Rachel Held Evans Quotes

Quotes about:

Age Belief Christianity Church Giving Jesus Justice

This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more.

Rachel Held Evans

Tables, Kingdoms, Rooms

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.148, Thomas Nelson Inc

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But the gospel doesn't need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, "Welcome! There's bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk." This isn't a kingdom for the worthy; it's a kingdom for the hungry.

Rachel Held Evans

Wall, Wine, Doors

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.149, Thomas Nelson Inc

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Faith isn't about having everything figured out ahead of time; faith is about following the quiet voice of God without having everything figured out ahead of time.

Rachel Held Evans

Quiet Voice, Voice Of God, Following

Rachel Held Evans (2012). “A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "master"”, p.188, Thomas Nelson Inc

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One of the most destructive mistakes we Christians make is to prioritize shared beliefs over shared relationship, which is deeply ironic considering we worship a God who would rather die than lose relationship with us.

Rachel Held Evans

Christian, Mistake, Ironic

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Christianity isn't meant to simply be believed; it's meant to be lived, shared, eaten, spoken, and enacted in the presence of other people.

Rachel Held Evans

People, Christianity, Meant To Be

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.16, Thomas Nelson Inc

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What makes the Gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in.

Rachel Held Evans

Offensive

FaceBook post by Rachel Held Evans from Mar 29, 2015

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We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground. God got up.

Rachel Held Evans

Hate, Long, Tree

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Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; that latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue.

Rachel Held Evans

Believe, Animal, Differences

Rachel Held Evans (2010). “Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions”, p.219, Harper Collins

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No step taken in faith is wasted, not by a God who makes all things new.

Rachel Held Evans

Taken, Steps, All Things

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.180, Thomas Nelson Inc

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If same-sex relationships are really sinful, then why do they so often produce good fruit-loving families, open homes, self-sacrifice, commitment, faithfulness, joy? And if conservative Christians are really right in their response to same-sex relationships, then why does that response often produce bad fruit-secrets, shame, depression, loneliness, broken families, and fear?

Rachel Held Evans

Christian, Sex, Loneliness

26 Copy quote
Whenever we show others the goodness of God, whenever we follow our Teacher by imitating His posture of humble and ready service, our actions are sacred and ministerial. To be called into the priesthood, as all of us are, is to be called to a life of presence, of kindness.

Rachel Held Evans

Teacher, Kindness, Humble

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.116, Thomas Nelson Inc

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Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Image if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary.

Rachel Held Evans

Church, Sanctuary, Safe

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What I love about the ministry of Jesus is that he identified the poor as blessed and the rich as needy...and then he went and ministered to them both. This, I think, is the difference between charity and justice. Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another.

Rachel Held Evans

Beautiful, Jesus, Moving

Rachel Held Evans (2012). “A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master'”, p.246, Thomas Nelson Inc

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We all long for someone to tell us who we are. The great struggle of the Christian life is to take God's name for us, to believe we are beloved and to believe that is enough.

Rachel Held Evans

Christian, Believe, Struggle

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.19, Thomas Nelson Inc

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What each of us longs for the most is to be both fully known and fully loved. Miraculously, God feels the same way about us. God, too, wants to be fully known and fully loved. God wants this so much that He has promised to knock down every obstacle in the way, enduring even His own death, to be with us, to consummate this love.

Rachel Held Evans

Want, Way, Obstacles

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But if the world is watching, we might as well tell the truth. And the truth is, the church doesn't offer a cure. It doesn't offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation.

Rachel Held Evans

Healing, Church, Might

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.209, Thomas Nelson Inc

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I can't be a Christian on my own. I need a community. I need the church.

Rachel Held Evans

Christian, Community, Church

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.16, Thomas Nelson Inc

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It wasn't shared social status or ethnicity that brought Jesus' followers together either, nor was it total agreement on exactly who this Jesus character was - a prophet? The Messiah? The Son of God? No, there is one thing that connected all these dissimilar people together it was a shared sense of need: a hunger, a thirst, a longing. It was the certainty that, when Jesus said He came for the sick, this meant Jesus came for me.

Rachel Held Evans

Jesus, Character, Son

Rachel Held Evans (2015). “Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church”, p.92, Thomas Nelson Inc

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I’m ready to stop waging war and start washing feet.

Rachel Held Evans

War, Feet, Ready

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Perhaps we could push beyond these legalistic gender roles if we spent less time worrying about “acting like men” and “acting like women,” and more time acting like Jesus.

Rachel Held Evans

Jesus, Men, Worry

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When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.

Rachel Held Evans

Beautiful, Voice, Cacophony

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Perhaps the most radical thing we followers of Jesus can do in the information age is treat each other like humans-not heroes, not villains, not avatars, not statuses, not Republicans, not Democrats, not Calvinists, not Emergents-just humans. This wouldn't mean we would stop disagreeing, but I think it would mean we would disagree well.

Rachel Held Evans

Jesus, Hero, Mean

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The Proverbs 31 woman is a star not because of what she does but how she does it—with valor. So do your thing. If it’s refurbishing old furniture—do it with valor. If it’s keeping up with your two-year-old—do it with valor. If it’s fighting against human trafficking . . . leading a company . . . or getting other people to do your work for you—do it with valor. Take risks. Work hard. Make mistakes. Get up the next morning. And surround yourself with people who will cheer you on.

Rachel Held Evans

Morning, Stars, Cheer

Rachel Held Evans (2012). “A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master'”, p.95, Thomas Nelson Inc

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Church is a moment in time when the kingdom of God draws near, when a meal, a story, a song, an apology, and even a failure id made holy by the presence of Jesus among us and within us.

Rachel Held Evans

Song, Jesus, Apology

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I have come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. I can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it.

Rachel Held Evans

Mean, Assuming, Trouble

Rachel Held Evans (2012). “A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master'”, p.51, Thomas Nelson Inc

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Born: June 8, 1981
Occupation: Columnist
Cite this Page: Citation

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