Faith Without Works is Dead?

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Jesse Medina

That’s what James 2:17 says.

But we’re inclined to misunderstand the prescription behind the verse and that makes things particularly confusing for those of us who thought that it was faith that saved us.

Wait.  Faith, not works, is what saves us.  But without works, our faith is dead?  Does that mean it is really our works that save us? Or maybe faith + works?

See?  Confusing.

The way this verse often gets preached (or referenced when preaching) is to admonish Christians to “be the church.”  Don’t just believe stuff and sit there.  Go out and do something.  After all, James 2:17 says…

When used that way, we come away thinking if we have a work-less faith, the answer is to go out and get some works that we can pair up with our faith.  But to say that isn’t works righteousness is mere semantics.  When it comes down to it, the only thing it could be is works righteousness.  Besides, if something is dead, there’s not much that can be done.  Faith without works isn’t just sick, in need of some medicine to bring it back to health, it’s dead.  It cannot be fixed by finding some works to pump into it anymore than a dead body could be brought to life with some oxygen being pumped into the lungs.

So maybe Jesus’ brother is getting at something else.  Maybe he’s making a declaration about the kind of faith that is real…or living to use James’ analogy.

If that’s the case, the prescription for fixing a dead faith is not taking up a few good works, but examining whether the faith you have is genuine.  The works aren’t the medicine you apply to bolster your faith, they are the sign that your faith is actually real.

This is one of the truths presented in Scripture.  The works of the Christian are the fruit of the change that God has completed in their heart.  They are simply the natural outgrowing of internal realities.  A healthy tree doesn’t produce bad fruit – it can’t.  Likewise, a person of genuine faith can’t help but produce good works.

And if they aren’t, if you aren’t, whatever “faith” you think you have…is dead.  Better go back and find the real thing.  But, hey, at least you don’t need to go drown yourself trying to stay afloat in the waters of good works.  That’s a battle nobody can win.

 

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Why I Don’t Post My Blogs on Social Media

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Jesse Medina

If there’s a single truth about building a blog audience in today’s digital world it’s that you had better get your tweet on and plug your posts.  Truly, I’ve found some great stuff through Facebook and Twitter and even spent a good amount of time plugging my own material in the past.

But I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with doing so.

In won’t pretend like it’s not an ongoing struggle, though.  In fact, most days I spend at least a little bit of time reconsidering.  Maybe I should tweet about this blog post.  Some say if you have a message worth writing about, you have a message worth marketing.  Geez.  Even writing those words make me reconsider it.

And maybe I’ll change my mind.  But for the time being, I just cant.  Here’s why:

1. I’m afraid of what I’ll do to my soul in the process.

Like many others, I’m sure, I struggle with the tension of wanting a large audience and also being afraid of what that might do to my ego.  Do I hope that I wouldn’t allow an audience to affect me?  Of course!  But it happens to so many others.  I would be a fool to think I’m exempt from that.  So, right now, not plugging myself all over Twitter and Facebook is my way of protecting myself.

And this doesn’t have to do with how big my audience is.  Size actually doesn’t matter.  It’s about my finding a particular amount of fulfillment in what others say about me and essentially fishing for that feedback by saying, “Hey, I just wrote a blog post you should probably read…and comment on…and share with others.”

I’m not saying that’s what everyone does when they update social media with their blog posts.  I’m saying that’s a very real and seductive temptation for me.

So, I planned on having more reasons when I started this post, but I really don’t have more.  It all boils down to that one point.

Do you ever struggle with this?  How do you handle it?

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What’s Your Story?

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Jesse Medina

My friend, Jeff Goins, blogs about writing, networking, social media and any other number of ideas.  In recent months, he’s gained a lot of traction interviewing guys like Seth Godin and doing guest blogging for people like Michael Hyatt.

He wrote a recent post about why we each need to become experts at telling our own stories before challenging his readers to tell their story in three sentences.

Not only is it a daunting challenge to write your own story in three sentences, it’s an exercise that you will benefit from in ways you might not imagine.  Don’t take my word for it, though, go read Jeff’s post!

Before you do, I’m extending the challenge to you.  Comment on this post, or on Jeff’s post, and write your story in three sentences.  Here’s mine:

Kid from broken home finds healing in Christ.  Feels called to pastor others but is kept in waiting until God’s timing is right.  Lives out his days in the meantime preparing for what will one day be his dream come true.

Your turn!

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How to Get Closer to God

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Jesse Medina

Friends of mine will tell you that I have a tendency to turn conversations towards theology.  I can’t help it – it’s a topic I’m passionate about.

In a recent conversation, a friend was telling me about the journey that he is on in an effort to grow closer to God.  He’s engaging in the run-of-the-mill activities: prayer, Bible reading, fasting, etc.

This is a common story.

But inherent in these activities is a devastating misconception: that something we do gets us closer to God.

Consider the junior high Sunday School analogy: mankind stands on one cliff, God on the other with a wide gulf in between.  Place the cross over the gap and a bridge is built.  Kablam!  We now have direct access to God.

But the way most of us talk about our relationship with God – specifically when we talk about getting closer to God – the picture is more accurate with God being a mile’s walk inland from the cliff.  Jesus might get us to the other side, but we still have some work to do if we’re going to have a good relationship with God.  It gets worse when people talk about how having a relationship with God is what saves them.

This, my friends, is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gospel.  The cross of Christ isn’t just a bridge that gets us to other side where we then have work to do to build a strong relationship with God.  The cross of Christ puts us directly in the presence of God and gets us as close to Him as we could ever be.

No amount of prayer, Bible study, fasting, etc. – in other words, nothing we can do – gets us closer to God; that’s the Gospel.  Christ, and him alone, gets us close to God.  For the man or woman who has trusted in Christ, their relationship with God is perfect.  Nothing could add to or take away from it.

Isn’t that great news?

If you’re a Christian who has suffered under the guilt of never being able to be disciplined enough to read your Bible as often as you should, or pray with the fervency you wanted to, this makes Jesus’ claim that his burden is light actually feel true.  Because it is.

Want to get closer to God?  Stop trying.  Trust instead in Christ getting close to God on your behalf and imputing that righteousness to you through his atoning death on the cross.

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Can An Evangelical be a Universalist?

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Jesse Medina

Prominent (and hilarious) Christian blogger, Matther Paul Turner, the man behind the mask of Jesus Needs New PR started a brief conversation on his Facebook today, asking whether an evangelical can be a universalist and linking to an article.

The article is worth the read, but I think the conversation that ensued was more interesting.

Matthew brought up a good point about how most evangelicals actually are universalists in a limited sense; most of us believe that children too young to be held accountable are given special grace by God and will end up in heaven.  It’s a good point, and one that I think is worth considering, but I think the conversation came to a head when Matthew, in response to another commenter, said that the idea that God would send people to hell is

“…the opposite of mercy…There’s nothing fair about creating a being, a being that you love, and sending that being to eternal torment. That’s not love on any level. It’s effed up.”

I think this is a common theme among young(er) Christians, particularly those who tend to identify with the Emergent church.  Of course, Rob Bell’s Love Wins is a popular example of this.  For many, the idea of a so-called loving God sending his so-called beloved creation to eternal torment seems barbaric and…wrong.  That God seems a monster.

I see their point.

But it’s only one way to look at the situation.  The other way – and the one I would argue is the more biblical and right way (I won’t go into all the verses that support this, simply because I think most people have their mind made up on the matter) – is that God extended mercy to those who deserved anything but.  While we were still his enemies he paid the price for our  sins against him, asking only that we believe it to be true and accept the free gift of salvation.

Is God evil for sending anyone to hell or is he good for saving anyone from it?

Each of us must decide which is the God Scripture describes.  We don’t have the option to fashion the God of our liking, based on what we find to be loving, or fair, or merciful.  Even more, if God is actually God (and you and me actually not), and if we find our senses offended at his actions, we start by assuming it is we who are wrong.  I don’t say this in an attempt to force others into blind faith – not at all.  I’m appealing to simple logic: if there is a being out there who is infinitely higher than us, whose perspective is eternal, and he does something that seems wrong to us, we can either reject him or we can submit to the fact that he is indeed higher than us and trust him despite our not being able to understand.

Some would call that faith.

So the question is: which is the God of Scripture?  Is it the God who wouldn’t do anything to offend the senses of his creation?  Or is it the one who invites us to trust he is good, even when his actions might seem offensive to our feeble minds?

“Can An Evangelical be a Universalist?” is a good question.

“Can God Not Be a Universalist and Still Be Good?” is a better one.

How would you answer?

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Love Wins by Rob Bell Book Review Part 5: Typical Emergent Hypocrisy

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Jesse Medina

And then there are those whose lessons about heaven consist primarily of who will be there and who won’t be there. (p. 25)

…

It’s very common to hear talk about heaven framed in terms of who “gets in” or how to “get in.” (p. 50)

The Emergent church peeps all play a familiar tune about how wrong it is for anyone to suppose they are “in” while others are “out.” This is often coupled with accusations of pharisee-hood (like Robin Hood, only more legalistic and less concerned about the poor), while they note that Jesus’ kingdom proclamation was about surprising judgment for those who thought they were “in” and extravagant grace for those who thought they were “out.”

And they’re at least half right.  Jesus did have some surprising things to say about the whole whose-in-whose-out conversation.  And in that sense, we should pay close attention to the text: after all, it would be tragic for someone who thinks they’re in to find out that they are indeed out.  It would be wise of us to find out who the Bible says are in and who the Bible says are out.

But this is not what Emergents do.  Nor is it what Bell does.

Instead, what they do, what he does, is turn Jesus’ surprising words into a transcendent, spiritual, decontextualized principle – much like purpose-driven, seeker-friendly pastors do.  The result is that anyone thinking they are in and another out, makes them out by default.  Literally, in a conversation with a postmodern very influenced by the likes of Bell and McLaren, the way he explained Jesus’ judgment of the pharisees was that they were being exclusive so Jesus excluded them.  So I guess Jesus only excludes those who exclude.  But I wonder, does that mean Jesus would have to exclude himself for being an excluder of the exclusive?

Did your brain just pop?

Of course, postmodern emergents don’t realize that by doing this, they set themselves up as the same thing they were upset by in the first place. Even worse, it just makes Jesus out to be more exclusive, not less, since he would be forced to exclude those from every religion on the world that holds their religion as being right and all other religions wrong.  It wouldn’t just be Christian fundamentalists, but Hindu fundamentalists, Muslim fundamentalists, and every other kind of fundamentalist, too.  And there are many.  The only ones who aren’t fundamentalists are anti-fundamentalists…and they look a lot like every other fundamentalist whose side Jesus is on, and whose God just so happens to exclude all the ones who aren’t inclusive like them.

This whole in/out conversation turns on right and wrong, doesn’t it?  For many Christians, being right means you are on the path towards heaven and being wrong means you are on the path toward hell.  But Bell rejects traditional notions of heaven and hell (instead, they’re both realities we experience now and maybe in the future, but certainly nothing eternal) so he can’t go there.  But just because being right in Bell’s book doesn’t mean you’ve secured your eternity in heaven, doesn’t mean he’s not playing the in/out/right/wrong game.  He is, it’s just that, for him being wrong has no eternal consequences relating to ending up in hell…it has different consequences.  Ones that, as you’ll see, are far more presumptuous.

So he thinks that when he trashes orthodox belief, he gets a free pass. Since he doesn’t think being wrong sends you to hell, he takes every liberty to seriously discount the intellect, compassion, sense of justice, love, psychological health, judgment, artistic ability, and imagination of those who believe that God will one day send people to an eternal hell.

A few quotes, pulled from throughout the book (notice the page numbers, it gets worse the farther you read):

There are a growing number of us who have become acutely aware that Jesus’ story has been hijacked by a number of other stories, stories Jesus isn’t interested in telling, because they have nothing to do with what he came to do.  The plot has been lost and it’s time to reclaim it.

I’ve written this book for all those, everywhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pulse rate to rise, their stomach to churn, and their heart to utter those resolute words, “I would never be a part of that.” (p. vii-viii)

…

Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few infinite years of life?

This doesn’t just raise disturbing questions about God; it raises questions about the beliefs themselves. (p. 2)

….

What kind of faith is that?

Or, more important:

What kind of God is that? (p. 3)

…

…if what Jesus does is get people somewhere else – then the central message of the Christian faith has very little to do with this life other than getting you what you need for the next one.  Which of course raises the question: Is that the best God can do? (p. 6)

…

It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (p. 45)

…

Fury, wrath, fire, torment, judgment, eternal agony, endless anguish.

Hell.

That’s all part of the story, right?

Trust God accept Jesus, confess, repent and everything will go well for you.  But if you don’t, well, the Bible is quite clear…

Sin, refuse to repent, harden your heart, reject Jesus, and when you die, it’s over.  Or actually, the torture and anguish and eternal torment will have just begun.

That’s how it is – because that’s what God is like, correct?  God is loving and kind and full of grace and mercy – unless there isn’t a confession and repentance and salvation in this lifetime at which point God punishes forever.  That’s the Christian story, right? (p. 64)

…

Some [people] pass out pamphlets that explain how to have peace with God; some work in refugee camps in war zones.  Some have radio shows that discuss particular interpretations of particular Bible verses; others work to liberate women and children from the sex trade.

Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death. (p. 79)

…

Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell.  God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.

If there was an earthly father who was like that, we would call the authorities.

If there was an actual human dad who was that volatile, we would contact child protective services immediately.

If God can switch gears like that, switch entire modes and being that quickly, that raises a thousand questions about whether a being like this could ever be trusted, let alone be good.

Love moment, vicious the next.

Kind and compassionate, only to become cruel and relentless in the blink of an eye.

Does God become somebody totally different the moment you die?

That kind of God is simply devastating.

Pyschologically crushing.

We can’t bear it.

No one can. (p. 173 – 174)

…

Because if something is wrong with your God, if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, unacceptable, awful reality. (p. 175)

…

So when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will “get into heaven” that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.

The good news is better than that.

This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don’t throw very good parties. (p. 179)

…

A discussion about how to “just get into heaven” has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus, because its missing the point of it all.

An entrance understanding of the gospel rarely creates good art.  Or innovation.  Or a number of other things. It’s a cheap view of the world, because its a cheap view of God.  It’s a shriveled imagination. (p. 179-180)

No amount of in/out thinking there, right?  Again, Rob Bell thinks that if he isn’t telling the wrong they are going to hell, he’s not playing the game.

But he is.

And I might even add, it’s worse than that of the orthodox Christian who can affirm another’s intellect, compassion, sense of justice, love, psychological health, artistic ability, and imagination while still believing they may be wrong.  Rob Bell can’t even do that. For him, to believe in an eternal hell affects every other part of a person’s character to the point where they haven’t a thing left to offer this world.

Which is more presumptuous?  Which respects the “wrong” person more?  Which is more loving – the one who says “You have much to offer, but that doesn’t mean you’re right” or the one who says, “You’re wrong, and therefore have little to nothing to offer at all”?

But, hey, at least Rob Bell doesn’t violate his own critique of “some”:

For some, the highest form of allegiance to their God is to attack, defame, and slander others who don’t articulate matters of faith as they do. (p. 183)

Not even close.

Right?

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Love Wins by Rob Bell Book Review Part 4: An Adventure in Missing the Point (of Jesus and the Rich Man)

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Jesse Medina

Here’s where I’m at with Bell’s book: the whole thing is a house of cards.  Actually, perhaps a more fitting analogy would be that it is a brick wall.  Each brick represents an argument that Bell makes in favor of a limited hell.  With this bricks, he’s constructed a wall, and it should be clear that there’s no “give” to this wall.  Those of us who affirm the orthodox Christian doctrine of eternal hell cannot get on this wall and jump around.  He’s made that clear.

But starting in this post, you’ll see why Bell’s bricks are nothing more than paper mache. Weak arguments packed together with wild assumptions neatly placed one on the other until you have what looks like something solid.  A bit of prodding around, however, and the whole thing begins to crumble.

It starts in chapter two, where Bell references the interaction between Jesus and the rich man from Matthew 19/Luke 18.  Here’s the first part that Bell rehashes:

Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

“Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.  (Matthew 19:16-22)

So Bell tells this story and intermittently returns to it.  One of the primary points he makes is that the rich man is not actually asking about “eternal life” the way you and I think about eternal life.  Instead, he’s asking about “the age to come.” See my last post for more on that and why that’s problematic.

But it’s interesting what Bell ends up doing with this passage of the text. Piggybacking off of his discourse about “the age to come” (to reiterate in case you aren’t going to read that last post: aion is the word used for “age” which denotes either a period of time with a beginning and an end, or an intense experience, or both) Bell says this about the rich man’s question:

So when the man asks Jesus how he can get eternal life, Jesus is not surprised or caught off guard by the man’s question, because this was one of the most important things people were talking about in Jesus’ day.

How do you make sure you’ll be a part of the new thing God is going to do?  How do you best become the kind of person whom God could entrust with significant responsibility in the age to come?

…

Jesus then tells him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor, which Jesus doesn’t tell other people, because it’s not an issue for them.  It is, for this man.  The man is greedy – and greed has no place in the world to come. (p. 40, 41)

I haven’t a clue whether Bell is familiar with Lutheran theology or not.  My guess is not, but I don’t know.  One of the things I appreciate about Lutheran theology is their distinction between Law and Gospel.  In a nutshell, “Law” refers to what we are called on to do (as opposed to just the Ten Commandments or even the Old Testament at large).  Anything that would follow “Christians should…” refers to the Law.  The Gospel refers to what God has done for us (if you’re interested in a bit more about this, visit this post).  Properly distinguishing between these is the difference between a theology wherein man earns something for himself and one where man receives from God and responds as a result of the work God has done.

In other words, Biblical Christianity is centered on the Gospel which knows nothing of man doing anything to earn himself anything, “so that none may boast.”

So we need to note that Bell is not offering Biblical Christianity, here. According to his reconstruction of the story, the only way the rich man can get in on what God is going to do in the age to come is to rid himself of his greed.  Ridding himself of the greed.  But Bell wouldn’t like words like that so instead he prefers to use the language of “rewards”:

When Jesus tells the man that there are rewards for him, he’s promising the man that receiving the peace of God now, finding gratitude for what he does have, and sharing it with those who need it will create in him all the more capacity for joy in the world to come.

But when Jesus talks with the rich man, he has one thing in mind: he wants the man to experience the life of heaven, eternal life, “aionian” life, now.  For that man, his wealth was in the way… (p. 44, 62)

Aside from the blatant works righteousness, Bell is falling into the various other streams of prosperity Gospel and he’s co-opted this story to make the point: if you give something up for God, he’s going to reward you for it.  I know, I know…Bell is not like those white-haired, orange-skinned, pocket-padding televangelists we think of when we think of prosperity gospel preachers.  But his hermeneutic is the same.

The worst part about this, the thing that makes this paper mache brick crumble to pieces, is that Bell completely skips over several verses right in the middle of this passage that would deal a fatal blow to his erroneous conclusions.  Above, I gave you Matthew 19:16-22, which Bell recaps in the book before skipping down and recapping verses 28-30 to make his point.  But here are verses 23-27 which Bell, rather conveniently, leaves out:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” (Matthew 19:23-27)

So why did Bell skip over these verses?

Because they aren’t saying anything about how to make sure you’re able to get in on what God is going to do in the age to come.

Allow me to summarize Bell’s point on this: heaven is about God’s will breaking into the here and now so that we are equipped for life in the “age to come.”  The reason why Jesus tells the rich man to sell everything he has is so that the rich man can be purged of greed which has no place in the age to come.  If he can do it, Jesus promises rewards.

This is fraught with works righteousness and prosperity Gospel and the only way to come to this conclusion is by conveniently skipping over five verses.  Agree or disagree with Bell’s conclusions, that’s just a poor handling of the text.  If you have to skip over verses to make your point, your point lacks any merit whatsoever.

Let me suggest an alternate explanation of this passage.  One where no verses are skipped over, where works righteousness is not prescribed, and where there is no prosperity gospel.

The man asks Jesus about eternal life.  Jesus refers him to the law, but not all of it.  After mentioning several commandments, Jesus stops.  The man replies, “I’ve kept all those.  What do I still lack?”  Jesus’ reply to the man to sell everything he has might be summed up by saying, “What do you lack?  How about ‘do not covet.’”  Oh, that one.  The man goes away sad, convicted of his sin.

Now let me ask, is that the Gospel?  Is the good news that Jesus has come to tell us how to behave so we can get rewards and be equipped for life in the age to come?

No.  The good news comes in the next part.  After the man goes away sad, his disciples are astounded.  “If the rich can’t be saved, who can?”

Jesus replies, “What’s impossible with man is possible with God.”  Boom.  Gospel.

Makes sense why Rob left this part out.  Jesus isn’t even claiming it was possible for this man to sell everything and follow him.  He calls it impossible.

In other words, Jesus is not prescribing works righteousness as Bell supposes (of course, Bell never explicitly says this, but he does implicitly say so in so many words) he’s attempting to show the futility of it.

Bell’s right, the answer is in the question.  The man asked, “What can I do…“  And Jesus responds, “Nothing.  It is impossible for you to do anything.  But it’s not impossible for God.”

And how did God do it?  Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  He who knew no sin, became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God through him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Wow.  Bell really botched that one.  And to think: a whole chapter about heaven was built up on his (bad) theology on this passage.

That’s one brick down.

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Love Wins by Rob Bell Book Review Part 3: Everything Comes to an End?

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Jesse Medina

If you’re going to talk about hell, it’s pretty much a given to talk about heaven.  And in Love Wins, Rob Bell does.  After asking a lot of questions in the first chapter, questions that any serious Christian needs to wrestle with, he jumps right in to a chapter about heaven.

In the vein of N.T. Wright, Bell utilizes this chapter to demonstrate an important truth: heaven is not just about some other space/time, but about what God is doing here and now.  This is the message Jesus proclaimed, the prayer he taught his disciples to pray.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

In that sense, Bell doesn’t start out saying much of anything new.  But, as you’ll see, he ends up going somewhere else entirely.  What started out as genuine orthodox theology ends up out in left field…not a bad description for Bell himself.

So let’s see just how he does this.

Bell draws out a story from Matthew 19 where a rich man asks Jesus a very important question.  A question that informs this discussion on heaven and hell:

Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

“Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’“

“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Matthew 19:16-22, NIV)*

Rob rightly discerns that there is something interesting about this passage. It lies mostly with the fact that were any modern Christian to be asked this question about how to obtain eternal life, they would answer far differently than Jesus did.

So why does Jesus respond the way he does?  What is the point he’s trying to make?

According to Bell,

The answer, it turns out, is in the question.

When the man asks about “eternal life” he isn’t asking about how to go to heaven when he dies.

…

Heaven, for Jesus, was deeply connected with what he called “this age” and “the age to come.”

…

Now the English word “age” here is the word aion in New Testament Greek.  Aion has multiple meanings…

…

…aion refers to a period of time with a beginning and an end.  Another meaning of aion is a bit more complex and nuanced, because it refers to to a particular intensity of experience that transcends time.

As you can see, Rob is doing some exegetical work here.  The problem is that he’s also eisegeting, reading into the text things that simply aren’t there.  But let’s be clear that he’s doing this for a reason – in order to demonstrate that hell is not forever.  Rather, it is an intense experience with a beginning and an end.  What Bell doesn’t spend time on, but briefly mentions, is that “heaven is not forever in the way we think of forever…” (p. 58).

It appears that when it comes to the afterlife, according to Bell, nothing is eternal – not heaven and not hell. Eternity, as we understand it, simply wasn’t a category of thought for those in Jesus’ time.  Rather, both refer to an intensity of experience which begin now, and though they carry into the next life, they’ll both have an eventual end.  For heaven, it means “experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death.” (p. 59)

There’s still some work to be done on these two things – Jesus’ interaction with the rich man and this talk of aion – and you’ll see as a result of that work (in the next post) Bell completely mishandles this text, intentionally jumping over a few verses that seriously call his exegesis into question.

For now, the question has to be asked: if hell is just an intense experience with a beginning and an end, and if heaven is the same, why should anyone care which place they end up?

Sure, someone might choose to live the Christian life in order to avoid the painful intense experience in the afterlife, but they may just as well choose to live the heathen life now, knowing that whatever intense experience awaits them in the afterlife will have an end.  To me, it seems this essentially this turns out to be a question of where you want to experience pain: this life or the next?  You can be a Christian now, and experience the pain of becoming like Christ through becoming mature marked by the fruits of the Spirit, and experience the positive intense experience in the next life until it eventually ends.  Or you can be a heathen now, experience what you want now while living it up, and face the negative intense experience in the next life until it eventually ends.

One way or the other, you have this life and you have the next one, and they’ll both end eventually.  So why should you or anyone be a Christian?

*just a note: you’ll want to tune into the next post for a fuller explanation on how Bell butchers this passage.

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Love Wins by Rob Bell Book Review Part 2: The Value of Questions

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Jesse Medina

There’s something Rob Bell should be praised for: his innate ability to discern legitimate questions that can and should be asked of the Christian faith.

So far as that goes, Bell is a genius.  He has taken the time to really think through and identify potential holes in orthodox Christianity, specifically, as it pertains to this book, the doctrine of hell.  And let’s be honest, there’s a good number of questions that should be asked about hell.  Questions that are important for us to think about, search Scripture in an attempt to find answers for, ask of our pastors and teachers, and even take to God in prayer.

Questions are not a bad thing.  And to the extent that those asking honest questions have been shunned or otherwise ostracized by the church, grievous sins have been committed.

I take seriously the job of each generation of Christians to wrestle through tough questions.  Even if those questions have been asked countless times before.  Part of the beauty of the Christian faith is not simply that it is true, but that it is true for me.  Far from being a relativistic statement, that is one of the deeply personal nature of the God we serve.  These are not impersonal truths we’re wrestling with, but personal ones.

And so, I, along with many others affirm the role of questions in the Christian tradition.

But simply because a sentence happens not to end with a period doesn’t mean it isn’t a statement being made?

(I know what you’re thinking…I just blew your mind.  Especially because I ended that last one with a question mark.)

And simply because questions are being asked by Rob Bell – the rockstar of postmodern Christianity – doesn’t mean statements aren’t being made.  Why do I bring this up?  Because it is important for us to realize that in Love Wins, statements are being made.  Despite his or anyone else’s claims, Bell is not simply out to get us talking about important things.  He’s telling us something of what he believes to be true.  And why is that important?

Because when someone is a pastor, they aren’t just speaking for themselves, they’re speaking for God.

That’s their job.  And whether they like it or not, their jobs don’t start and end like other jobs do.  What the pastor says and does communicates something to others about who God is, what he is about, what he likes/dislikes/approves of/disapproves of, etc.  This operates in the negative – when someone is deeply wounded by a manipulative pastor they project that onto God – and in the positive – when a pastor develops thoughts on life, God, heaven, hell, sin or just about anything else, that is taken as carrying divine weight.

So when Rob Bell asks questions (makes statements) that undermine the orthodox Christian faith, it’s a big deal.  As a man charged with the task of representing God, his questions and statements reflect something about God.

Now, before we go on, I know there will be those who are upset about this as if I’m putting an unfair burden on Bell simply because he’s a pastor.  I get the concern, I really do.  And to a large extent, I sympathize with Bell and other church leaders.  But this is not a burden I invented.  This comes straight from Scripture – James 3:1-12; Hebrews 13:7-8,17; Ephesians 4:11-13; Titus 1:9 – to name a few.  Again, if you do not like this, or disagree with it, I suggest you take it to God and seriously ask yourself whether Christianity is for you.  This is a faith where you are called to lay down your cross, to lose your life, to die to yourself…and that includes your opinions.

So Bell asks in his first chapter,

Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish?  Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God?

…

What kind of faith is that?

Or, more important:

What kind of God is that?

I think you’ll agree: these are great questions.  Hard questions.  Questions that should be asked.

But the question behind these questions is whether Scripture has the ability to answer these questions, whether Scripture’s answer is intellectually tenable, and whether the answers that Scripture provides can stand up to the answers provided elsewhere: in other religions, in philosophy, etc.

For the Christian, the value of these types of questions is that they drive us to God and what he has revealed in his word.  The very process is the act of conversing with God, and in that sense it is not only a search for a answers, it is engaging in relationship.  It is sanctification at its best.

But here’s the problem with what Bell does and what so many others do, too: instead of approaching Scripture and letting it inform the answers to these questions – even if it means playing tug-o-war with some hard concepts and hard verses, he doesn’t even try to go there.  Instead, from the get-go, he tosses those questions under the bus and invents a new question: what if that’s not really what God is like?  And then he goes on trying to demonstrate why maybe he is right that the truth is completely different.

As you’ll see as we progress through these posts, he does an awful job of it.

It used to be that if you had a problem with what Scripture says about who God is, what he does, or why he does it, you would do the integrous thing and simply denounce Christianity.  What Bell does – in the vein of the Emergent church in general – is simply reinvent God to his own liking, ignoring the casualties of Scripture he makes in the process, and worships that God instead, calling on others to do the same and granting them the assurance that surely no wrath awaits…all in the name of Jesus.

Surely somewhere deep inside Bell he is convinced that adhering to Christianity is deeply important and he dares not leave it.  The sad truth is, using Christian language doesn’t make your faith Christian.

 

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Love Wins by Rob Bell Book Review Part 1: Introductory Thoughts

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Jesse Medina

When the Christian world blew up a few weeks ago about Rob Bell, I didn’t know whether I was going to end up buying and reading the book or not.  Despite, at one point, being a very big fan of Rob Bell (if you’d like to read other posts I’ve written where I mention him favorably, feel free to click on his name in the tag list at the right), my view of him as since deteriorated.

This book actually serves as a good representation of why that is and as I progress through this series, you’ll get a better idea of what I mean.  I don’t know how many posts I’ll actually end up doing on this, but it will be at least a few and the goal will be to comprehensively examine what Bell actually says in the book, do some exegetical work along the way, and allow you to decide for yourself whether Bell as made a compelling case for what he believes.

Before we get into any of that, however, I want to say a few things, particularly because this is such a loaded conversation right now.  The following are things that will help guide our discussion and keep us from going down any rabbit trails.  If this is just too much reading for you, skip down to number four.

First, I want to air some frustration surrounding this whole fiasco. Disagreeing with someone, even someone as cool and hip as Rob Bell, doesn’t make you a pharisee.  And on this subject in particular, it doesn’t mean that you want people to go to hell, or even that you don’t think God’s grace is all that amazing.  I say this because Rob Bell and his defenders tend to revert to these types of defenses when confronted on the matter at hand.  What?  You don’t think everyone’s going to be saved?  Probably because you don’t think God’s grace could possibly be that amazing, you pharisee jerk! Honestly, I think they’re preemptive strikes in an effort to avoid dealing with real objections.

So, listen, if you happen to love Rob Bell and have any intention of reverting to that argument, I kindly ask you to stop reading now.  You and I simply won’t get along.  You’ll say something stupid, I’ll tell you how stupid it is, you’ll accuse me of being unloving and the whole thing will just get ugly.  So if that’s you, consider yourself warned.

I’m not here saying that you can’t disagree with me.  But if you’re going to disagree with me, do so on the basis of my argument, not because what I say hurts your feelings, or hurts Rob’s feelings, or offends the silly notion that to be Christian is first and foremost about being nice.  In other words: I simply ask that you extend the same courtesy to me that I will be extending to Rob – accepting or rejecting what is said on the basis of the argument itself.

Second, disagreeing with someone doesn’t make you unloving. When this whole thing hit the fan, all kinds of people starting talking about how all this disagreement among Christians is what is wrong with Christianity today and what a big turn off this all is to non-Christians.  Here’s the deal: it is impossible – yes, impossible – to escape the fact that throughout Scripture, specifically in the New Testament, to love God is to disagree.  Jesus disagreed with the Pharisees and Saducees, Paul disagreed with false teachers and even his own partners in ministry (not to mention another apostle, Peter), etc.  If you can’t handle the important work of discerning what is right and wrong, even when it comes to a well-known preacher’s teaching, you have no business being a Christian.  As Kevin DeYoung said in his review of this book, “Being judgmental and making judgments are not the same” (That’s my paraphrase).  Oh, also, isn’t it a bit hypocritical to say “disagreement is unloving” to those you disagree with?  Just a thought.

Similarly, if you’re a non-Christian who is offended by this type of disagreement, Christianity is not for you.  I don’t say that to be rude or because I don’t want you to be a Christian.  Rather, I say it because you have to know what you’re getting yourself into.  If you cannot handle disagreeing with someone or being disagreed with, I’m telling you now, you won’t really like Jesus nor will you have the backbone to confess him as Lord when it means disagreeing with others.

Third,  we each have the responsibility to weigh the teaching of those in leadership. The reason I am doing this review is not because I’m out to get Rob Bell.  This blog averages 20 visitors a day.  Trust me, nobody, including Rob Bell, is going to look at these posts unless they’re looking for them and probably not even then.  I don’t update Twitter or Facebook about my blog posts anymore so this is in no way an attempt to gather a following or make a name for myself.  Rather, I’m sorting through what he says myself and you need to the same.  Scripture warns the Body of Christ against those who sneak in, under the radar, spreading a teaching that is contrary to what Scripture teaches.  The only way to protect yourself from being deceived by one of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” is to compare what they say in the name of God to the word of God.  If you can say, with integrity, it matches up, you’re good to go.  If you can’t, you must…we must…condemn them as heretics.  There really is no in-between, even if we want there to be.

Fourth, and most important, what matters here is not what could happen or what might be possible. What matters is what God has revealed.  In other words, truth, not possibility, matters most.  Trust me, I know that we serve a big God and I have no doubt in my mind that the next life will hold many surprises.  But this God we serve has still spoken.  Despite his ways not being our ways, despite our language falling short of describing him every time, it was Him who spoke to us. The Christian story is not one where man goes on a search for God.  It is one where God goes on a search for man.  And God speaks to man, using man’s language, to reveal to us all sorts of things.  So, yes, God is big.  He is endlessly capable of surprising us.  But that doesn’t mean we should bank our or anyone else’s eternities on such a surprise.

There are people out there (and as you’ll see, Bell is one of them) who appeal to the lack of contradiction in Scripture in their theology-forming.  But that is exactly the wrong way to go about it and Scripture has severe warnings against those who engage in this type of behavior (see Rev. 22:18-19).  Something is not true because Scripture fails to say “such and such is not true.”  Something is true because Scripture says “such and such is true.”  Do you see the difference?  Sum it up to say, if Scripture affirms it, so should we.  If Scripture doesn’t affirm it, neither should we.

So, hey, if you’re still with me, awesome.  I hope my reviews are able to add something to the various other reviews that have been and are still being written.  This is an important topic and Bell brings up great questions (it’s one of his strengths).  Even more, if he is going to be the innovative leader being lifted up for a new generation of church leaders, I’d say those of us looking to be church leaders in the future have no choice but to do the work admonished in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 which says, “…test everything.  Hold on to the good.”

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