A friend of mine purchased Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis (the name of one of my favorite drinks at Kennedy's Coffeehouse but that's beside the point)...
...and she let me borrow it since I refuse to spend my own money on things such as this. Here is a portion of the book that I had a serious problem with:
Somebody recently gave me a videotape of a lecture by a man who travels around speaking about the creation of the world. At one point in his lecture he said "if you deny that God created the world in six literal twenty-four-hour days, then you are denying that Jesus ever died on the cross." That a bizarre leap of logic, I would say.
But he was serious.
It hit me while I was watching that for him faith isn't a trampoline; it's a wall of brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger. Like he said, no six-day creation equals no cross. Remove one and the whole wall wobbles.
OK. I'll stop here for today. This is only HALF of what I thought about posting but the rest can wait until tomorrow.
What do you think of what Mr. Bell said here?
Personally I believe in a six day creation - with literal 24 hour days but I'm not going to go as far as say that if you don't believe in it you cannot believe in what Christ did on the cross. I don't, however, believe in what Mr. Bell said. There ARE certain things that you HAVE to believe in.
For example:
You have to believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. You cannot be saved by Christ and believe that there are other ways to heaven. Period. (John 14:6)
You have to believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. If He didn't, He wouldn't have been a worthy sacrifice. (John 8:46, 2 Cor 5:21, Heb 4:15...)
You have to believe that Christ rose from the grave. If He did not, He is no better than any other deity. Sin and death defeated Christ if He never rose from the grave. Praise the Lord, He did rise and He DID defeat sin and death. (Luke 24) (Acts 17:31, 1 Cor 15:1-11, 20)
**And another thing. I want my faith to be a solid, strong fortress against the false things of this world. And, he's right, if one brick is taken out it does become weak...because at that point we are perverting the Truth of the Gospel! We have to stand up for the hard and fast TRUTHS of Scripture. We have to, otherwise Christianity becomes as fluid as the culture. Jumping from one "truth" to another just because it's popular or "makes sense".
I also find his analogy interesting. A wall of brick. Walls aren't necessarily bad. Take the walls of your home, for example. The walls of your home serve to protect you from the elements and intruders. Just because your home has walls doesn't make it less welcoming...you're just choosing what you will and will not let in side. I think, as Christians, we need to have walls to protect us. Be careful though, don't let you walls turn into a fortress that rejects everything that comes by. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God will let you know if something needs to be on the outside of the walls.
So many places in Scripture talk about building walls as being good. Look, for example, what happened to Jerusalem without walls: Nehemiah 2:17 (by the way, I read the ESV)
Anyway....enough rambling from....
Bring on the comments!
7 comments:
have you ever considered starting a "new christians" blog? i think you would be very good at it because you have a good way of laying things out without getting side tracked with too many details.
This stuff just gets me all riled up. In dealing with the whole New Age movement I have done more research then I knew I could do about false teachings and false prophets and there are A LOT out there! BIG names too! Joyce Meyers, Joel Olsteen just to name a few. These people have MASS followers.
The problem for me lies in the smallest deception. ONE LITTLE tidbit of false doctrine is enough to seperate us from Grace when we choose to believe it. That breaks my heart.
I love Jesus and try to not sin and bring it all back to the Bible. If its not in there and if I can't back it up from the Word at some point, well, it doesn;t belong in my category of contemplation.
Now, MANY disagree with me on this, including my parents, who think we should study all forms of something (like say, you should study to Mormon Bible to have a better understanding of the Bible) to be truly educated in facts and Truth. I dont see it that way.
When you are SOUND in your faith, when you are confident in the Word, when you have the Scripture ready to referrence in your thoughts...well, then you are able to handle anything.
I think we often forget (myself TOTALLY included) that our battle is not against man. (flesh and blood) It is against rulers, authorities, principalities, and the powers of evil.
When we know Truth, we do not need to 'fight' lies.
You sure are getting me going here! I am sure I have offended someone, so please forgive me and my bluntness and just know I am one little speck of opinion in this great big world.
Many blessings-
Amanda
I agree with you Amanda, that if it is not in the Bible we should not even have it as a point of reference for our faith. That, I feel, is very solid theologically and we all would benefit fron having this mentality.
On the other hand, the line "When we know Truth, we do not need to 'fight' lies." I have a hard time agreeing with. For example, my bff's sister had fallen into the trap of the very liberal stream of the emergent church. She hadn't even questioned it, really.
If my bff hadn't noticed that her sister was falling for thier lies and didn't tell her the truth (and even end up fighting for it) she (the sister) would have never known how contrary these guys are to the truth.
I think it's very important that we fight for the truth...isn't that what Jesus did when confronting the Judiazers and the Pharirsees?
One piece of clarification: I am using the term fight but I do not mean that we should hate or be mean to people of other faiths. There are gracious ways of fighting for truth.
--ok, I'm done. :)
I have not read Velvet Elvis, but have heard a ton about it. The thing about Rob Bell is that he doesn't preach a whole gospel. For example, on youtube he puts up videos called "numa" (or something like that) and he sounds all cool and laid back talking to non-christians about God, but he never mentions sin, death, hell, etc - all the things that Jesus talks about in addition to His amazing grace! It's a real shame...
I think often times people try to distract believers by getting them caught up with the little things. Will our faith completely be destroyed if God didn't create the world in 6 actual days? I hope not. It's so much easier for people to challenge us with the minor details, get us all caught up with these things, rather than deal with the big issues, like who Christ is, and what He has done for them. My dad loves to ask questions about creation and the flood and the ages of people in the Old Testament, but never does he challenge me about Christ. That's too personal, and he doesn't want me "preaching" the gospel to him. He can "intellectually" argue the other points, but you can't wrap logic around God's grace.
Friend Chick,
The Bible says that God created the world in six days. So, if the Bible is wrong in that one area then that give us "permission" (so to speak) to question the Bible as a whole.
So, would our faith be completely destroyed if the world wasn't created in 6 days - yes. Because at that point we're saying that the Bible has errors. We're saying that the Word is not inerrant and that the author (God) is not perfect.
Therefore, our faith would be completely destroyed if the Bible was not true. For clarification: the Bible IS true.
I do agree that some people get caught up focusing on the little things but taking a core doctrine and questioning it...that isn't just a little thing (basically questioning the Bible when it says something is fact - like creation).
Amanda, your insights in the comments are great and you should post them on your blog in addition to your original entry!
BTW- I do not mean 'fight' either... I am BIG on standing in Truth... but my goalis to learn how to do it with Grace and Gods timing. I seem tothink I can argue people into Heaven... "But if only I coul tell them about truth and Jesus and Grace!" but God ALWAYS Has others plans for them, no of which include me getting mouthy.
NOW. I know that YOU do not get mouthy like and and I am not implying you do! Thats just my perspective on the whole 'fight' with man comment...
Many blessings!
Amanda
P.S. I believe that every word in the Bible is truth adn divinly inspired. If someone wants to pick apart one thing...such as creationism...they are assuming there is a lie or untruth in the Bible. And I just dont stand for that. And that leads me back to being mouthy! lol So I often need to just tell myself, enough! Your fight is not against man!
Anyway. Enough from me for tuday!
God bless!
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