Adam Hamilton Quotes

Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly.

Reading and understanding the Bible involves lots and lots of interpretation. Not just in light of the world and culture around us, but in reference to other parts of the Bible.

Pastors need to know what's going on in the world and what has been going on for 4,000 years. We need a way to read Scripture which is imaginative, interpretive.

I deal with more practical issues of the Bible.

No one believes more strongly than I do that every Christian should be a theologian. In that sense, we all need to work it out. I want all Christians who can read, to read their Bibles and to read beyond the Bible - to read the history and theology.

Given the unprecedented ignorance of the Bible in contemporary America, it is likely that more young Americans will only know the Noah of 'Noah.' We can only hope that the film offers even a fraction of the wisdom of the original.

Conservative New Testament studies could also provide an intellectually satisfying alternative to German biblical criticism and to the liberal theology that accompanied it.

What Jerry has done, in a masterful way, is go through and select portions of the Scripture and put words in Jesus' mouth that are legitimate because they already appear in the Bible.

Never preach a sermon without a text from the Bible, a text containing the theme which you can elaborate. The text is the best proof in support of your argument. A sermon without a text is an argument without a proof.

My kid is in the fifth grade. Out of twelve subjects, seven are pure religion. You tell me a system of this nature is going to bring into the labor force a highly qualified Saudi? Bullshit.

In my experience when critics raise these objections, they invariably violate one of seventeen principles for interpreting the Scriptures....For example, assuming the unexplained is unexplainable....failing to understand the context of the passage....assuming a partial report is a false report...neglecting to interpret difficult passages in light of clear ones; basing a teaching on an obscure passage; forgetting that the Bible uses nontechnical, everyday language; failing to remember the Bible uses different literary devices.

There is no long-range effective teaching of the Bible that is not accompanied by long hours of ongoing study of the Bible.

Refusing to teach a passage of Scripture is just as wrong as abusing it

The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation or interpreter of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study.

I'm one of those people who really likes to do my research.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

If there is any verse that you would like left out of the Bible, that is the verse that ought to stick to you, like a blister, until you really attend to its teaching.

All of Scripture is for us but not all of Scripture is to us.

...I don't think my church's teachings were incorrect, just incomplete.

We do not wish to abolish teaching and to make every man his own master, but if the curates will not teach the gospel, the layman must have the Scripture, and read it for himself, taking God for his teacher.

The broader problem is that a great deal of popular preaching and teaching uses the bible as a pegboard on which to hang a fair bit of Christianized pop psychology or moralizing encouragement, with very little effort to teach the faithful, from the Bible, the massive doctrines of historic confessional Christianity.

Saint Augustine ... insisted that scripture taught nothing but charity. Whatever the biblical author may have intended, any passage that seemed to preach hatred and was not conducive to love must be interpreted allegorically and made to speak of charity.

I'm very interested in the history of Christianity, and what I can say for sure is that the Catholics and the Jesuits and stuff were very big on teaching and on learning.

But what is your true self is the God within you who became you, and when you realize that you are not yourself but you are he, then you discover that you and he are one, just as Jesus said. Jesus was a great master, and he had great teachings for the world, and when it says in the Bible, "All those who received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God."

It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear.