Review of "Love Wins"

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Love Wins caught me a bit by surprise. From the many reviews of its damning content, I expected it to be persuasive in its "new" ideas. It wasn't. I also expected that it would vastly contain lies. It didn't.

On one hand, I saw Rob Bell making sweeping generalities with select verses without consideration of the context and with dismissal of equal or greater arguments contrary to his assertions. One example, of his leaping assumptions is his ignoring all scholarly debate on the identity of the author of Hebrews and authoritatively declaring the author a "she" (for which the evidence and arguments against this theory are more prevalent than those for it). This, though rather insignificant and seemingly-petty (to some), enforced the truth that Bell is no scholar, more or less a theological one. To go into detail about specifics of his errors is not my intention here. I'll leave that to true scholars, many of whom have already commenced to fight those battles.

On the other hand, I saw truth in what Bell presented. This is both dangerous and reassuring. Dangerous in that it is easy to overlook blatant error because of streams of truth running amidst the quicksand. Yet reassuring that the heart of his theory doesn't appear, to me (actually knowing Rob), to be merely to "tickle people's ears" (even if that is what it does for some).

Rob Bell reacts to an extreme in Christian circles--unloving attitudes and a sort of triumph over the unbelievers. This is not a good representation of Christians, but it is a representation of many or at least a reflection of the passionless love we have in contrast to our Saviour's love and our own salvation.

In conclusion, this book may be a good recommendation to those who have grown up in the church, to those too "familiar" with the salvation story. It needs to be balanced with the full truth of the Gospel, with the justice that those who truly love the lost will be compelled to share. But it also emphasizes God's love for all and our need to show it; something that may get lost in our self-centered religious lives.

I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. 
~1 Timothy 2:8

I sincerely hope and pray Rob Bell does submit to God's authority and not trust with pride in his own thoughts and talents. 

Travelling Without Luggage

Have you ever wondered what you'd feel if you were told you have months or week's left to live?

Death is the mysterious journey. No carry-on or luggage allowed. Your favourite books must stay on the shelf. Your comfortable travel clothes won't be with to unpack. Nothing you've seen down here or called your own will go with you.

I think we often believe it's the risky things, the daring adventures that we'll look back on with satisfaction as a life well-lived. It's throwing our inhibitions to the wind and tasting all there is of life.

Yet I can't help but believe, as you are struggling for your last breath, you won't be reliving your skydiving jump or the sensual pleasures you experimented with or the money that you made through all your work. If there is last minute business you'll wish you'd done, it will be making things right with God and with those you love.

Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them"...

Remember Him—before the silver cord is severed...
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:1,6-7

Even for the Christian, dying is a strange phenomenon. We are leaving all we've known. What we know of our true Home is sketchy tales. We believe the promises that heaven will far surpass all that is here. Yet, the only true way to be ready to leave is to lay all our treasure up there.
If we've invested in the souls of family and friends, our parting is only temporary. If we've sent our treasure ahead of us, we don't leave anything of value behind.
Now is the only moment you have. 
 
Now is the time you can repent and follow God.
 
This is the time you can call someone and tell them you love them, affirm their worth and your appreciation, tell them your sorry. At their death or yours, many "big" things will seem so small in importance.
 
"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins" (James 4:17)

Merry Christmas

You know, today I'm homesick for a Home I've never seen before; for a Place where there is always the magic of Christmas, where love blankets us all around, where fellowship is deep and pure, and where light shines from the Father of Light, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour of those freed by His blood; no more suffering, no more sin, no more parting, no more death; joy and peace are the air we breathe; work is an overflow of the love of God that fills and overflows everyone.

May we have a taste of it this Christmas through our thanksgiving for Jesus and our fellowship with family and friends, and may we pass it on to everyone we meet.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Hiraeth

I have a new favourite word.

I became acquainted with a singer, who, unbeknown to me, is also one of my brother's favourite tenors--Bryn Terfel. The title song is We'll Keep a Welcome. In this sentimental piece, he sings of welcoming home someone, who has been away, and kissing "away each hour of hiraeth."

Hiraeth is a Welsh word for longing. The way it is described in books and definitions make it clear it is not a simple wish or an inconsistent desire, but a deep, insatiable longing. A longing only fulfilled by coming home.

We all have hiraeth. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, in their conversations together, concluded these longings are a result of our being "exiled from Eden." Our roots were planted in a perfect garden. We have been exiled from that paradise, but we can have hope for another.

Sadly, for those who get through life as best they can--this is it. The hiraeth will be eternal and worse.

We accrued a debt in Eden. This debt was too large for us to pay. The debt of sin. Jesus paid this debt, but it is only received by those who will accept the payment written in His blood. If we snub His gift, we will pay our own debt. And, what we were created for, what the longing inside of you is reaching for, will never be touched.

If, however, you accept the payment, you have a promise of something greater than earth's small pleasures. No matter how many small longings are fulfilled today or tomorrow, there will always be that one deep-rooted hiraeth. That longing for a Home, where all traces of sorrow, pain, parting, and craving will be satisfied. When we look on the face of the One who we have longed for all our life, then, and only then, will every hiraeth of our heart be kissed away.

Whatever your hiraeth is today, you may find temporary fulfillment in what you think you want, but the longing will not die away completely while in exile.

As the chorus of the song "Finally Home" describes it:

Just think of stepping on shore,

and finding it heaven

Of touching a hand,

and finding it God's

Of breathing new air,

and finding it celestial

Of waking up in Glory,

and finding it Home.

Heaven

In some ways, I had almost an idyllic childhood or at least it looks that way in retrospect. Some of my best memories were in a very small town in Minnesota with my best friend living next door. He eventually moved.

Twenty-five years later, we reconnected via Facebook. He compared our childhood times to heaven: "The bliss and simple pleasure of swinging on a swing in the backyard on a summer day with my best friend, who I loved with absolutely no taint of the impurities and flaws that come later in life... I always think that that is what our lives will be like in heaven... yet enhanced because we will understand what we've lost and finally returned to."

Jesus said: "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." Luke 18:17

Innocence characterizes childhood. Sadly, it quickly is destroyed in many children today. One definition of innocence is "freedom from guile, cunning, or deceit; simplicity or artlessness." Children are the first to tell you that you smell or are fat. They'll wrap their arms around your neck and tell you they love you. They will cry when they are sad. They laugh and skip and never worry about the eyes that follow them.

This past Christmas, a little four or five year old walked up in front of the church to sing. She tripped on the steps, but scrambled back up and performed. Watching her face, I could see she wasn't worried what we thought of her. I wonder if there is one adult in a million who could trip and not worry, even slightly, about his image.

I think it is their honesty about life and who they are and their simple trust to which God is referring when He invites us to come to Him like a child. Ignorance and foolishness also blind their understanding. But Jesus reveals this is not characteristic of His children: "...be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" Matthew 10:16. He does not ask us to shut off our brain, but to turn it on for Him.

What does all this have to do with heaven?

Charles Stanford said, "Heaven must be in me before I can be in heaven." This is the point Jesus was making when He said the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). Yet how can we return to the innocence of children? He explains that we must be born again, born a second time (John 3:1-21). When questioned about what this means, Jesus stated the most frequently quoted, yet poignant scripture: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
(Joh 3:16-17)

Heaven is still a distant place that each person will receive or reject forever before they die. Is heaven in you?