I just finished reading Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour.  It’s the story of a Palestinian Christian who grew up in the early years of Israel’s reestablishment as a nation.  His village was destroyed and his family lost everything.  The one thing that remained, was his faith in God.  Elias was especially impressed by the Beatitudes.  It was from this teaching, that he found his calling in life.  “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  To this day, Elias Chacour is still working for peace in Israel.

I highly recommend this book, but, this is not why I’m writing this post.

While reading it, I was especially impressed by a comment that Elias made while in seminary.  He made an observation and shared his frustration concerning the church being so “man centered” rather than “God centered”.

It was just a few lines.  He didn’t even explain what he meant.  I’m not sure what Elias would have defined as being: “man centered” as opposed to “God centered”.  In the book, it was a passing comment.  In my mind, it was etched with undeniable emphasis.

It’s been nearly two weeks, and I’m still brewing over this concept.  Last night, it came to life.  In II Thessalonians 1:10, it speaks of God being “glorified in His saints..”.  That’s it!  That’s what God centered ministry is all about. 

There is a trend in the church that I have found unnerving.  Most churches are obsessed  with the nice self help topics that are designed to improve the quality of human life.  They have the series on: finances, followed up by the series on family life, followed up by the series on marriage, followed up by the series on sex followed up by the series on leadership, followed up by the series on parenthood…  and so on.  ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE FINE AND GOOD… but, so many of them stop there.  Improving the quality of human life is the end to the means and there is nothing more significant beyond that.  THIS IS MAN CENTERED MINISTRY.

God centered ministry takes it to the all important next step.  Why do we want to excel in all these previously listed areas?  Ask most people in the hip topic driven churches this question and their answers will validate the “man centered” agenda.  But really…  why?  The answer is found all over the Bible (I Cor. 10:31…  “all to the glory of God”), but it was confirmed for me while studying II Thessalonians.  God wants to be glorified in us.

Improvements to our quality of life should translate directly to our ability and our opportunity to: worship, serve, give unto and speak of our benevolent and loving Father.

Consider the job description of the pastor, (Eph 4).  “To equip the saints for the work of the ministry.”  Not..  “to equip the saints for a nice comfortable life in the suburbs with 2.5 children and a golden retriever”.  We are equipped for a reason.  That reason, is God centered.

This is both, a challenge for me and for the congregation that I am pastoring.  It can’t just be about “me”.  It has to go to the next step.  God has to be glorified in us.  Without that, we are pitiful at best.

I’ve spent the last 10 months or so on a fiction binge.  I’ve been devouring Fantasy, Science Fiction and Western books like a box of donuts.  I was especially addicted to the books written by Robin Hobb.  Every book developed an excitement within me to read the next one.  The most recent book that she released was still in hardcover.  I bought it, read it, and set it down, reckoning the whole experience disappointing.  The last book stunk.  I’m glad it stunk.  I’m actually excited that it stunk.  My addiction was broken.  It was not only disappointing, it was glorious.

So, what to read next?  I’m already reading stuff that is not profitable.  Might as well take it up a notch and read something that could possibly be, moderately profitable.  There’s been a lot of discussion lately around the books:  The Shack, Velvet Elvis and even Blue Like Jazz (which has been out for quite some time now).  I decided to read these. A lot of pastors are abandoning the the hermeneutics and exegesis that they use in their study of the Bible to, in reference to these books, pronounce heresy.  These are the kind of things that bother me.

• Taking someone else’s word for it w/o question…
• Basing our opinions on isolated quotes…
• Casting judgment without reading….

So, I read through these books.  I found value in each one.  I found some questionable stuff in each one too.  Thing is, I wasn’t looking for dirt for the sole purpose of looking for dirt.  I didn’t read them from a predisposed disposition of disagreement.  I read them, extending grace..  the benefit of doubt.. hoping for the best..  -I found the best parts.

Rob Bell knows that his book is going to be contraversial.  He knows that his form of communication breaks the boundaries of normality.  This is why the back cover has this statement:

“We have to test everything.  I thank god for anybody anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God.  But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about twhat they are saying and doing and creating.  Test it.  Probe it.  Do that to this book.  Don’t swallow it uncritically.  Think about it.  Wrestle with it.  Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed.  I’m contributing to the discussion.  God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?”

RB has been accused of not believing in the virgin birth of Christ.  Why?  Becuase he’s trying to make a point that has nothing to do with the virgin birth, and yet, people stop reading at page 26 without hearing his defense on page 27:

“I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more.  I’m a part of it, and I want to pass it on to the next generation…… “

The following sentence in the quote above raised my eyebrow:

I believe that God created everything and that Jesus is Lord, (so far so good… but, then…) and that God has plans to restore everything.

This is where people start having problems.  I’m not sure what RB means here.  Does this statement encompass: Hell, the Devil, the demons, those who rejected Christ?  Is this a statement that supports the accusation that RB is an Universalist?  Or, does this idea of restoration speak of God’s ultimate plan and the completion of it?  I’m not ready to pull RB into a witch trial just yet.  He just told me that he affirms the Christian faith.  That doesn’t include Universalism.  Later on, he’ll even speak of people being in Hell, so I’m not sure, with a statement like that, that a person can be a Universalist.

In contrast to those who expend all their energy defending one brand of faith over the other, Bell places his emphasis upon the “enjoying” or the “experiencing” of the faith.  The analogy is corny, but he uses a trampoline to explain it:  (pg. 27)

“I am far more interested in jumping than I am in arguing about whose trampoline is better.  You rarely defend the things you love.  You enjoy them and tell others about them and invite others to enjoy them with you.”

A lot of people criticize RB for asking questions.  Concerning this topic, he says: (pg. 28, 29)

“Questions are not scary.  What is scary is when people don’t have any.  What is tragic is fiath that has no room for them.”

Later, starting on pg 47, RB talked about some “rabbi” terminology.

“A rabbi’s set of rules and lists, which was really that rabbi’s interpretation of how to live the Torah, was called that rabbi’s yoke……………..   One rabbi even said his yoke was easy.  The intent then of a rabbi having a yoke wasn’t just to interpret the words correctly;  it was to live them out.  In the Jewish context, action was always the goal.”

Somewhere around pg. 78, RB begins to talk about the process of affirming and claiming truth wherever we find it.  No where doe he talk about ascribing truth to something we see as being Biblically wrong.  Nowhere is he claiming a relative view of truth that may vary from person to person or religion to religion.  You can get that from Joel Osteen.  Rob Bell isn’t going down that path at all.  He uses Paul, and gives examples of how Paul pulled real truth out of different circumstances, and claimed it.  He used this method as a device to teach and expand upon a fuller truth.  – on a side note, I just completed listening to Robinson Crusoe on my Mp3 player.  He did this too, when attempting to share his faith with his cannibal servant Friday.

“(pg. 80 – So as a Christian, I am free to claim the good, the true, the holy, wherever and whenever I find it.  I live with the understanding that truth is bigger than any religion (note from Chad – our faith, Christianity is not a religion) and the world is God’s and everything in it.”

Concerning the idea of secular vs. spiritual, he says on pg. 85:

“This is why it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job.  If you follow Jesus and you are doing what you do in his name, then it is no longer secular work; it’s sacred.  You are there; God is there.  The difference is our awareness.”

Wow.  I remember learning this lesson while winding electric motors back in in 1994 in Bedford, Virginia.  All to the glory of God!

Continuing on with the idea labels, he addresses the threat of us abandoning discernment when things become labeled “Christian”

“The danger of labeling things “Christian” is that it can lead to our blindly consuming things we have been told are safe and acceptable.  When we turn off this discernment radar, dangerous things can happen.  We have to test everything.”

He challenges a simple view of salvation on pg. 107 by saying:

“For Jesus… salvation is far more.  It includes this understanding, but it is far more comprehensive – it is a way of life.  To be saved or redeemed or set free is to enter into a totally new way of living in harmony with God.  The rabbis called harmony with God “olam haba”, which translates “Life in the world to come”.  Salvation is living more and more in harmony with God, a process that will go on forever.”

RB shared his experience of going in for counseling when things got confusing in his life.  The counselor told him that his issue was a simple one.  He said this:  “Sin” (pg. 114)

“And then he said, in what has become a pivotal moment in my journey, “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be.  And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.”

In the back of the book where I keep a list of significant page numbers, it merely said this:  Pg. 114 – WOW!

The book stopped having a significant impact on me after pg. 116.  I didn’t find anything worthy of taking note of and can’t even remember what it’s about.  But, on this final page.. (116 that is) I was really encouraged:  Many of us pastor types have this unspoken expectation in our heads of what we’re supposed to become.  We see the guys with the big churches who write books and are on t.v. and we feel challenged.  We feel like we too, need to strive to become the super-pastor.  Notice what RB said:

“I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head.  They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them.  They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are suposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it’s like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear….   And the only way to not be killed by it is to shoot first.  Yes, that is what I meant to write.  You have to kill your superwhatever.  And you have to do it right now.  Because your superwhatever will rob you of today and tomorrow and the next day until you take it out back and end its life.  Go do it.  This book will be here when you get back.”

I watched his video “Everything Is Spiritual” three times.  It was incredible.  I highly reccommend it.  I read Velvet Elvis, and saw many places where his communication was either: wrong, misleading, vague or hard to discern.  It may have been heresy, as some see it.  It may not have either.  Unless he was clear in the intent of what he was saying, I didn’t try to apply any of my own presupposed definitions.

Since I’ve read the book, I’ve heard it misquoted so many times with the sole intent of defaming the author.  Maybe his other stuff is more clear concerning his questionable doctrine.  I wasn’t looking for the wrong stuff so much as… I was looking for the right stuff.

I found some right stuff.

First off, this is a fictional story.  It has allegorical tones to it.  It is a combination of great imagination, intertwined with rich Biblical knowledge and VERY profound wisdom.

Some people are having knee jerk reactions to it. Concerning such people, I don’t believe that most of them have really read it.  The character that is manifest as God the Father, is a woman.  That’s all some people need to hear.  Their walls go up and they prematurely cast their accusations based solely on a judgment that lacks knowledge.

At the end of the book, the character that is manifest as God the Father, is a man.  Same character, but manifest differently in different parts of the book.  Is God a man?  Is God a woman?  Is God neither?  We do know, that we are created (both man and woman) in the image of God.  To stumble over this one point, is to miss the huge blessing that is present in this book.

The author, William P. Young, has a solid grip of what it means to think rightly about God.  Most of us are stumbling in life, because we don’t know how to think about God rightly.  We ascribe all kinds of motivations and expectations upon Him that just simply aren’t there.  We falsely integrate our understanding of law and justice into the relationship we are called to Have with Him.  By means of a very engaging story, Young has opened my eyes afresh, to see and understand what it means to live as one who is loved, and how being loved should give me victory over so many of the things that deceptively bring bondage into my life.

Here are some segments that stood out to me.

“Or, if you want to go just a wee bit deeper, we could talk about the nature of freedom itself.  Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do shatever you want to do?  Or we could talk about all the imiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom.  Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff taht is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always present observer.  Or the intrustion of your soul’s sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain.  And then there’s advertising, propaganda, and paradigms.  Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors, what is freedom really?”  pg. 95

Most birds were created to fly.  Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around.  You, on the other hand, were created to be loved.  So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around. pg. 97

But your choices are also not stronger than My purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome.  pg. 125

You imagine.  Such a powerful ability, the imagination!  That power alone makes you so like Us.  But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel taskmaster.  If I may prove my case, do you think humans were designed to live in the present or the past or the future? pg. 141  (the idea being, we dwell in the past and present w/our uneducated imagination, and miss out on what God, who is dwelling with us now, wants to do for us.)

“I don’t create institutions-never have, never will.”  (Mack’s response: “What about the institution of marriage?)  “Marriage is not an institution.  It’s a relationship.  Like I said, I don’t create institutions; that’s an occupation for those who want to play God.  So no, I’m not too big on religion, and not very fond of politics or economics either.  And why should I be?  They are hte man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about.  What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three? pg. 179

“Mackenzie, religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right.  But I am about the process that takes you to the living answer and once you get to Him, He will change you from the inside.  There are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don’t know me at all.  So really, how can their answers be right even if they are right, if you understand my drift?  So even though they might be right, they are still wrong.  Pg. 198

But can you clean your face with the same mirror that shows you how dirty you are?  There is no mercy or grace in rules, not even for one mistake.  That’s why Jesus fulfilled all of it for you- so that it no longer has jurisdiction over you.  And the Law that once contained impossible demands-Thou Shall Not…-actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.  Pg. 202

Those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them.  Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control.  (Mack’s answer – “Is that why we like the law so much – to give us some control?)  It’s much worse than that.  It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them.  You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge.  Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty.  And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty.  Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.  Pg. 203

Because of Jesus, there is now no law demanding that I bring your sins back to mind.  They are gone when it comes to you and Me, and they run no interference in our relationship.  Pg. 224