If we believe in a living God then how can we worry about being misled?.. especially if we are dependent upon Him? Scripture says, “We have not been given a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and love and self-control.” “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God wants us to learn to walk boldly, in confidence that He is with us and is leading us (when we call out to Him). I’d understand if my understanding of things was dependent upon my mind and cunning, but it is not. Our understanding of things comes through the Holy Spirit (John 14 & 16). It is through the Holy Spirit that comfort and teaching comes. If we really want to understand things, we need to pray and ask for it. Its not on me to make sure you have everything figured out – its up to me to make sure I am being sincere with God and I am seeking Him. No one can make another person surrender to the leadership of the Holy Spirit – its an individual thing that happens on the interior of those who are really seeking Him. I can sound like I have it all together, but I need to learn to sit under the teaching of the Holy Spirit if any of it is going to matter.

SO,.. so many Christians are led by fear, they wait to be turned off of a person’s teaching so they can turn their noses up at it and condemn it. Its not our job. If you didn’t like some of what you heard, take the good and leave the bad – ask for discernment and trust the Holy SPirit.

Once when Jesus sent out the disciples, they came back with a report that they had shut down a person who was doing things in Jesus’ name because the person “was not one of them (us).” Jesus told them they had it wrong. If someone is not against Him, they are for Him. The idea of a heretic is not one that Jesus seems to be overly interested in and He does not commission us to hunt them down and point them out. Its up to us to be a light, a blessing, a liberator, not a curse or an oppressor.

Its sad that we spend time slamming other Christians. Its as though we think its what we believe that gets us into heaven. Its God’s grace that takes care of salvation. Bell might not be perfect in his perspective, but… no one is. Why should we expect him to be? The teaching we sit under in our own churches sounds fine to us, but maybe its full of falsehoods that we are used to and comfortable with.

I think we can be glad that God is using Bell to reach millions of people – God is at work – He isn’t on vacation. We don’t need to worry.

“Repentance is what happens when your eyes are opened and you see what has already been done. ‘I’ve missed it, and now I see it’.” (quote from Rob Bell) THIS IS NOT REPENTANCE! This is enlightenment. Repentance is turning from what? Bell doesn’t say.

When critiquing others, it is important to be able to parse a sentence properly in order to understand what is being said. Daniel, you are correct in claiming that Bell’s statement is not a definition of repentance. You claim it is a statement of enlightenment. Mr. Bell agrees with you – as can be seen in the structure of his statement which you are critiquing. That statement could be rewritten to read: “Repentence happens [only] when you have been enlightened”. How can it be otherwise? How can you turn from something if you have not had an “aha” moment where you see clearly what it is that you need to turn from (I once was blind, but now I see – aha!)? It appears that Mr. Bell was discussing that “aha” moment – which is a necessary and important part of the process that leads to repentance – but it is not repentance itself. If Mr. Bell was not discussing the act of repentance, why would he need to elaborate on what repentance is or define it – at least at that point in his conversation?

Most of you Calvinists miss the point that while God WAS angry at your sin, he truly did exhaust all of that anger on Jesus, didn’t he? Wouldn’t that mean that he is no longer angry, at least with the believer? It sounds to me like you are belittling the sacrifice of Christ by saying that even after his death, God is still angry with a believer. What then was the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice?

Of course God is still angry with the non-believer. They haven’t submitted to the atoning work of Christ.

If Rob Bell is a pastor, and a christian author, wouldn’t you expect him to target christians in his audience? Isn’t he basically telling believers “hey, listen, God is so good that he is no longer angry with you, because of Jesus”

Rob Bell is not an evangelist. He never claims to be, his website doesn’t claim it, his books don’t claim it. If you treat him as one, then you will never understand what he is saying.

Jesus said “whoever is not against you is for you.” And Paul “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

People, get over yourselves and ask God’s forgiveness for your judgement & pharisaical attitudes and ask Him to give you a teachable spirit that recognizes that there are many different vantage points from which we can point people to the Cross of Christ.

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” — Romans 12: 3-5

“Fear God and obey his commandments, for that is the full duty of man.”
“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
“The soul that sinneth it shall die.”
“The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And JESUS said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spririt, teaching them all that I have commanded you.” (yes, we can feed them while we’re doing that)

You defenders of Rob Bell were asked to speak about the truth and use Scripture reference to prove his position. I believe you are unable to do that, because as Rob Bell, you don’t believe the Bible to be God’s word. Unfortunately, (for you) that is where the truth lies, and you are lost until you find it. I pray you search God’s word, and not that of Velvet Elvis’.

And the majority of the comments even more so…. why is it that in 90% of those comments the focus is on the negative not the positive.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t challenge what is being said, but I do wonder if underlying so much negativity is a loss of balance between Holiness and Grace.

Do we need to shift the balance a little bit in the direction of grace?

Finally, whoever said, the devil is in the detail spoke some very true words.

How is this conversation sharing Christ’s love. You criticize Rob for self-serving. Where did the profits go to, a new house, his bank account, NO. They went towards a charity that is helping Darfur. Net proceeds from the tour will be given to the Turame microfinance project. They went to be a blessing to people.

Also you said in your review that Rob denies that the trinity is discussed in the Bible, he says the word doesn’t exist, which is true, the word trinity is not mentioned in the Bible, the trinity is shown (in Christ’s baptism, in the great commission, as others) but the word in a human invention.

This conversation is so fickle, condescending, and downright sinful. We are not called to sort out doctrine, but instead to “love the Lord with all our heart soul and min, and our neighbours as ourselves” which i believe this conversation has done neither, instead its simply a “Christian” version of the national enquirer where we don’t know the facts so we guess at some, and make up others.

I believe we all (myself included for the anger this conversation gave me) need to repent for taking part in this.

I think the Rob Bell bashers are missing the point. Let me start by saying I don’t agree with his every teaching. However, I feel one of the main issues I have with the church is the blind following of leaders. I don’t blindly follow anyone, including Rob Bell. Also, just like all churches, there are good, God pleasing emergent churches and ones that are missing the mark. Lumping them together isn’t fair.

I believe that lots of churches have missed the mark with our generation. Instead of the “Light on a hill” it’s suppose to be, it has become a place where people end up connecting “hurt” with Church. No, it shouldn’t be that way, but it IS that way. We can continue to ignore the problem with alienating people from churches, or we can admit there is an issue and do something about it. So far only the Emergent Churches” (and I say that lightly because I don’t want to lump them into the same group) are the ones reaching the unreachable. You have to give some credit there.

Most Pastors have an issue with Rob Bell (which they pass down to other leaders in quite a sad fashion) because he doesn’t dwell on the bible as much as he dwells on being more like Jesus and living a life according to what Jesus would do. Jesus loved people, sin and all. Rob Bell encourages Christians to serve their brothers and sisters in practical ways. Though he’s now being accused of heresy because some don’t think that he preaches the gospel enough. My answer to that: If you’re living out the Gospel and doing what God has commanded, you don’t need to preach with words as much. Not saying you never have to. Being the light is typically more effective then trying to explain to someone about a light they may have never seen.

According to what the bible clearly says, we’re never going to be good enough for God and we need salvation. That’s true. However, I believe the modern day Church has made that an excuse to be lazy. Works won’t get us into heaven, does that mean we shouldn’t do good works because it won’t get us into heaven anyway? NO!! We need to stop using God as a forgiveness machine and start showing people the love of Christ through our works.

We can dwell in the fact that we’re all sinners (which everyone already knows) or we can go out into the world and reach the lost and live in the hope we have for salvation in Jesus Christ. Unite with the believers and non-believers and show through our actions what being a Christian should be.

I’ve also heard people that have seen Rob Bell “in concert” so to speak, are upset that he doesn’t present a gospel message or that he doesn’t read from the bible. For one, if you’re not a Christian, you’re probably not going to go see Rob Bell. Therefore why present a gospel message? Two, someone can speak biblical truth by memory and it’s not wrong. The times Rob Bell speaks, it’s not exactly a bible study. I’ve heard lots of Christian’s speak without cracking open the bible. I went to one of his events and I learned a lot and was encourged.

The problem with the Churches argument is Pharisim. The one thing Jesus hated is exactly what some Churches adhere to. I wish people would understand that you can know every biblle verse and do all of the Christian things and without a relationship with Christ, still not go to heaven. However, if you have a genuine relationship with the Son of God, yet haven’t memorized a verse or heck, even cracked open the bible you can still be saved. It’s not a matter of what you know, but a matter of a repentant heart that has asked for forgiveness. He doesn’t ask us to jump through hoops for his Love and Forgiveness.

Rob Bells books are not gospel, neither are Billy Graham’s or Joel Osteen’s or John Piper’s. We as Christians have to discern the good from the bad. You can’t throw out the effective ministry of someone trying to serve God in a non-conventional way because you disagree with a few things. Instead, learn from the things you need to learn from and consider the rest a difference of opinion. It’s total and harsh legalism to accuse him of defacing the word of God when his intention isn’t that. It is however to challenge what we believe. If no one ever did that, we would be lemurs jumping off the cliffs with the rest.

Rob Bell knows that God hates sin. What he was saying is that God WANTS to bless us despite our sin, not condem us because of it. If God was just this angry God that kept tabs on our bad behavior , I wouldn’t want to serve him. But he is a God that wants us to do the right thing and when we miss the mark, is there to tell us it’s ok, we’re forgiven. Rob’s message is a message of the cross. People are beng turned off by the “burning in hell” messages they recieve. People want to know that even though we’ve messed up, that God still accepts us as his children. He does. It’s the church that often leaves people with the impression that we’re just dirty sinners and can’t be loved. I have many friends that are scared to walk into a church because they have red hair or tattoos or a lip ring. I’m glad Rob Bell has provided a place for people to find love and acceptance and God in a way that doesn’t make them feel like God is an unreachable being. He’s right here with us. He’s with us, loves us and wants us to find salvation in him. The gospel message isn’t less because it’s presented in a different way.

Sometimes I think that there are just certain aspects of God that an individual grasps, embodies and demonstrates to others.

And when an individual is demonstrating a part of God that we just don’t get, we tend to call it wrong. I’m sure that it’s part of human nature, but not true.

I’d like to say that I know all of God, but the truth is I don’t.

This whole thread awakens me to the reality that we need the truth of who Jesus is, above anything else.