Rob Bell

“…let’s make a group decision to drop once and for all the Bible-as-owner’s manual metaphor. It’s terrible. It really is.

When was the last time you read the owner’s manual for your toaster? Do you find it remotely inspiring or meaningful? You only refer to it when something’s wrong with your toaster. You use it to fix the problem, then you put it away.

We have to embrace the Bible as the wild, uncensored, passionate account it is of people experiencing the living God.

Doubting the one true God.

Wrestling with, arguing with, getting angry with, reconciling with, loving, worshiping, thanking, following the one who gives us everything.

We cannot tame it.

We cannot tone it down.

If we do we can’t say it is the life-giving word of God. We have made it something else. –

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis,  pg. 62-3.