February has been "Love" month. I hope you've read through "Becoming a Proverbs 31 Woman: Learning to Lose the Intimidation." I explore the concept of God's love for us in the book because I think we like to paint God with our paintbrush when it comes to love. I read a troubling article about this very thing last week, and it's still on my mind.
You may have heard of the controversial former mega-church pastor Rob Bell. He's quite popular with many people because he holds a "modern" view of Christianity that makes people feel good about themselves. Here's a good example for you: Bell is now Oprah's spiritual advisor - don't ask me what that means because I'm not sure. I think it means he's there to make her feel good about whatever she wants to believe. Rob and his wife Kristen recently appeared on Oprah's show to talk about marriage and the book they recently wrote that talks about redefining marriage.
During the segment, they talk about how irrelevant any church is that doesn't embrace the gay marriage issue. You can read an article about this from The Christian Post here: http://www.christianpost.com/news/former-megachurch-pastor-rob-bell-tells-oprah-the-church-is-moments-away-from-embracing-gay-marriage-134264/.
Here's a quote from their interview:
"I think culture is already there and the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2,000 years ago as their best defense, when you have in front of you flesh-and-blood people who are your brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles, and co-workers and neighbors, and they love each other and just want to go through life," he said.
"There are churches who are moving forward and there are churches who are almost regressing and making it more of a battle," added his wife.
Do you see why this situation bothered me so much? How can Rob Bell, a man, say with any authority that Scripture is irrelevant simply because it was written down 2,000 years ago? Doesn't that make God irrelevant as well? This is so dangerous, and it's a perfect example of redefining love on our terms instead of God's. When we look at love through man's eyes, this is what we get - blind acceptance of whatever makes us feel good at the moment without any foresight into future consequences.
When we look at love through God's eyes, we see things differently. What does God have to say about love? Look at John 3:16-21:
16
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
19
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
20
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21
But
whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen
plainly that what he has done has been done through God." Believe it or not, the Bible also warns us about men like Rob Bell. 2 Peter 2:17-20 says:
17
These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
18
For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
19
They promise them freedom, while they
themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has
mastered him.
20
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.That doesn't sound like an irrelevant 2,000 year old letter to me! It sounds like it perfectly fits this situation. Maybe Rob Bell shouldn't be our spiritual advisor. Maybe we need to trust the one who gives life and REAL love to us. The One who loved us enough that he put his Son on the cross to save each and every one of us. I want nothing to do with Rob Bell's skewed vision of love. I'm choosing to trust God and his everlasting Word for my life. Who do you choose?
