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J. B.

Euangelion: Love Wins 2 - 0 views

  • Have we somehow misunderstood or twisted the truth of what Jesus came to do? Well, this is a huge question that would require survey of Gospel accounts let alone a wide-ranging study of Gospel presentations today. Neither of which did Love Wins provide. So, it is certainly an overstatement.
  • many Christians sitting in our churches are secretly asking them, but afraid to raise them publicly.
  • I’d be shocked if we conducted a survey of people in our churches and not many of them were either pluralistic or universalists. There is the official teaching of the church and then there is what the Christians who sit in the pews believe. Often these are two very different things.
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  • Do you really mean to say that the central truth of Christianity is about getting out of hell and into heaven? Or, are you presenting this as Rob's view? If so, I'd have to disagree with you. Can you elaborate?
    • J. B.
       
      If we understand Hell as a place of separation from (right) relationship with God and a place of being subjected to the wrath of God, then isn't this at the very heart of the gospel? 
  • it is not accurate by any stretch to call orthodox a view that (1) tends toward universalism, (2) presents a “second-chance” theology, and (3) argues that nothing of what is central to the Gospel story is about “getting in”. This view can claim the label orthodoxy about as much as those found among the Gnostic Gospels. Sure there were so-called Christians used these texts and who thought of them as Christian Scripture, but they were on the very fringes of early Christianity representing only a very small minority.
  • Well we haven't defined heaven yet which is important in such a discussion, but yes I think a central aspect of Jesus teaching was getting into the soon coming kingdom which I equate with heaven.
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    The first (or second?) part of a review of Rob Bell's "Love Wins."
Pastor Jeff Lilley

How to Study the Bible - The Temple - Second Temple Inferior in Glory - How To Study th... - 0 views

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    This study is designed to be an Interactive Introduction of the basic facts about the Bible and also to Introduce some basic Standards that should be used as We search the Holy Scriptures. We are told in 2 Timothy 2:15 to "Handle accurately the word of truth" and in Hebrews 10:25 "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching." So, with that in mind lets study together.
J. B.

God Is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School Is Still True: A Review of "Lov... - 0 views

  • Bell asks a lot of questions (350 by one count), we should not write off the provocative theology as mere question-raising. Bell did not write an entire book because he was looking for some good resources on heaven and hell.
  • As Bell himself writes, “But this isn’t a book of questions. It’s a book of responses to these questions” (19).
  • Bad theology usually sneaks in under the guise of familiar language.
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  • Judgmentalism is not the same as making judgments. The same Jesus who said “do not judge” in Matthew 7:1 calls his opponents dogs and pigs in Matthew 7:6. Paul pronounces an anathema on those who preach a false gospel (Gal. 1:8). Disagreement among professing Christians is not a plague on the church. In fact, it is sometimes necessary.
  • This is a book for people like Bell, people who grew up in an evangelical environment and don’t want to leave it completely, but want to change it, grow up out of it, and transcend it. The emerging church is not an evangelistic strategy. It is the last rung for evangelicals falling off the ladder into liberalism or unbelief. Over and over, Bell refers to the “staggering number” of people just like him, people who can’t believe the message they used to believe, people who want nothing to do with traditional Christianity, people who don’t want to leave the faith but can’t live in the faith they once embraced.
  • Others—and they are in the worse position—will opt for liberalism, which has always seen itself as a halfway house between conservative orthodoxy and secular disbelief.
  • This is misguided, toxic, and ultimately subverts
    • J. B.
       
      Clearly Bell thinks this must be a very important issue. If Bell is right, then the vast majority of Christians throughout Christian history have been teaching a misguided, toxic, and subverting gospel.... in effect, it looks like we are teaching a different gospel altogether.
  • It’s a cheap view of the world because it’s a cheap view of God. It’s a shriveled imagination
  • This bold claim flies in the face of Richard Bauckham’s historical survey: Until the nineteenth century almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell. Here and there, outside the theological mainstream, were some who believed that the wicked would be finally annihilated. . . . Even fewer were the advocates of universal salvation, though these few included some major theologians of the early church. Eternal punishment was firmly asserted in official creeds and confessions of the churches. It must have seemed as indispensable a part of the universal Christian belief as the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. (“Universalism: A Historical Survey,” Themelios 4.2 [September 1978]: 47–54)
  • Universalism has been around a long time. But so has every other heresy. Arius rejected the full deity of Christ and many people followed him. This hardly makes Arianism part of the wide, diverse stream of Christian orthodoxy. Every point of Christian doctrine has been contested, but some have been deemed heterodox. Universalism, traditionally, was considered one of those points. True, many recent liberal theologians have argued for versions of universalism—and this is where Bell stands, not in the center of the historic Christian tradition.
  • Universalism (though in a different form than Bell’s and for different reasons) has been present in the church since Origen, but it was never in the center of the tradition.
  • some of these are promises to God’s people, some are general promises about the nations coming to God, and others are about the universal acknowledgement (not to be equated with saving faith) on the last day that Jesus Christ is Lord. Not one of his texts supports his conclusion.
  • Even a cursory glance at John 14 shows that the through in verse 16 refers to faith. The chapter begins by saying, “Believe in God; believe also in me.” Verse seven talks about knowing the Father. Verse nine and ten explain that we see and know the Father by believing that Jesus is in the Father and the Father in him. Verses 11 and 12 touch on belief yet again. Coming to the Father through Christ means through faith in Christ. This is in keeping with the overall purpose of John’s gospel (John 20:31).
  • Bell cites Jesus’ words in John 3:17 that he “did not come to judge the world but to save it” (160). This Jesus, Bell says, is a “vast, expansive, generous mystery” leading us to conclude hopefully that “Heaven is, after all, full of surprises.” Bell’s lean into universalism here would be significantly muted had he gone on to Jesus’ words in verse 18: “Whoever believes in him [i.e., the Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Likewise, according to John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
  • The Greek word for “unite” is a long one: anakephalaiōsasthai. It means to sum up, to bring together to a main point, to gather together. It is like an author finishing the last chapter of his book or a conductor bringing the symphony from cacophony to harmony. It’s a glorious promise, already begun in some ways by the word of Christ.
  • The uniting of all things does not entail the salvation of all people. It means that everything in the universe, heaven and earth, the spiritual world and the physical world, will finally submit to the lordship of Christ, some in joyful worship of their beloved Savior and others in just punishment for their wretched treason. In the end, God wins.
  • If you don’t accept God’s story about the world and resist his love, heaven will be hell for you, a hell you create for yourself. We are supposed to see this in Luke 15 where both brothers are invited to the same feast but one can’t enjoy it. Heaven and hell at the same party (176).
  • The result is a simplistic formula: “God wants all people to be saved. God gets what he wants. Therefore, all people will eventually be saved.” This is a case of poor theologizing beholden to mistaken logic. If it is “the will of God” that Christians “abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thess. 4:3), does that mean God’s greatness is diminished by our impurity?
  • If he’s right, most of church history has been wrong. If he’s wrong, a staggering number of people are hearing “peace, peace” where there is no peace.
  • Bell figures God won’t say “sorry, too late” to those in hell who are humble and broken for their sins. But where does the Bible teach the damned are truly humble or penitent? For that matter, where does the Bible talk about growing and maturing in the afterlife or getting a second chance after death? Why does the Bible make such a big deal about repenting “today” (Heb. 3:13), about being found blameless on the day of Christ (2 Pet. 3:14), about not neglecting such a great salvation (Heb. 2:3) if we have all sorts of time to figure things out in the next life? Why warn about not inheriting the kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9–10), about what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31), or about the vengeance of our coming King (2 Thess. 1:5–12) if hell is just what we make of heaven? Bell does nothing to answer these questions, or even ask them in the first place.
  • Some Jesuses should be rejected, Bell says, like the ones that are “anti-science” and “anti-gay” and use bullhorns on the street (8). But wherever we find “grace, peace, love, acceptance, healing, forgiveness” we’ve found the creative life source that we call Jesus (156, 159).
  • At the very heart of this controversy, and one of the reasons the blogosphere exploded over this book, is that we really do have two different Gods. The stakes are that high. If Bell is right, then historic orthodoxy is toxic and terrible. But if the traditional view of heaven and hell are right, Bell is blaspheming. I do not use the word lightly, just like Bell probably chose “toxic” quite deliberately. Both sides cannot be right. As much as some voices in evangelicalism will suggest that we should all get along and learn from each other and listen for the Spirit speaking in our midst, the fact is we have two irreconcilable views of God.
  • Bell’s god may be all love, but it is a love rooted in our modern Western sensibilities more than careful biblical reflection. It is a love that threatens to swallow up God’s glory and holiness. But, you may reply, the Bible says God is love (1 John 4:16). True, but if you want to weigh divine attributes by sentence construction, you have to mention God is spirit (John 4:24), God is light (1 John 1:5), and God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). The verb “is” does not establish a priority of attributes. If anything, one might mention that the only thrice-repeated attribute is “holy, holy, holy.” And yet this is the one thing Bell’s god is not.
  • What’s missing is not only a full-orbed view of sins, but a deeper understanding of sin itself. In Bell’s telling of the story, there is no sense of the vertical dimension of our evil. Yes, Bell admits several times that we can resist or reject God’s love. But there’s never any discussion of the way we’ve offended God, no suggestion that ultimately all our failings are a failure to worship God as we should. God is not simply disappointed with our choices or angry for the way we judge others. He is angry at the way we judge him. He cannot stand to look upon our uncleanness. His nostrils flare at iniquity. He hates our ingratitude, our impurity, our God-complexes, our self-centeredness, our disobedience, our despising of his holy law. Only when we see God’s eye-covering holiness will we grasp the magnitude of our traitorous rebellion, and only then will we marvel at the incomprehensible love that purchased our deliverance on the cross.
  • The pain of hell is our fault. But it’s also God’s doing. Hell is not what we make for ourselves or gladly choose. It’s what a holy God justly gives to those who exchange the truth of God for a lie. The bowls of wrath in Revelation are poured out by God; they are not swum in by sinners. The ten plagues were sent by God, they were not the product of some Egyptian spell gone wrong. God’s wrath burns against the impenitent and unbelieving; they do not walk into the fire by themselves. Bell’s god is wholly passive toward sin. He hates some of it and says no to it in the next life, but he does not actively judge it. There’s no way to make sense of Nadab and Abihu or Perrez-Uzzah or Gehazi or Achan’s or Korah’s rebellion or the flood or the exodus or the Babylonian captivity or the preaching of John the Baptist or the visions of Revelation or the admonitions of Paul or the warnings of Hebrews or Calvary’s cross apart from a God who hates sin, judges sin, and pour out his wrath—sometimes now, always later—on the accursed things and peoples of this world.
  • Love Wins assures people that everyone’s eternity ends up as heaven eventually. The second chances are good not just for this life, but for the next. And what if they aren’t? What if Jesus says on the day of judgment, “Depart from me, I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23)? What if at the end of the age the wicked and unbelieving cry out, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16)? What if outside the walls of the New Jerusalem “are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (Rev. 22:15)? What if there really is only one name “under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12)? And what if the wrath of God really remains on those who do not believe in the Son (John 3:18, 36)?
  • Bad theology hurts real people.
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    A thorough critical review of Rob Bell's book "Love Wins" by Kevin Deyoung. MUST READ.
C L

180 - An award-winning documentary! - 0 views

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    33 minutes that will rock your world What changed their minds in seconds?
angelapardie

The Relationship Between Each of the Three Stages of God's Work - 0 views

The Relationship Between Each of the Three Stages of God’s Work  Relevant Words of God: From the work of Jehovah to that of Jesus, and from the work of Jesus to th...

started by angelapardie on 03 Jul 18 no follow-up yet
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Edit Post - 3MinuteBibleStudy | TypePad - 0 views

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    The purpose of this Bible Study is to offer a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study. I think the best part of the study is that it will be interactive. YOU get to ask the questions and give the answers too.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study Book of Revelation: AAG BSP #157 Revelation 22:20 - 0 views

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    The purpose of this Bible Study is to offer a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study. I think the best part of the study is that it will be interactive. YOU get to ask the questions and give the answers too.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

How to Study the Bible - DBS HSB #030 - Interpret Covenantally (part two) - How To Stud... - 0 views

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    This study is designed to be an Interactive Introduction of the basic facts about the Bible and also to Introduce some basic Standards that should be used as We search the Holy Scriptures. We are told in 2 Timothy 2:15 to "Handle accurately the word of truth" and in Hebrews 10:25 "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching." So, with that in mind lets study together.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

DBS HSB #022 Interpret Based on Context - How To Study the Bible - 0 views

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    This study is designed to be an Interactive Introduction of the basic facts about the Bible and also to Introduce some basic Standards that should be used as We search the Holy Scriptures. We are told in 2 Timothy 2:15 to "Handle accurately the word of truth" and in Hebrews 10:25 "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching." So, with that in mind lets study together.
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    http://lord-jesus.do.am/ The message of Jesus Christ 1 The Lord God created man, created this book (Old Testament + Revelation) also that people knew and recognized him. This book is prophetic, rather than historical, which has written Lord God, during the creation of world, their own hands, (because he can do it, because he created man) latest book of Revelation (New Testament in fact fictitious) because the Bible, Old Testament, Consist of different sorts of books (more than 1000 chapters and 43 headline). Of Revelation John, is the same John, from the book Maccabees, which is the smallest, and that I, as John and Jesus Christ, this is the same person. Book of Maccabees penultimate book is the Bible, who do not have many Bibles. Byblos is almost 4000 years of history of prophetic, advanced, and this prophetic history is torn off sense between books of Revelation and the Maccabees, nearly thirty years, these thirty years a clean sheet which my life and your life, these 4000 years of history, too prophetic. The prophetic story of Jesus Christ is not written in the Bible as the written history of the prophetic book of David separately from the psalm, David and Jesus Christ, the same person. The so-called Jews took Bible as its own history, which can not be, because this book is prophetic, allegoric, rather than historical, from beginning to end, even invent a name for its city from Bible, calling it Jerusalem, and the so-called apostles of thought and stole the names book of Revelation and invented New Testament. Noah Ark is a Bible that God created and I built, it was Noah and the prophet Moses and Aaron and the prophet Isaiah and Jeremiah, which will be you, your families, your children and wives, you withdraw from the Egyptian (allegoric, which the whole world) of land, it is a miracle, a new, which the Lord God is our father, would do for us who believe that my said, and will be a new city, holy Jerusalem. I tell you, all peoples of the world and all peoples o
Pastor Jeff Lilley

3MinuteBibleStudy: AAG BSP #141 Revelation 21:9-11 - 0 views

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    The purpose of this Bible Study is to offer a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study. I think the best part of the study is that it will be interactive. YOU get to ask the questions and give the answers too.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Daily Word of God: Daily Word for Thurs 2/18/2010 "Fight the Fight and Keep the Faith" - 0 views

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    Daily Word of God Devotionals are Powerful, Motivating, Practical and Inspiring. Written to Turbo-charge your day and stimulate your spiritual appetite and do "Whatever it Takes" to focus on Christ. Remember, "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible." For Reservations at Our Fathers House, Please Enter John 3:16
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Life of Christ - The Night Before Christmas (part one) - Bible Study Life... - 0 views

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    Life of Christ Bible Study. The Man, the God and the Works of Christ, from His Presence in eternity past, through His ministry in the feeding of the Multitudes. This study is informative, exciting, engaging and a lot of fun.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Daily Word of God: Daily Word for Thurs 3/4/2010 "Have You Ever Tried to Satisfy the Fl... - 0 views

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    Daily Word of God Devotionals are Powerful, Motivating, Practical and Inspiring. Written to Turbo-charge your day and stimulate your spiritual appetite and do "Whatever it Takes" to focus on Christ. Remember, "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible." For Reservations at Our Fathers House, Please Enter John 3:16
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Book of Daniel - Daniel 7:13-14 - Bible Study Book of Daniel - 0 views

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    A verse by verse bible study to better understand the Apocalypse views of Revelation and find out who Daniel was and why God favored him. We like to provide a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Romans - Romans 1:5 - Bible Study Romans - 0 views

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    The purpose of this Bible Study is to offer a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study. Understanding the Word of God are essential tools and are vital in our day to day struggles against the enemy.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Book of Daniel - Daniel 7:11-12 - Bible Study Book of Daniel - 0 views

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    A verse by verse Bible study to better understand the Apocalypse views of Revelation and find out who Daniel was and why God favored him. We like to provide a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Life of Christ - The Attacks against the Jews - Bible Study Life of Christ - 0 views

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    Life of Christ Bible Study. The Man, the God and the Works of Christ, from His Presence in eternity past, through His ministry in the feeding of the Multitudes. This study is informative, exciting, engaging and a lot of fun.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Romans - Romans 1:15 - Bible Study Romans - 0 views

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    The purpose of this Bible Study is to offer a Unique, Interesting and Fun way to study the Bible. Our goal is to provide everyone with a detailed, step by step, verse by verse Bible study. Understanding the Word of God are essential tools and are vital in our day to day struggles against the enemy.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Bible Study - Life of Christ - The Satanic "Millennium" - Bible Study Life of Christ - 0 views

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    Life of Christ Bible Study. The Man, the God and the Works of Christ, from His Presence in eternity past, through His ministry in the feeding of the Multitudes. This study is informative, exciting, engaging and a lot of fun.
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