Quotes from Rob Bell in his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith and an interview in Christianity Today.
[The Bible is a] "human product...rather than the product of divine fiat"
**read 2Timothy 3:16 for truth**
From his book Velvet Elvis Rob writes this about Hell:
"When people use the word Hell what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter- they are all hell on Earth. Jesus' desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth. What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about Hell here and now. As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell on earth." p. 148
"Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust. Our's or God's." p. 146
"Now if there is a life in Heaven and we can choose it, then there's also another way. A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live. The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be. We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth. For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one because he understood that the life beyond this one is a continuation of the kinds of choices we make here and now. For Jesus the question wasn't how do I get into heaven? But how do I bring heaven here? The question wasn't how do I get in there? But, how do I get there, here?" p. 147
***no where is anything he wrote found in scripture. John 18:36 says "My kingdom is not of this world" There are many references to hell in scripture: Mat 23:33, Luke 12:5, 2Peter 2:4. The truth: have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ the son of God and be cleansed of your sins. Die and go to heaven. Deny Jesus Christ- die- go to hell. ***
Rob Bell's about the virgin birth of Jesus:
"What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word "virgin" you discover that the word "virgin" in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word "virgin" could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being "born of a virgin" also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?" p. 26
***Luke 1: 34-35, Matthew 1: 24-25, Isaiah 7: 14***
All of this information and more was found in this YouTube video:
2 comments:
It is good that you can see this for what it is. Nicely done!
I am very glad that you shared this. I have Velvet Elvis on my book shelves. It was given to me by a friend of mine, a Christian minister who also gave me The Shack. I refuse(d) to read The Shack. I may have to add Velvet Elvis to that list. I have begun to suspect that the man who helped me find Christ through a series of Biblically sound lessons on Romans 5, 6, and 7, has since started to wander off of the reservation doctrinally. I really appreciate this heads-up concerning the material I recently received. I had not heard of either The Shack or Velvet Elvis before last May. I’m glad that my reading list is so vast that I cannot get to things for months at a time. It gives me the opportunity to find information such as your post. Good blogging!
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