Lies We Believe About God
by Wm. Paul Young
(New York, Altria, 2017)
The differences in interpretation highlight the fact that something other than “reading the Bible” is involved. Very often the deepest question, and the one most ignored, is how to read the Bible. What does it mean to read the Bible correctly? How do we go about deciding?
Pages 1-2.
When our understandings of the larger story of the Bible differ, then our beliefs about the details differ, too, and we “see” things differently.
Page 3.
The identity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the One anointed in the Holy spirit, crucified and resurrected, simply made no sense to people, and the implications of His existence rocked the status quo everywhere.
Page 6.
The temptation to domesticate the Jesus of the apostles was ever present.
Page 7.
Working out the implications of Jesus’s identity as the eternal Son of God united with humanity in our sin is the task of truly Christian theology.
Page 9.
To speak the name of Jesus is to say that the Triune God, the human race, and all creation are not separated, but together in relationship. Jesus is Himself the relationship; He is the union between the Triune God and the human race.
Page 11.
The “lies” that this book set forward are perceived as lies through the lens of Jesus’ identity and what His identity shouts to us about God, about ourselves, about creation, about our destiny, and about our future.
Page 12.
It is not easy having your mind blown, but that is the way the apostles tell us we are set free by the truth.
Page 13.
By looking at something God would not say, we are better able to examine ideas we have assumed to be true, often exposing lies we tell ourselves about god.
Page 18.
We often choose to believe a lie rather than allow the truth to invade the safety of our prejudices and self-protective fortresses.
Page 20.
The Holy Spirit is your true teacher.
Page 20.
Even those who don’t believe that God exists are desperate to know that love does and that love knows who we are.
Page 26.
It is as if each child b rings wit him or her a gift of love that is deposited into the hearts of the parents.
Page 26.
There is a world of difference between saying “I love you,” which is about me, and saying “I am especially fond of you,” which is abut you.
Page 27.
If we took the time to listen to one another’s stories, we would discover that most of us have something in common.
Page 29.
The truth is that we have inherent value because we are made in the image of God. Our value and worth are not dependent on us.
Page 32.
Admittedly, we humans are control freaks, wanting to control everyone and everything around us so that the things we fear won’t happen. We inherently know that control is a myth, that one rogue cell or another person’s choices can instantly change the direction of our lives, but we still fight for it and even demand it. So if we can’t have control, we want a God who does.
Page 38.
Love and relationship trump control every time. Forced love is not love at all.
Page 42.
I don’t believe that the word control, in the sense of deterministic power, is part of God’s vocabulary. We invented the idea as part of our need to dominate and maintain the myth of certainty.
Page 42.
Control does not originate in God, but submission does. Domination does not find its source in God, but other-centered. Self-giving love does.
Page 42.
We often think that God gives commandments as if they are arbitrary tests for us humans rather than expressions of God’s own nature. And if God’s nature is love then ours is, too, because we are created in the image of God.
Page 46.
God is relational and therefore submits because God’s nature is other-centered and self-giving love.
Page 47.
Even though I would often prefer that God make my decisions for me, God refuses. Instead, God submits to the decisions I make, climbs into them, and begins to crafts something living and useful, and good, even from the worst of my ignorant blunders.
Page 48.
Love doesn’t protect me from the consequence of my choices, but it also does not abandon me to them.
Page 48.
What is the incarnation - God becoming fully human - if not complete and utter submission to us?
Page 48.
The term Christian was originally an insult directed at the followers of Jesus. … It basically meant “little-Christs” or “mini-Messiahs” and was intended to demean the ragtag, ragamuffin members of “that Jesus’s Way cult.”
Page 53.
Categories might be helpful in aiding our understanding and navigation through this cosmos in which we all dwell, but categories are powerfully divisive and destructive to relationships.
Page 56.
Every human being is somewhere on the journey between belief and unbelief.
Page 57.
Christianity is not “the way.” Jesus is the Way!
Page 58.
Words mean a lot to me. … Like our eyes, our words are windows into our souls.
Page 59.
God is a relational being; that is who God is. The language of God is about partnering, co-creating, and participating; it’s about an invitation to dance and play and work and grow.
Page 62.
God is a God of relationship and never acts independently.
Page 63.
The Greek and Aramaic vocabulary of the New Testament is tiny compared to English, and that of Hebrew (of the Old Testament) is smaller still, so translators employ many words that the original languages do not. Commonplace words from our culture have become the language of our spirituality, even though they are not in Scripture.
Page 77.
Much of the frustration of our lives happens because our plans and expectations are interrupted.
Page 80.
|Lists are about control and performance; God is about adventure and trust.
Page 80.
God doesn’t want to be first on your list, but rather central to everything.
Page 81.
Behind religious magic is belief in a God who needs to be coerced to do something.
Page 84.
God’s response is motivated by love, not by our performance or skill in prayer.
Page 84.
The alternative to magic is relationship, which is full of mystery and the loss of control. Magic is about knowing the right incantations, formulas, and performances. Relationship is about trust.
Page 91.
With all the consternation, confusion, and havoc that human sexuality has caused, it must be incredibly significant.
Page 94.
Sexual union is “knowing” another, the intimacy of face-to-face oneness.
Page 95.
True love finds its fulfilment in the other and is, therefore, never blind. Infatuation is purposefully blind, finding its fulfillment only in the self and self-need.
Page 96.
When sexuality becomes self-centered self-gratification that uses the body or image of another as a means to an end, it is a devastating violation of love.
Page 96.
Turns out it is not God who is the prude; it is us.
Page 98.
We must stop confusing nationalism and patriotism with the kingdom of God. We must stop trying to transform Jesus, the suffering servant, into the “Christ” of any political system.
Page 100.
Political identities do not originate in god. God is not about separation and division, not about building walls and excluding, not about domination and power.
Page 102.
Only a kingdom that changes us from within will deal with the fear and hate that continues to express itself in nationalism and patriotism.
Page 104.
If you think that “turning the other cheek” is the coward’s way out, may I wager you have never tried it.
Page 105.
God did not start religion. Rather, religion is among a whole host of things that God did not originate but submits to because we human beings have brought them to the table.
Page 109.
Any understanding of church or any community of faith that is centered on structures, systems, divisions, and agendas has its origin in human beings and not in God.
Page 110.
“Religion,” by definition, is people-based, not God-based.
Page 110.
Human beings form religions around the things that matter to them and the fears that drive them toward certainty.
Page 110.
Jesus is not the founder of any religion.
Page 110.
Religion cannot be an end in itself or else it will become despotic and harmful and will inevitably traffic in human souls in order to maintain its own existence.
Pages 112-113.
What bothered me most about selling was treating people like targets.
Page 115.
The Good News is not that Jesus has opened up the possibility of salvation and you have been invited to receive Jesus into your life. The Gospel is that Jesus has already included you into His life, into His relationship with God the Father, and into His anointing in the Holy Spirit. The Good News is that Jesus did this without your vote, and whether you believe it or not won’t make it any less or more true.
Pages 117-118.
Saving faith is not our faith, but the faith of Jesus.
Page 118.
The working out of our salvation, fully secured from all eternity in Jesus, is also participatory. We don’t participate in the working out in order to make it true; we do so because it is true.
Page 121.
God loves His creation and loves our participation in it.
Page 128.
Your joy and your love and your grief and your fury and your hope and your curiosity and your drive toward authenticity and integrity and your wonder all originate in God.
Page 129.
Saying that we cannot ever be separated from the love of God is not the same thing as saying we cannot reject or ignore the love of God.
Page 135.
Perhaps hell is hell not because of the absence of God, but because of the presence of God, the continuous and confrontational presence of fiery |Love and Goodness and Freedom that intends to destroy every vestige of evil and darkness that prevents us from being fully free and fully alive.
Page 136.
I propose the possibility that hell is not separation from Jesus but that it is the pain of resisting our salvation in Jesus while not being able to escape Him who is True Love.
Page 137.
There are times when living in this world isn’t fair or just or good.
Page 140.
Our participation and presence in suffering brings meaning and a possibility of redemption, even if only within ourselves.
Page 145.
Even when we work through our great sadness, our losses and betrayals, the evidence of what we have done or what was done to us does not disappear.
Page 152.
There is nothing I can bring to the table that is so evil or broken that God won’t climb into it with me. There is nothing so dead that God is incapable of growing in it something living. The Cross, once our greatest attempt at destroying Life, has become our most precious symbol of the God who is hope for us all.
Page 153.
God invites us to once more become like children, for in doing so, we will begin to see the wonders of the world with which we are surrounded - the kingdom of God.
Page 156.
Part of participation with the flow of the redeeming genius and creativity of the Spirt is to be present enough to pay attention to the glory and kind humor that surrounds us, even in the midst of profound loss and agony.
Page 159.
“If I jump, will God still catch me?”
“He will, but to you it will feel as though you hit the ground.”
Page 163.
Nothing is apart from the abiding presence and activity of God.
Page 163.
All gods were appeasement deities, and religion was largely a system of control by magic through sacrifice.
Page 171.
If we, the human race, require a sacrifice, God will provide Himself.
Page 171.
As we move forward in our journey and relationship with God, we will discover that God is not who we thought. We may have to deny the faulty and flawed perceptions we once treasured in order to open ourselves up to the God we are growing to know.
Page 173.
As lies and false imaginations about God are exposed so are the roots that are entwined in our thoughts about ourselves and about our neighbor.
Pages 177-178.
To understand who God really is, you can begin by looking at yourself, since you are made in God’s image. All the things you long to be true about who you are - authenticity, kindness, patience, integration, goodness, purity of heart - these are qualities of the God in whose image you were created.
Page 178.
It is … obviously true that I don’t know everything and that dialogue is a gift to help work through ideas.
Page 183.
God, who is Love, not only allows our choice but joins us in our humanity in order to rescue us from our choices that are harmful and destructive.
Page 186.
Is love without suffering even possible?
Page 191.
We experience pain and loss because wee live in a broken world made up of human beings who are just like us.
Page 192.
Suffering is not intrinsic to love. Submission is intrinsic to love, but not suffering. Loss and suffering were introduced into the cosmos by us human beings.
Page 193.
God refuses to be absent from the Creation and infuses our suffering with Presence and Love.
Page 193.
As God encounters our humanity God also enters our suffering, and as we experience suffering, we encounter the humanity of others.
Page 194.
We forget that the human being is always more important than the category.
Page 200.
God has never been a respecter of the boxes we build.
Page 201.
Every human being you meet, interact with, react and respond to, treat rudely or with kindness and mercy: every one is a child of God.
Page 206.
When someone becomes a human being rather than a category or box, everything changes.
Page 208.
God is never disillusioned by you; God never had any illusions about you in the first place.
Page 214.
We are all eternal beings who are completely loved at every point along the way, and regardless of what our journey looks like, we are relentlessly loved inside every part of the process of this life.
Page 222.
Mistakes are an essential part of being human.
Page 225.
Expecting perfection is a denial of our humanity.
Page 226.
Jesus wasn’t always completely wise - He grew in wisdom. Errors made in any learning process are then incorporated into the maturing of a person.
Pages 226-227.
Pride is a sin because it is a denial of being human. Humility is always a celebration of being human.
Page 227.
If the essence of God’s nature is relationship, then sin must be defined and understood as missing a relational reality, a distortion of the image of God in us.
Page 228.
You are made in the image of God, and the truth of your being looks like God.
Page 229.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Page 332.
Some of us cut ourselves and so self-harm because we believe we deserve it or because in our bleeding we might feel something real.
Page 233.
Every human being is a story, so we all have a natural affinity for story.
Page 237.
Most of the “lies” we believe about God rise out of inadequate and often pathetic apprehensions of the Person of Jesus. Because we often believe, sadly, in a very small Jesus, our view of Humanity is even smaller.
Page 251.