Quotes By Author: Benjamin L. Corey

“Like many biblical terms we see in scripture, the word “holy” and the call to be holy have often been co-opted by various tribes and adjusted to suit their particular agendas. In my experience, and perhaps this is true for you, too, the call to be holy has been a call to conform. Preachers…then prescribe for us all of the changes we need to make in our lives so that we’ll conform to the image and likeness of their particular brand of Christianity. “Holy living,” then, becomes a call to conform to the beliefs and practices of a particular group or tribe as evidence that we are truly walking with God.Although we are called to be imitators of Christ, and to conform to his image and likeness, we must remember that his image and likeness do not conform to any of the various paradigms we like to use to box God in. Holy living, then, becomes conformity with Christ, but radical nonconformity with all those Christian tribes or labels that try to neatly create a limited space where God supposedly lives and works.”

“When we place the Bible on equal footing with God, we become paralyzed by how to deal with it–because any criticism of the Bible becomes criticism of God himself.The cure for the religion of Biblicism is the realization that Jesus is the inerrant Word of God, and the Bible is just a collection of inspired and useful writings that introduce us to him.Let me be clear: whenever we find tension between something Jesus taught and something taught elsewhere in the Bible, the tiebreaker always goes to Jesus. Always.”

“In biblical Greek the word “repent” comes from a military term similar to the command “about face.” In…sermons, repentance is all about “turning away’ from sin, and certainly repentance would include an element of that. However, the deeper flavor of his word is less about turning away from something and more about turning toward something. As much as the word “repent” makes many of us recoil, what if it is enjoining us to turn away from our fear of God and to turn toward the love of God? what if we simply confess that God is love, and then put a period at the end of the sentence? God is love. Period.”

“It’s important to remember that Israel’s story is a story of being in the process of getting to know God, all before Jesus presents himself as the ultimate revelation of God. It is not unlike other relationships where we need time to fully understand and appreciate the true self and identity of the other person in the relationship. The story involves moments when Israel truly sees God, and moments when they profoundly misunderstand God–both of which are normal parts of any relationship.”

“When we see God through a fear-based lens, we end up with an inaccurate view of ourselves.”

“A fear-based faith distorts a lot of things, but what it distorts the most is the reflection we see in the mirror. Fear has a way of reflecting ugliness and distorted realities–lies with the appearance of truth–and gives us the false impression that fear tells the truth while concealing the reality that fear is a liar. It may be a good liar because it mixes fact with fiction, but it’s a liar nonetheless. The reflections of fear must never be trusted, no matter how many nuggets of truth may be mixed in those ugly waters.”

“When the opening verses of Genesis say that we were created in the image and likeness of God, it is helpful to remember that this means we are actually created in the image and likeness of LOVE. We were created by love. We were created to receive love. We were created to reflect love. Our entire purpose for existing is to love.”

“We can see that sin is simply anything that disrupts the way life is intended to be. Sometimes we are the ones who do the disrupting; sometimes it’s done to us. But never does sin become part of our identity. We are created in the image and likeness of love, and nothing can destroy that.”

“Drawing identity from any area other than the source of life is a spiritual death sentence, and worse, it’s contagious, because it gives birth to tribalism. However, when we return to our central identity of image-bearers designed to receive love from and reflect love to others, we are naturally invited to shed all of the unloving, fear-based tribal behaviors that come from loyalty to the label.”

“In this story, we are not God’s enemies. We are God’s image-bearers and the most precious thing he created. We are not sin but are oppressed by the force of sin. We need saving but not from God or even ourselves–we need saving from all of those many things that interfere with our ability to perfectly reflect and receive love.”

“But what if there’s really no such thing as a crisis of faith? … What if it just feels like everything is going wrong, but really that instance is a moment when everything is about to go right? … What if what we often call a faith crisis is actually a divine journey–not from God, or simply to God, but a journey with God?”

“As long as we are caving in to the vicious cycle of always trying harder in hopes that one day we won’t feel like such an outsider, we are not being obedient to the scriptural principle of living at peace wit ourselves. Instead, we’re living in turmoil, and that’s not the life Jesus invites us to live. We are invited to live at peace.At peace with our neighbors.At peace with our enemies.At peace with God. At peace with ourselves. And that critical last part means we must be affirming–and not just to others who are different. We need to affirm that place inside us that desperately wants to hear that we are good, that we are beautiful, and that the ways in which we are different are gifts to be celebrated.”