"We come to the Bible looking for the wrong thing. Luther cautioned us that the Bible is only the cradle in which the Christ child is laid, pointing beyond itself to God. The reason we choose not to see it that way is that we are terrified of freedom. That is the great sin of human beings. We want to have our life structured so that we will know every minute that we are right. We do that, however, in only one area, the religious area. We want to make sure that we have the right religion; then that frees us to do whatever we please in all the other areas of our lives. People who say the Bible is inerrant are looking for one place where there is absolute certainty. But the Bible is not that place. It points beyond itself. It points to God. Even though every single moment we may have to make terrifying decisions, we are not alone.”
"The Bible is being used in ways that it was never intended to be used. The Bible is being used as if it were an answer book, a rule book, a guide for every hour and every day of our life. That is not what it was intended to be. The Bible was the worshipping community's book, written by people who wanted to express their faith in how God acted in history. The unspoken preface for biblical books is always, 'This is how we see it.' "
"I think the Bible is the record of human beings trying to plumb the unfathomable and leaving the record of what they found and what they did for the next traveler. It's like one traveler leaving footprints that somebody else will find on his journey, and he will be helped on his journey and leave footprints that somebody else will be able to find — so it's a continuing story."
"The Bible was rarely understood as the response of people who saw God acting in history. We could tear apart all those records that are left to us and not destroy that witness. We can sweep the house clean of all the ideas that we have had about the Bible and the church and fill it with new content. Most people do not see that. We cannot bear the void. We think that if we sweep the house clean, the devils are going to rush in immediately, but the story is that the devils rush in only if the house is left empty."
