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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

John Ortberg Quotes

One of the reasons I’m an interesting person to be married to is my intensely late-blooming self-awareness.

– John Ortberg

The most important criterion is this: hire someone whose character and humility and attitude you would like to have reproduced in your church and in yourself.

– John Ortberg

Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures.

– John Ortberg

Jesus is why women have traveled continents, spent decades learning a strange language so they could translate the Gospel, planting churches, caring for the sick, educating the illiterate, and marching for the oppressed.

– John Ortberg

My wife is one of the most extroverted people I know. She could out-talk Oprah and Joyce Meyer simultaneously.

– John Ortberg

Nobody lives up to the norms that God had in mind when he first created human beings.

– John Ortberg

Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done – like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.

– John Ortberg

From ancient times, the core idea of the soul is the soul is the capacity to integrate different functions into a single being or into a single person. The soul is what holds us all together: what connects our will and our minds and our bodies and connects us to God.

– John Ortberg

Real spiritual authority has to do with the truth of the actual words being spoken, and the spirit of the person behind the words. Really, authority is about truth: honest-living truth.

– John Ortberg

I am struck by how quickly I am prone to judgmentalism.

– John Ortberg

Those of us who preach the Scriptures, along with being nourished by it ourselves, have to figure out along with our congregations how we can incarnate the gospel in our community, or we will preach to a religious ghetto.

– John Ortberg

Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.

– John Ortberg

In community, we discover who we really are and how much transformation we still require. This is why I am irrevocably committed to small groups. Through them, we can accomplish our God-entrusted work to transform human beings.

– John Ortberg

A simple way to address hidden curriculum issues is to spend time talking with staff and key leaders about their spiritual lives.

– John Ortberg

God has decided, for his own good reasons, that people are not transformed outside of community.

– John Ortberg

Skill at helping people grow spiritually, like skill at playing chess, depends on understanding and valuing differences.

– John Ortberg

Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an ‘outer you’ that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an ‘inner you.’ You have a spirit. And it’s constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience.

– John Ortberg

Authentic spiritual authority is what puts you in touch with reality.

– John Ortberg

Tithing is a bad ceiling but an excellent floor.

– John Ortberg

Sin is very important to the soul because sin is what disintegrates the soul; it’s what attacks the soul. Sin kind of is to the soul what cancer is to the body.

– John Ortberg

The day people around me stop questioning my character is the day my character begins to grow vulnerable.

– John Ortberg

Tithing is considerably less popular than words like generosity or sharing.

– John Ortberg

There are usually multiple messages that could be preached from the same text.

– John Ortberg

I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.

– John Ortberg

Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel.

– John Ortberg

Tithing is like training wheels when it comes to giving. It’s intended to help you get started, but not recommended for the Tour de France.

– John Ortberg

This much I have learned: human beings come with very different sets of wiring, different interests, different temperaments, different learning styles, different gifts, different temptations. These differences are tremendously important in the spiritual formation of human beings.

– John Ortberg

The church is in the hope business. We, of all people, ought to be known most for our hope because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking.

– John Ortberg

The soul is both the most fragile and most resilient thing about you; a healthy soul is what holds you together when your world falls apart. Since you will carry your soul into eternity, it’s worth checking up on it at least as often as your teeth.

– John Ortberg

Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.

– John Ortberg

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