory, where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine-it destroys the foundation of the gospel.

In my desire to distance myself from sadistic Christians who revel in the idea of wrath and punishment, I may have crossed a line. Refusing to teach a passage of Scripture is just as wrong as abusing it.I really believe it's time for some of us to stop apologizing for God and start apologizing to Him for being embarrassed by the ways He has chosen to reveal Himself.

A man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.

To be the people of God without regeneration, is as impossible as to be the children of men without generation.

On the cross, Jesus won the right for believers to be born again back into the god-class. Adam was created, not subordinate to God, but as a god; he lost it, and in Christ we are taken back to the god-class.

For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified.

But we have nothing of the Spirit except through regeneration. Everything, therefore, which we have from nature is flesh.

Jesus was not the man he was as a result of making Jesus Christ his personal savior.

The Bible, which ranges over a period of four thousand years, records but one instance of a death-bed conversion (the thief on the cross) - one that none may despair, and but one that none may presume.