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angelapardie

Embarking on the Path of Belief in God | Eastern Lightning - 1 views

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started by angelapardie on 01 Jul 18 no follow-up yet
J. B.

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

thegospelcoalition.org/...rob-bell-love-wins-review

Hell Universalism Rob Bell Love Wins

shared by J. B. on 14 Mar 11 - Cached
  • 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.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • 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.
      J. B. on 14 Mar 11
       
      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.
  • J. B. on 14 Mar 11
     
    A thorough critical review of Rob Bell's book "Love Wins" by Kevin Deyoung. MUST READ.
angelapardie

The significance of God taking the name Almighty God in the Age of Kingdom - 0 views

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started by angelapardie on 09 Jul 18 no follow-up yet
angelapardie

The significance of God taking the name Jehovah in the Age of Law - 2 views

Bible Verses for Reference: "And God said moreover to Moses, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the ...

Jehovah Bible

started by angelapardie on 07 Jul 18 no follow-up yet
angelapardie

The Importance of Coordination in Service | Eastern Lightning - 0 views

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started by angelapardie on 26 Jun 18 no follow-up yet
angelapardie

During an Experience I Saw the Protection of God | The Church of Almighty God - 0 views

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started by angelapardie on 02 Jul 18 no follow-up yet
J. B.

Why do Americans claim to be more religious than they are? - By Shankar Vedantam - Slat... - 0 views

www.slate.com/2278923

Religion Religiosity Christianity and Society Religion and Society

shared by J. B. on 28 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Americans are hardly more religious than people living in other industrialized countries. Yet they consistently—and more or less uniquely—want others to believe they are more religious than they really are.
  • When you ask Americans about their religious beliefs, it's like asking them whether they are good people, or asking whether they are patriots. They'll say yes, even if they cheated on their taxes, bilked Medicare for unnecessary services, and evaded the draft. Asking people how often they attend church elicits answers about their identity—who people think they are or feel they ought to be, rather than what they actually believe and do.
  • self-reported church attendance has been held up as proof that America has somehow resisted the secularizing trends that have swept other industrialized nations. What if those numbers are spectacularly wrong?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • actual "church attendance rates for Protestants and Catholics are approximately one half" of what people reported.
  • nearly 50 percent more people claimed they attended services when asked the type of question that pollsters ask: "Did you attend religious services in the last week?"
  • in reality about 21 percent of Americans attended religious services weekly—exactly half the number who told pollsters they did.
  • Brenner found that the United States and Canada were outliers—not in religious attendance, but in overreporting religious attendance. Americans attended services about as often as Italians and Slovenians and slightly more than Brits and Germans. The significant difference between the two North American countries and other industrialized nations was the enormous gap between poll responses and time-use studies in those two countries.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

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

jjlmblog.typepad.com/...nterpret-based-on-context.html

Bible Christian Church Christianity Holy of Holies Jesus JJL Ministries Religion and Spirituality

shared by Pastor Jeff Lilley on 23 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Pastor Jeff Lilley on 23 Aug 09
     
    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.
  • Zhirayr Ghazarosyan on 23 Aug 09
     
    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
angelapardie

Disclosing: Is the Lord Jesus the Son of God, or God Himself? - 2 views

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Lord Jesus

started by angelapardie on 23 Jun 18 no follow-up yet
angelapardie

Going Astray and Finding the Way - 3 views

Xiaobing    Xuanzhou City, Anhui Province “That which you are enjoying today is the very thing which is ruining your future, whereas the pain you are suffering today is th...

started by angelapardie on 25 Jun 18 no follow-up yet
J. B.

Do not Ask for whom the Bell tolls…… A Chapter by Chapter review of 'Love Win... - 0 views

www.patheos.com/...by-chapter-review-of-love-wins

Ben Witherington III Rob Bell Hell Universalism

shared by J. B. on 10 Apr 11 - Cached
  • in the Preface there is the disclaimer— ‘nothing in this book has not been claimed before within the parameters of the broad stream of historic orthodox Christianity’  (p. x).   As it turns out, and as we shall see, this is actually not quite accurate, if one is referring to creedal or confessional or conciliar orthodoxy.  If one means no more that some church father somewhere at sometime said something like this before, whether we deem him to be making an off-handed comment or not, then perhaps this claim can stand.
  • What is entirely missing from this chapter is any sort of discussion of sin, sin as the alienating cause of human lostness,  sin as the reason why persons are not going to heaven.  Let me be clear that I think Rom. 1.18-32 is crucial to this question.  Unfortunately Rom. 1 is not dealt with in this first chapter and what texts he does cite he does not treat in any detail.  Rather Rob sort of flits from one text to the next like a butterfly hoping to drain the tiny bit of nectar in each flower.
  • people are not condemned to hell or judgment for what they have never heard about God.   What Romans 1 says is that the reality of God and God’s power is evident in all of creation, and people are judged for what they do with the light about God that they have indeed received.  What Paul says they do is that while they know God exists and is powerful, they refuse to acknowledge God,  the most primal sin of all. In other words,  most of the questions Rob raises in Chapter One are entirely irrelevant.     People do not go to Hell (whether in a handbasket or by some other means of conveyance)  due to ignorance of God or of Christ. 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Rob wants to suggest that a just or righteous or holy or judging God is somehow not good news. Tell that to the oppressed Christians in North Korea.   Tell that to the ordinary citizens of Libya longing to be set free from a wicked and brutal dictator.  Tell that to the Jews during the Holocaust in WWII.   In a sin-soaked world,  Good News involves both redemption and judgment, both vindication and liberation, both holiness and love.    The God of the Bible is holy love.  Not love without holiness which would fail to deal with the cancer called sin.  And not holiness without love, for if that was the way God related to us all— no one could stand.     The Good News of and about Jesus Christ, who will be the final judge of the world, is that justice, mercy and grace are all a part of this story.
  • J. B. on 10 Apr 11
     
    The first of an eight part review of Rob Bell's book "Love Wins." By Ben Witherington III
IN Too

…and They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love « Reflections in the WORD - 0 views

reflectionsintheword.org/...-we-are-christians-by-our-love

Christianity Church Giving Help Legalism Love Ritual Sharing Unity Brotherhood Mosaic-Law Fellowship Bible-Study Bible-Teaching Devotional

shared by IN Too on 21 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • IN Too on 21 Nov 11
     
    It is the love we share (by our actions, not just words!) that makes people believe we are sincere. It is how much we sacrifice for each other that opens the door for the gospel message. It is by bearing each other's burdens that we fulfill the Law of Christ.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Q) Who is Jesus Christ and what is His Mission? - Ask Pastor Jeff - 0 views

jjlmblog.typepad.com/...t-and-what-is-his-mission.html

Christianity Jesus Christ Religion and Spirituality Prayer Evangelism God the Father Heaven JJL Ministries Pastor Jeff Lilley

shared by Pastor Jeff Lilley on 01 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Pastor Jeff Lilley on 01 Oct 09
     
    Are you having a problem? Struggling with a spiritual issue? Don't know what to do? God has the answers in His Word. Share your burden or your question here, and I will respond honestly and biblically. "Ask Pastor Jeff" is a way for people to get real Bible answers to real life questions. God has provided us the answers to "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Pet. 1:3) through His Word.
J. B.

Nice evil | LifeSiteNews.com - 0 views

www.lifesitenews.com/...nice-evil

Total Depravity Ethics

shared by J. B. on 15 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Under an old, Christian-based legal definition, insanity is understood to be the incapacity of a person to tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. If we propose that most people in the modern western world, people raised under the new, post-Christian, post-absolutist philosophical dispensation, truly do not know that abortion is wrong – that it is a monstrous evil to kill an innocent human being – nearly everyone around us is, in some sense, murderously insane.
  • That man, those men, clearly ought to have known, and their facades of civilization are not enough to cover their shame. It is not enough, we can say, confident that the world will agree, to like Beethoven and Bach, to read Schiller and enjoy sports and be attentive husbands and fathers. We must know the difference between good and evil, or we are lost, we become those men, those civilized monsters. 
  • are we not all steeped in evil, largely unknowing, as a fish is unaware of the water in which he lives?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Is this not the smiling, reasonable face of our worst dystopian nightmares?
  • in modern times, deliberate human evil is more pervasive than it has ever been, but it is disguised.
Cody Lorance

Re-Wired to Please God - 1 views

tibm.org/-2-of-5-were-not-under-the-law

bible theology law grace old testament

shared by Cody Lorance on 19 Jan 09 - Cached
  • Cody Lorance on 19 Jan 09
     
    The 10 Commandments, Sabbath days and feast, lambs and oxen, the cleansing of mildew . . . what does this all have to do with the Christian today? Are we merely New Testament people who consult the Old only for Bible trivia purposes?
anonymous

Where Can We Find the Truth? - 0 views

www.relijournal.com/...e-Can-We-Find-the-Truth.606811

truth christian god Jesus religion bible

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 09 - Cached
  • anonymous on 22 Mar 09
     
    Truth is not determined by how many people who believe in it, but it solely depends on how they live by the truth.
Cody Lorance

Reading the Bible Chronologically - 0 views

tibm.org/lical-narrative-a-reading-plan

bible

shared by Cody Lorance on 31 Jan 09 - Cached
  • Cody Lorance on 31 Jan 09
     
    The following is a reading plan that I developed for some newer disciples / followers of Jesus to help them get a good picture of what is going on in Scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. Our English Bibles do not follow a clear chronological order (particularly in the Old Testament), so many people who read the Bible straight through aren't able to, say, summarize the Biblical narrative as a whole. This is a bit of a problem as I believe that a developing healthy understanding of the Bible's story (and my/your place in it) is an essential component of discipleship.
Pastor Jeff Lilley

Daily Word of God: Daily Word for Mon 8/24/2009 "Are We a People of Faith?" - 0 views

jjlmblog.typepad.com/...-are-we-a-people-of-faith.html

Bible Christianity Religion and Spirituality Epistle to the Ephesians God Christ Salvation Evangelism

shared by Pastor Jeff Lilley on 24 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Pastor Jeff Lilley on 24 Aug 09
     
    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, "A cheerful heart is good medicine..." (Prov 17:22a) For Reservations at Our Fathers House, Please Enter John 3:16
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