25 Eugene Peterson Quotes From Minister and Prolific Author

By Stephanie Kirby | Published July 20, 2023

Check out these Eugene Peterson quotes to learn more about the man that wrote the award-winning and life-changing translation of the Bible called “The Message.”

Eugene Peterson was a Presbyterian minister and an author who wrote over thirty books during his lifetime.

He was born in Stanwood, Washington, in 1932 and died in Lakeside, Montana, in 2018 at the age of 85.

Peterson is best known for translating the Bible into modern American language when he wrote the Gold Medallion Book winner in 2002 titled “The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language.”

He served as the founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Maryland for 29 years and then as a Spiritual Theology professor from 1992 to 1998.

Take a look at these Eugene Peterson quotes to learn more about the Presbyterian minister.

Best Eugene Peterson Quotes

Here are some of the best quotes by the American minister.

1. “Feelings are great liars.” — Eugene Peterson

2. “Hoping does not mean doing nothing.” — Eugene Peterson

3. “The foundational truth is that work is good.” — Eugene Peterson

4. “Joy is what God gives, not what we work up.” — Eugene Peterson

5. “The life of faith isn’t meant for tourists. It’s meant for pilgrims.” — Eugene Peterson

6. “God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” — Eugene Peterson

7. “I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God’s business.” — Eugene Peterson

8. “No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.” — Eugene Peterson

9. “O God, when my faith gets overladen with dust, blow it clean with the wind of your Spirit.” — Eugene Peterson

10. “The hard work of sowing seed in what looks like perfectly empty earth has a time of harvest.” — Eugene Peterson

Inspirational Eugene Peterson Quotes

Take a minute to read these Eugene Peterson quotes and let them inspire you.

11. “When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.” — Eugene Peterson

12. “One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.” — Eugene Peterson

13. “It is difficult to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable, and rewarded as an achievement.” — Eugene Peterson

14. “Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.” — Eugene Peterson

15. “The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory.” — Eugene Peterson

16. “And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily – open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.” — Eugene Peterson

17. “When an ancient temptation or trial becomes a feature in the culture, a way of life that is expected and encouraged, Christians have a stumbling block put before them that is hard to recognize for what it is, for it has been made into a monument, gilded with bronze and bathed in decorative lights.” — Eugene Peterson

Eugene Peterson Quotes About God and Faith

As a minister, Peterson had many things to say about God, Christianity, and faith.

18. “If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship.” — Eugene Peterson

19. “Waiting means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions.” — Eugene Peterson

20. “The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God’s creative genius is endless.” — Eugene Peterson

21. “When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s.” — Eugene Peterson

22. “Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness of the redeemed.” — Eugene Peterson

23. “The Bible is not a script for a funeral service, but it is the record of God always bringing life where we expected to find death. Everywhere it is the story of resurrection.” — Eugene Peterson

24. “The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail.” — Eugene Peterson

25. “Christians don’t simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’ name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.” — Eugene Peterson