Posted on 02/19/2015 6:05:46 AM PST by ReformationFan
Rob Bell believes the Bible is irrelevant. The Bible says Rob Bell is irrelevant.
Transcript:
At some level, I’m happy when this happens, it’s not that unusual. We have someone who makes a splash in our little world, the evangelical world. And he typically makes that splash because he’s quite effective at gathering large numbers. But after a while we begin to doubt his loyalty to the core convictions of evangelicals. Well, it’s not unusual when this happens that about this same time, our hero with the wide reach determines to turn on we evangelicals and embrace the broader world.
Exhibit A: Rob Bell. Rob Bell was for a time walking this fence between neo-evangelicalism and the emergent church, not embracing an angry 20th century bitter kind of unbelief and at some level holding some sort of at least cultural distinctives of evangelicalism, but not many ideological convictions.
Of course that crack in the foundation began when Rob Bell published the book Love Wins. In this book he posited the perspective that Jesus successfully saves the souls of all men everywhere, and that hell is essentially empty. Now, can you believe that and still be an evangelical? Let me just say this, he’s not the first professing evangelical to hint at such a perspective. In fact, one could argue that the very pope of evangelicals hinted at that perspective. That is to say, John Stott came very close to affirming that same perspective 20 years before Rob Bell did, and he didn’t get his evangelical card taken from him.
Well, this was just the beginning, however, for Rob Bell. We can hope that John Stott tiptoed up to the precipice and came back to the fold, but not so with Rob Bell. Rob Bell ran instead to the welcoming arms of none other than Oprah Winfrey, and grew in his increasing hostility to the authority of God’s Word, and to his submission to God’s Word with respect to God’s people.
And, of course, it’s happened again. It will get tiresome, eventually, for us to go back and rehearse each of the ways in which Rob Bell eventually betrays our most foundational convictions. But why I’m bringing him up again today is because of the very language that he used. It seems that in a recent appearance on an Oprah Winfrey program called Super Soul Sunday, Mr Bell, who was on the show to promote his book, The Zimzum of Love, had this to say with respect to the question of homosexual marriage:
“We’re moments away. I think the culture is already there. And the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2000 years ago as their best defense.”
Now friends, I could actually hear an argument that suggests that in terms of winning unbelievers to our side on the moral issue of homosexual marriage, that it’s ineffective to turn to the Word of God. I wouldn’t buy that particular argument, but I can understand that particular argument. But that’s not what Mr Bell has said. What he’s said instead is that he himself is describing the Bible, the Word of God, as “letters from 2000 years ago.” Letters from 2000 years ago that have the impact of making the church be even more irrelevant.
Now this may not be exactly the level and style of hostility towards the Word of God that we got from mainline liberals 50 and 60 years ago, but it is getting profoundly close. The trouble that concerns me is that Rob Bell still has the ear of some sheep in the evangelical camp. He still has impact on people who should know better. And this kind of language, this kind of raw, open, public disrespect for the Word of God should be a warning to all of us. This, friends, is the voice of a wolf.
This is not being misguided, misdirected, or mistaken. This is leading people astray and publicly denigrating, indeed, snickering at the Word of God. This is the pattern that we always find ourselves in. We begin by being embarrassed by portions of the Word of God. And we move to begin to massage the Word of God so that it starts to say the things that we want it to say. Soon we begin to move into ignoring the Word of God.
But because God speaks, because God will not be silenced, because when we push against the Word of God which is an immovable rock, sooner or later we will find ourselves cursing the Word of God, and spitting on it. And that is where Rob Bell has found himself. The irony, of course, is that though he is sitting next to one of the most influential women of our day, Oprah Winfrey, though he is on national television making this claim, the irony is that this is how Rob Bell has made himself so unbelievably irrelevant.
What Rob Bell thinks of gay marriage, I’m not concerned about. What the Bible says about it, that’s the truth. The immovable, unshakeable truth, that will still be here and still be true when Rob Bell’s body is rotting in his grave, and unless he repents, when his soul is just beginning to suffer the wrath of God for all eternity.
Friends, we can have our disagreements and discussions, but let us never ever speak of the Word of God as irrelevant letters from 2000 years ago.
The Bible will continue to stand as God's inerrant word long after Mr. Bell and his fellow travelers are long forgotten dust.
Please excuse my ignorance but who the hell is Rob Bell?
>>Please excuse my ignorance but who the hell is Rob Bell?
Www.google.com
I'm not a fan of Rob Bell's teachings, but this screed is just hateful towards one of God's creations.
“I’m not a fan of Rob Bell’s teachings, but this screed is just hateful towards one of God’s creations. “
You should have heard what Jesus said about the Pharisees.
Rob Bell is a TARE.
He’s the new and improved “slick-salesman preacher” type for the 21st century.
Theese guys are in it to be rock stars; to get rich and famous and be part of the ‘cool kids’(Hollywood, DC, etc...)
While everyone is ripping on Osteen, guys like Rob Bell are influencing far more people into a politically correct weirdness and calling it Christianity. Oh yeah, and taking their money too...
ShadowAce, That’s funny. You are being sarcastic?
R.C. Sproul nailed it.
I read the article twice and I don't see any evidence of hatefulness.
The guy is preaching a false gospel and presenting the filthiness of homosexuality as God-approved. Should he not be called out on it?
Scripture contains and expresses the very thoughts of GOD to “whoever has an ear”. It is not a scientific textbook explaining all things, but man does it explain a LOT!
The scoffers scoff at Adam and Eve, writing off God’s explanation of the Fall as a silly myth. Yet, since God’s version of the “story” is True—unlike the fantasies of Rob Bell—one can understand what is WRONG with this world. Foundational for understanding man’s sorry, self-destroyed plight before a Righteous GOD!
Satan, per the Lord Jesus, is a liar. What is the lie about Adam and Eve being a myth if not a direct assault on Jesus Christ? The Word who became flesh and lived for a while among us gave His life as a ransom for a myth? If in Adam all did NOT die, Christ died for no purpose.
Damnable lie and one of a million that can be countered by any believer taught the fundamentals of God’s Word to us.
I am truly thankful to the Father for speaking to me, one of the “not many who were noble”, and though I sinned mightily against Him finding steadfast love and mercy through His Son Jesus Christ!
His name used to be “Ding”.
Going way back, a great indicator of somebody who will “fail big” in their faith is someone who strives to be perfect and perfectly righteous.
A superb example was described by H.L. Mencken, not a pious person by any stretch of the imagination. He described a real news story of a minister who was caught up in striving to be righteous in all things, having divided the world into “good” and “evil”, with a very thin and strict line between them. That is, all things and all people were either all good or all evil. And all a good person had to do was to commit a single sin, and thereafter they were evil and irrevocably damned to Hell.
Well, this minister, who had up to then been a good husband and father, fell from grace by having sex with his female choir leader.
Under his rules, the both of them condemned to Hell, they decided to go on a multi-state crime spree, robbing, killing and committing any and all variety of crimes and sins they could think of. (Though in reflection, I don’t remember whether they were caught or killed by the police.)
In any event, this illustrates why clergymen in particular should recognize that good people do sin every now and then, despite their better judgment. And the ones who succeed in their faith are those that get up, dust themselves off, climb back up on the “righteous wagon”, and *try* to not foul up again, while knowing that sooner or later, they may sin again, but that “sin happens”.
And faith is all about trying to be righteous, not being perfect in righteousness. Because most people convinced of their own perpetual righteousness are likely caught up in the bad sin of vanity.
Bell makes a big deal in his promotional materials about how the word is "Hebrew" - implying that it comes from the Hebrew Scriptures.
It does not and it is not Hebrew.
It comes from the Zohar and it is Aramaic - in other words it comes from the Kabbalah.
And the way Bell uses it is not even in the manner of traditional Orthodox Jewish mysticism, but in the manner of the celebrity Kabbalah cult that various Hollywood types dabble in.
This is a clear sign of how deeply Oprahfied Bell has become.
Jesus is a part of the Trinity--the Creator. We are not.
Jude 1:9 indicates that even Michael the archangel would not rebuke Satan himself. He leaves that to the Lord.
As should we.
Note: I didn’t write this.
2Pe 2:1-3 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who secretly will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their pernicious ways, and because of them the way of truth will be evil spoken of. And through covetousness they will use you for gain with well-turned words; for whom judgment from of old does not linger, and their destruction does not sleep.
I have more of these BTW
There is no rebuke towards the teachers in that passage. It is a warning to the churches about those teachers. The whole letter is written, not to the false teachers, but to the churches.
That is how Sproul should have written his column--not rebuking Bell personally, but warning others to stay away from him and let the Lord rebuke him, as is Scriptural.
I'm not gonna play "battling Scripture." All Scripture agrees with all other Scripture. If two passages seem to contradict each other, you don't get to choose which one you like.
Ecc 7:5 It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.
1Ti 5:20 Those who sin, rebuke before all, so that the rest also may fear.
Rob Bell is a false teacher. He preaches heresy which is why he is no longer in the pulpit. He has led people astray with his teaching about Hell being fictional. I know people who clung to his teaching.
Titus 1:10-11,13, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers ... Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake ... Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.”
Rebuke them sharply.
I don’t believe it can be any plainer than that.
Angels apparently don’t have the authority to rebuke.
Jud 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
But Christians have an obligation to do so:
1Ti 5:20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
Tit 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
Tit 2:15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
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