1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 8

1 Peter 1: 22 - 25 -- Lastly as a result of the Gospel and our salvation, we are to serve others. Why? Because if the point of salvation was merely to redeem us, then God would take us home as soon as we are saved. Instead it is our role to share the gospel with others who don’t know Him. How do we get ourselves heard? By serving them. Just as our Lord did. He did miracles and served even those who were outside of His normal community, so that their hearts would be softened to His message of grace. We shouldn’t be serving out of a desire merely to elevate someone’s socioeconomic status. Our goal in service is to preach the good news of new birth. We must tell people that they, like us, are sinners and desperately need the blood of Christ to pay off the debt that we owe to God as a result of that sin. We must tell them that they not only have to intellectually understand this information, but they must repent and believe it so that they can be born again. This is the good news. This is the greatest news ever heard by man. Praise to our Lord for providing this amazing news to us.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 7

1 Peter 1:20 - 21 -- We are believers in Christ because not only did He die for us, but His sacrifice was ruled acceptable to the Father. How do we know it was acceptable? That it was an effective payment for the debt owed? Because Christ was raised from the dead. Death could not hold Him! What amazing wonderful good news. We can inherit that same perpetual life, raised from the dead as it were, ourselves because of the work of Christ. Look at the evidence of the empty tomb. Believe that it’s barren status is the receipt that proves Christ’s redeeming work was and still is effective. And the best part is that we get to give glory to God as a result of His work. We don’t have to have any focus on ourselves, but instead get to spend eternity praising Him and lifting Him up. What a privilege that the creator God of time and space would permit our eternal praise to Him. What great glorious news!!!

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 6

1 Peter 1:17 - 19 -- Remember to fear the Lord God who knows what you have done. It’s not like you can hide your sin from Him. Seek Him and His forgiveness. If you are already saved, don’t forget that your salvation applies to your sins even after your conversion. It’s so common to forget who we are and our new lives and to turn back to our works-righteous ways. Remember that we were redeemed with something so much more precious than mere silver or gold. We were redeemed or bought back to the Lord’s family by the most precious blood of Christ Himself. We are not redeemed by the futile way of works righteousness that our man- made religion has set before us as supposedly effective. Don’t turn back to that old way. Don’t just follow your fathers’ ways blindly. Don’t return to that body of death. Remember it was with
precious blood. From the lamb, unblemished and spotless. The perfect God-Man sacrifice that perfectly represents us and propitiates the Father’s wrath. This blood of the ever living Christ.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 5

1 Peter 1:13-16 -- Holiness is the call for those who have been saved. This is part of our response to the offer of grace. This is the repentance part of ‘repent and believe’ that Christ calls us to in response to His offer of His Lordship and the gospel. We are not to try and be perfect prior to our salvation. Nor are we to work our way into His good graces. Instead, after we are saved we are to be Holy as He is Holy. This is a great test to see if you are saved/born again or not. If you don’t have a desire to be Holy because of the Spirit’s residence in you, then you probably don’t have the Spirit and are not born again. If you’re not born again, then please today seek the Lord and believe in the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice for your sins, which you have committed in treason against God who rightly judges you guilty of those sins.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 4

1 Peter 1:10 - 12 -- Even the prophets in the Old Testament prophesied of the grace that was to come to us. This grace is unmerited favor, or put another way it’s a free gift. I mean we’re talking about the most precious substance in the universe, the blood of Jesus, poured out for us. Just think the 5 liters of blood in Christ’s human body was sufficient to cover over the sins of all who have been saved before and after His death. What a small volume to cover such a large number of people. This blood that God set out to spend on us for the propitiation of His wrath has to be supremely valuable and powerful to satiate the terrible wrath of the Father that we all have earned. And yet for all its power and value, we get the benefits of it for free!!!

But a free gift doesn’t do anything for the one who would receive it if he never gets it. This is why Peter goes out of his way to mention that his audience heard of the gospel from others. This is our responsibility, if we have already learned the gospel. We must share it with others. Not because we are required to, though we are, but because it should burst out of us because of how good the news is.

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment 3

1 Peter 1:8 & 9 -- We rejoice with inexpressible joy and are filled with glory for God because of our faith in Christ, this despite never seeing Him with our own eyes. Why do we rejoice? Because we have obtained the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls!! Again this is fantastic, wonderful news that we should share with all. God’s nature requires that He judge sin. That sin is part and parcel of all human beings as a result of the Fall. But merely placing faith in Christ grants us salvation of our very souls. The part of us that will live forever, either in torment or glory. As the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 2: “how can we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?!” So this day, if you’re unsure of whether you will be in Heaven, seek Him and join with the saints in greatly rejoicing!

1 Peter 1 Gospel Moment

1 Peter 1:3-5 -- God receives all blessing and honor for causing us to be born again. What does it mean to be born again? It means to be born spiritually, not just physically as we did on our exit from the womb. If we are not born again, then we are not saved. We must be made completely new as a result of Christ’s work. This requires us to repent and believe in His ability to make us new. If we don’t repent and try to somehow take a little Jesus and a little of our own works then we are not saved. If we don’t turn away from our old selves then its proof that we haven’t trusted in a new Lord. It’s not that we have to ‘clean ourselves up’ prior to faith, but that as part of faith we commit to turn away from our old selves.

This passage also points to the hope we have in God to secure our salvation to the end of time and beyond. It is He who protects our salvation and ensures that our salvation is imperishable and will not fade away. This is fantastic news!! Its the greatest news of all that God is ensuring our salvation and not us.

1 Peter 1 Gospel moment

I was looking through 1 Peter 1 for opportunities to preach the gospel and came up with a few. I'll post them once a day for the next few days.

1 Peter 1:1-2 -- Peter points out the Trinitarian function of our salvation. The Father chooses, The Spirit sanctifies, and The Christ spent His blood on our behalf. As a result of this we have grace and peace in the fullest measure. Now who is this grace and peace between? Is it between the believers and the ‘world’? No because Peter is going to refer soon to his readers (and our) impending trials. This grace and peace are between us and God as a result of our salvation through Jesus. This is the good news!! The bad news is that God has a just right to destroy us for our sin, and yet because of His great, unending, amazing mercy, He created a perfect way to both judge our sin on His son and also bring Him the greatest glory imaginable by redeeming His sinful creation. This is the news we should shout from the roof tops and share with everyone we meet. This peace and grace is available, if we but obey Christ and repent and believe that He is capable to save.

Functional Universalism

Do We Really Believe What We're Saying? from The Church at Brook Hills on Vimeo.

This video is convicting to me. Very convicting. Do I spend all of my energy to partner with the Spirit to save the lost? Do I actually care about them? and prove it by my actions & words?

I have so much to grow in to and learn. I must pursue courage. And honor my Lord.

How do we comfort ourselves after we sin, when we know better?

A friend asked me: How do we comfort ourselves after we sin, when we know better? Especially in the context of 2 Peter 2:20-22

It is good to feel remorse for our sin, b/c it does pain the Father and our sin is what caused Him to sacrifice His Son on our behalf (Isaiah 53). However we should not dwell on it after we have sought forgiveness b/c He removes our iniquity as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103). If we dwell in our sin afterwards it is temptation by the Evil one to try and make us forget who we have been changed into. It's like Satan is trying to pull us back to the corpse and dead body that we have left behind.

It's times like this that helps me to remember: 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This couldn't be any clearer. If we confess our sins, He will forgive us and cleanse us. Don't forget these words. Memorize them. That's what I've had to do.

It also helps me to read through Psalm 51. This is the Psalm David wrote confessing his sin and seeking God's forgiveness after he had committed adultery and murder. Remember David did these terrible things long after he was king and had served the Lord for many years. He also went on after this to continue to serve the Lord and remain in fellowship with Him. Over the years, different parts of the psalm have grown on me. Lately the vs 13 & 14: "¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. ¹⁴Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness" have gathered more of my attention. Not that my sin should be a positive excuse, but that by seeing my sin it forces me to come running back to my Lord, seeking His favor and then propelling me to tell others of how great He is to forgive even me, the lowliest of repeated sinners. And thus I can see God putting to good use even my sin. Not that He wants me to sin, but that He can even use my ungodliness to His purpose.

If you want to look for examples of patience with sin, Psalm 103, mentioned above, is a great one. But also just look at the whole context of the Old Testament. God could have, and probably should have, left the Israelites for forgetting Him throughout their entire history. And yet He always remains consistent. He always maintains a remnant of followers. He always returns to them to bring them to Him.

Does that hit what you were asking about?

Read/Listen to Romans!!

You should read Romans all the way through. It will answer a lot of your questions. I would also recommend a sermon series to go along with it. Sermon series are perfect for commuting. You're in the car/train any way might as well redeem the time.

A few good ones would be:

-- Phil Smuland from my church in College: http://www.cov-pres.org/teaching/Romans.php This was really the sermon series that awakened my love for the word and the Lord. Downside is it's like 96 sermons.

-- Tommy Nelson from a church called Denton Bible in Texas. I really like Tommy's teaching style: http://dbcmedia.org/sermons/romans-complete-mp3-series/ This one is only 49 messages

-- R.C. Sproul is pretty big/famous theologian: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/sermons/?scripture=5 I like R.C. A lot too. This is about 60 sermons give or take.

Seriously. Listen to sermons, read Romans. Know who God is. You won't be disappointed.

Can Christians be Warriors?

A friend asked me: Is it ok for Christians to use weapons? And what do these passages mean?

[Luke 22:36] Then said He unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

[Mat 26:51] And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

[Mat 26:52] Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the swordshall perish with the sword.

Good questions.

When interpreting scripture you always want to understand the context in which it was written. Since the books of the Bible were written to a specific intended audience we need to understand that audience a little and try and hear as they would have heard. As an illustration, if I was trying to understand what a particular function did in a larget code block, I can't do that unless I understand the functions called before it and after it from the main().

So first thing is that Luke in general is written to gentiles (non-jews). In particular this part of the book is when Jesus is in the Upper Room, where He is celebrating the passover with His disciples right before He is captured by the Jewish religious ruling council. It's His last night, and He has a lot of rapid-fire issues He wants to bring up with them to prepare them for life without Him in the flesh. Among those issues is the state that they will find themselves while carrying out their lives in service to Him.

Reading back just a bit we see in Luke 22:35-38 that Jesus is comparing their preparedness when He sent them out on a little missions trip earlier in their service to Him, to how they will need to be prepared after He is ' numbered with the transgressors' i.e. punished and killed.

So catching up to 22:36 there are probably a couple of ways to look at this. In general Jesus was never against defending oneself, though He was willing to take condemnation if it meant expansion of His mission. Therefore this passage could mean that Jesus was warning His disciples that soon they would need to prepare for hardship by guarding their money and their light-weight possessions (enough to fit in a backpack, not extravagant living) and get a sword for defense. A verse later the disciples say they have 2. If Jesus thought swords were a problem, He would have prohibited the sword long before they got to the upper room, since they likely carried them all the way from home in Galilee. Jesus says they are enough. It could be that even though 2 swords for 13 men is no where near enough, it is enough given that they have Jesus.

On the other hand it could be that Jesus was suggesting that they metaphorically have the sword of the spirit (Eph. 6:10-17) and later when they say they have 2 physical swords His word: "Enough" could be a rebuke.

Of the two ways to look at it, I'd probably lean towards the first one. Seems like He's giving them a lot of 'going away' advice so why not warn them to defend themselves. In the ultimate sense, God will protect and bring us to heaven if we believe that His Son died on the cross for the sins that we committed against Him. So we don't really need to worry about being killed in the line of duty to Him.

Matt. 26:51,52 == Again we need to look at the context of the book and the original audience, so we know how to understand what the author wrote. Matt 26:47-56. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience. So everything that Matthew writes should be interpreted in that context. He often doesn't explain Jewish mindset or customs, b/c he assumes that the reader gets them by default. This understanding applies here b/c the Jews were expecting the Messiah to come back in strength and overthrow the oppressors. God had been silent between the last Prophet Malachi and Jesus for about 400 years or so. The Hebrews that welcomed Him into Jerusalem on 'Palm Sunday', 4 days earlier, waved palms b/c those were symbols of kingship in Hebrew culture. So with all that expectation of overthrow of the current power over them (the Romans), the Jews had a really tough time understanding that Jesus was not leading a political rebellion. Even His own followers didn't really get it until after He was dead.

We can see this understanding carried out b/c Peter uses his sword to cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus immediately rebukes Peter and heals the servant's ear. Jesus makes the point that (a) He must suffer at the hands of the high priest so that He can die and pay the penalty of our sins. (b) Jesus makes the point that He didn't come to take a political kingdom, but to inaugurate a spiritual one.

This is the explanation of Mat. 26:52. Jesus is saying that if you try to take the world by force to convert them to my kingship then you're going about it the wrong way. If Jesus wanted to do things by force He could call down legions of angels. But He didn't. The father was calling Him to suffer.

So what's our responsibility in all this? Do we have the right to defend ourselves? Yes. Do we have the requirement to do so? No. If it will advance the kingdom to be humble before someone's attack, then it is worth it to suffer for Jesus. All of this applies to our personal lives and behavior.

The state on the other hand is not a person. What applies to the person and His life does not apply to the state. Even though the state is an amalgamation of lots of individuals. It cannot behave like the individual in all areas because it doesn't make sense. The state has to act in the best interests of it's people which may not always favor the individual.

-- Luke 3:12-14 Jesus approves of soldering. Just not abuse of their power as individuals.

-- Romans 13:1-4 Paul discusses how we are to submit to the governing authorities b/c they've been appointed by God and have the right of the sword to carry out God's judgement on both internal matters and external matters.

-- 1 Peter 2:13-14 Peter tells us to submit to authorities again who have the right to punish evil-doers. Again they have that right to punish internal to their country and externally against other countries.

I could go on with other examples of warriors whom God approves of:

-- David. He was a warrior King who defended his people and attacked those who sought to oppress Him. He even expanded the nation of Israel to new, wider boarders.

-- Joshua. He led the people into the promised land and conquered many of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

-- Gideon. Led the people in the time of the Judges. With the Lord's help they vanquished the enemies of God.

And more and more. In all of the examples though, they are leaders of the state and are approved by God to make war, and more than that they are helped/protected by God to ensure that they win.

Pastor Bell vs. MSNBC

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If the video doesn't work here's the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/vp/42098348#42098348

I don't know if Mr. Bashir is a Christian or not. He seems to be interviewing as a normal journalist would, seeking the truth and logically applying statements to understand their conclusions.

I appreciated this interview b/c it focused on logic and formal debate. There was no emotionalism that I could detect on the part of Mr. Bashir. And since we don't know if he is a Christian or not, it makes it easier to accept that he probably doesn't have a horse in the fight of whether Pastor Bell is orthodox or not.

Pastor Bell's chief argument against Mr. Bashir appears to me to be reducible to: "It's ok to believe whatever you want about Heaven and Hell as long as you can find someone in the history of Christianity who has believed it too." This seems terribly irresponsible for a pastor to tell his followers that truth and falsehood don't matter when it comes to understanding who God is. Isn't that the whole point of the second commandment? By not being clear, he is in effect suggesting to his parishioners that it's ok to worship a false god.

I also wanted to address a tweet I read about this interview earlier in the week:
"Not sure why everyone is claiming victory based on @realrobbell 's interview with Martin Bashir. Truth isn't based on who can argue better."
Sure a particular position (truth) can be correct, regardless of whether someone can argue well on its behalf. If my 4 year old can't put together a cogent argument to defend the pythagorean theorem, that doesn't make the theorem false. But if a particular truth is valid, there should be a logical defense of that truth. In our math example, a college math teacher (aka an expert in the field of math) could easily make the argument.

In this case we're not talking about a 4 year old being out of their depth, but we're talking to an expert in the field, a pastor talking about doctrine. In fact it's not just any doctrine, but it's a doctrine that the pastor in question seems to have studied well enough to write a book about it. If he can't argue his point cogently against a journalist who likely hasn't been to seminary and hasn't been studying the topic for the last x months, then how can we say that the 'truth' being defended by the pastor is valid? He of all people should be able to make logical arguments to defend it.

So no, truth isn't based on who can argue better. But if a qualified agent can't argue for a position they have established, then the veracity of that position is certainly questionable. Especially if their opponent argues better for their contrary position.

Where does that leave me? It challenges me to 1 Peter 3:15: "¹⁵but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect," I need to: (1) Honor Christ as Holy (2) be prepared by studying and thinking about what the Bible says about who Christ is so that I can honor Him as Holy (3) Join with the Spirit, and be able to cogently dialogue with others about the truths in the Bible, in order to lead them to the truth the Bible proclaims. (4) be gentle and respectful.

Anyone want to guess which of those 4 steps are the hardest for me?

1 John 1:1-4

Ever since my friend pointed out that Jesus makes His power known through His humility, I have been so challenged to follow His example. Especially at work where I don't always get along with people above me. So instead of dwelling on that, I'm going to turn to scripture and focus on Jesus and who He is, and how He revealed Himself.

1 John 1:1-4:

"¹ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ² The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³ We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to make our joy complete."

John always puts Jesus in the preeminent position. He says that Jesus was from the beginning. John then says that "we" not just John, but some group of people, heard, saw, and touched Jesus. Sounds like pretty strong evidence to His existence to me. John says he and his compatriots saw Jesus and proclaim eternal life as a result of that experience. Eternal life seems to be a person in this context. The person of Jesus. John says he and his compatriots proclaim what they have learned. They don't just chit-chat about it, they don't merely talk about it. They proclaim it, they teach it. And they do it so that others may join them in fellowship with the Lord. Not so that John and his friends can rule over others, but that their Joy may be complete. Complete! Finished joy because they tell others about Jesus.

That is what I should focus on, not being annoyed at people lessoning my contributions at work.

Jesus, make my Joy complete by giving me the courage and opportunity to tell others what you have done for me. Saved me, a wretched sinner from the hell I so justly earned. Even today you died for the sin of anger and 'murder in my heart' that I committed. You save not just what I've done, but what I will do.

You are eternal life.

Reviews from Bell's book

Pastor Bell's publisher for "Love Wins" has released review copies of the book to various reviewers. I've found two reviews so far.

The first is from Greg Boyd:

http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/rob-bell-is-not-a-universalist-and-i-actually-read-love-wins/

The tricky part of this review is that Mr. Boyd doesn't use any scripture to defend Pastor Bell. Instead he focuses on four factors of why it's ok for Pastor Bell to raise the questions he does without actually answering them fully. It seems that if you're going to argue that someone is correct, then using scripture would be the right way to do it. But I guess not everyone holds scripture in as high regard as Jesus did.

You can guess from my analytical, and I hope mostly logical, postings that I prefer a linear argument. Excusing a pastor's questioning of what should be rock-solid truth, because the questioner is an artist doesn't sound like a reasonable defense to me. If draw pictures on my calculus exams and illude or call into question the pythagorean theorem, the math teacher is going to fail me, any defense of artist not withstanding...

The second review is from Tim Challies:

http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/love-wins-a-review-of-rob-bells-new-book

This review is much easier for me to understand because Mr. Challies uses scripture throughout his review to rebut and point out the problems in Mr. Bell's implications and arguments. I appreciate where Mr. Challies points out where orthodox evangelicals would agree with Pastor Bell. It feels like he tried to be fair in his review, even though Mr. Challies clearly doesn't agree with Pastor Bell's conclusions.

Where do you stand in this debate?

Psalm 119:33 - 40

I don't know if you've ever read Psalm 119 before. It's one of my favorites. It's the longest Psalm at 176 verses. I love it because the author is praising God for His word, the Bible. The author revels in the ability to know the mind of God through the Bible. I cherish this ability too. Of course the complete totality of all that God is, is not revealed in the Bible. But the key points of His character and purpose are made clear. No matter how old or young a believer is, you can read the Bible and understand it. Of course you may not understand all of it right away, but the central themes are clear. If you don't make it a habit to read the Bible, I would strongly encourage you to consider it. You will probably be surprised by what you discover.

Today I read the section 119:33-40. A couple of key verses for me were:

³⁴Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law
And keep it with all my heart.

This is my prayer too. I want to know God better. I want to understand what I read. I want to follow His commands and example, because I want to be like Him. He saved me! How could I not want to follow in His footsteps. And I want to understand Him to the core of my being. I want to keep Him in all of my life, not just a part here or there. And of course He is the one who provides the desire and then fulfills it. It's such a pleasure to serve an all powerful sovereign king!

³⁷Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity,
And revive me in Your ways.

I am so caught up in how great I am. I am relatively successful and respected at work. My wife and kids are great, and I have a comfortable house. It is so tempting to focus on how great I am to have brought all of this to bear. In reality God has provided it all. He has done so with a purpose. I want to be in His ways and purpose, not mine. I was dead before He saved me. And yet I am so tempted to throw away His plan and pursue my own pleasure.

A discipleship partner of mine this week said: "Jesus shows His power by His Humility." These words have been ringing in my ears all week. Lord help me to be humble and not vain! Revive me to know your word and to conform to your ways.

4-part gospel strikes again

You've probably read/heard me rail against the "Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration" new gospel that has been floating around lately. Here's the latest salvo: http://www.jameschoung.net/big-story-training.pdf I'm sure Mr. Choung is a very nice guy. But what he teaches in the linked PDF is dangerously close to heretical teaching.

Please don't get taken in by this strange new formation of the Gospel. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He calls us to make disciples. He came to be a propitiating (wrath averting) sacrifice for us before God. He came to make peace between us and God. Not because we asked for it, but because of His mercy and kindness. It's all about God and not about the world.

Some positives about the pdf:

- "Would you like to hear the core message Jesus came to teach, or the basic message of the Bible?"

--- I agree that creation,fall, redemption,restoration is a pretty good summary of the Bible, it just isn't a very good summary of the gospel

- "If it’s new, it’s probably heretical."

--- Totally agree with that.

Some concerns about the pdf:

- "our universal ache for a better world means that such a world either once existed or will one day exist."

--- Seems kind of a jump of logic to me...

- "we damaged creation. We drain her for her oil, and fill the air with pollutants so we can have a comfortable lifestyle. And it fights back in hurricanes and tsunamis."

--- Huh? "her" that sounds a lot like 'mother earth' which is pagan as the day is long. He then shifts to 'it' but, the earth doesn't fight back because we take oil. It is subject to the fall of course, but it is not reacting to us. The earth has been suffering from the fall since long before we could harvest oil out of it....

- "God came to the planet as Jesus 2,000 years ago and started a new thing. He started a resistance movement against evil, though not with military revolt, or communal escapism. Instead, he taught us a better way to live, and wants to give us the power to overcome evil in us and around us. "

-- Wow it's getting worse. Jesus didn't just start a 'new thing'. He didn't come to teach us a 'better way to live'. He came to redeem us from the wrath of the Father! This actually makes Jesus out to be just like any other sage/teacher who teaches us a way to live. Yikes!!!

- "he restored creation so that all of it could be used in their good ways. All of the world’s systems " the environment, corporations, governments, schools, etc. " can now be used to usher in God’s values of love, peace and justice. Oppression & injustice can cease"

--- I never understand this point in the C,F,R,R 'gospel' I just don't see the scriptural basis for it at all. I don't see any of the disciples or apostles using the world's systems to fix things on earth. I do see them spending their lives and their treasures to bring people to faith though. The two verses included as references: Eph. 2:11-22 and Col. 1:15-20 are much better at presenting the gospel than this story/illustration thing. And they do nothing to support the point that the author is making.

- "Lastly, God restored our relationships with himself."

--- Really? Lastly God restores our relationship with Him? Isn't that the most important thing? Isn't He the one we've grossly offended? I would think we would all want Him to restore that relationship first!!

- "Jesus wants us to join this resistance movement against evil, to go out and heal the world. With these resources,Jesus is asking us to be sent together to heal the planet"

--- HUH?!?! what part of "Make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything I have taught you" is caught up in 'heal the planet'? All the verses he cites are all Old Testament verses about serving the poor and not being unjust. While of course those are things we should pursue, if he was going to argue that Jesus wanted this to be our focus after we were saved, then why didn't he pick any verses from the NT?

- "By trusting him, and giving him leadership over our lives, we can become the kind of good we want to see

around us."

--- But this isn't what really matters. People fat, dumb, and happy on earth is not the ultimate goal! Saving them from the tortures of hell for eternity is what really matters. At least the author does point out that we are to have a response to this message. Normally I don't see any response called for.

- "Would you like to let Jesus be the leader of your life and join his movement to heal the planet? Will you trust him with your life?"

--- Again, I'm pleased to see a call to response. But it's this strange mission to 'heal the planet' again. This is like a green movement with some Jesus sprinkled in.

- "Also, looking at Colossians 1:20, it’s clear that Jesus didn’t just come to save individuals, but “to reconcile to himself all things"

--- This is really pretty terrible eisegesis. Reading the passage in context you can see that Paul is making the point that Jesus is reconciling all people, who are elect, to God and making peace with the Lord of Judgement. It has nothing to do with systems of government or other things. Paul's not making that point at all. If he was he would have elaborated on it more. Instead Paul is making the point that Jesus is God and that He has saved us from the Father's wrath. What a glorious, merciful, mighty gift.

- "But all of this old truth is often locked behind the Bible’s many pages or in theological tomes, and so seems inaccessible to the normal Christian."

--- Huh? I'm a pretty normal Christian and the truth was revealed to me without someone having to dumb it down and warp it like this presentation does. The Bible really isn't that complicated. If this whole presentation had just exegeted Eph 1 or Col 1, it would have been easy to show to anyone what the Bible says.

- "The penal substitution theory we know arose in the 11th century by Anselm"

--- This is very dangerous. It slyly insinuates that Jesus's wrath averting sacrifice was something made up later in history. Instead it was written very clearly in Romans 3:23-26 mere decades after Jesus' death and resurrection.

- "What if someone just wants to jump to the fourth circle, and ignore the third? Why do we need Jesus to heal the planet? Ultimately, we need to become the kind of good that we want to see in the world."

---- What?!?! I'm not saying in the slightest that we should abandon the world once we're saved, we have to obey the great commission and make disciples. But this author instead says we have to make the world a better place, as if that is far more important. That mere social justice is the only purpose for Christians on the planet, and that one day the whole world will be restored through our efforts. That is complete hogwash. Revelations is pretty clear that the world will be reformed by God and not by us!

- Pointing readers to Dallas Willard and N.T. Wright

--- Yikes those are some very shady authors now-a-days. They both deny the necessity of penal substitution and justification by faith.

Not really surprised...

Looks like Rob Bell has jumped the shark. Not that I am really surprised by his jump. And it does make me thankful in some senses since he makes it clearer now what he preaches instead of hiding as much and confusing people.

At the same time, I'm sad. Sad for Rob, sad for the thousands who follow him, saddest most for those who have followed and been condemned to hell for their belief in falsehood. I hope and pray that Rob can see the error of his belief and come to true faith.

What a great miracle of God would it be for Him to correct Rob and bring him publicly to the truth. Oh that He would show mercy.