Free Will

It's been a long time since I have updated this thing. That is partially because I have been really busy and partially because I'm just lazy. My roommate made this picture this week. I thought it was great.

False Teachers Part One: Rob Bell

The worst false teachers are those who sprinkle their deceptions with a lot of truth. They use Biblical terminology and concepts but hidden under them is a theology of self esteem, prosperity, works etc. Rob Bell is one of them. I first heard Rob Bell at a week long retreat the summer after my sophomore year of high school. I don't remember too much about his talk, however I do remember liking it. In my next year or so in the youth group I was attending we watched several of Rob Bell's "Nooma" videos. I enjoyed them at the time and still remember much of what was said in them. It was only after I read Velvet Elvis and began learning more about refomed theology that I noticed some strange errors in his teaching. The book Velvet Elvis takes a valid criticism of many Christians and gives a false correction of it. That criticism is that Christians simply believe what they are told and do not think for themselves. They do not search the scriptures to find out what they really teach. This of course is a great message which all reformed Christians should agree with. Unfortunately however, Rob Bell does not give instructions about how to properly interprate the Bible in context but tells his readers that the Bible must change with culture and that it is not even all that clear. His postmodernism here is obvious. Rob Bell and his wife said the following in an interview, "The Bible is in the center for us, but it's a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery rather than conquering it. I grew up thinking that we figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means." This doesn't seem to fit with the idea that the Bible is a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our paths. Rob Bell sounds like Erasmus.
One of the most obvious errors that I have heard in several of Bell's sermons and his book is that he takes the focus of the afterlife and puts it on our life on earth. One's eternal destiny does not matter as much as if they have food, medicine etc. Sure, these things are great but not compared to the gospel. The gospel is not about helping people. It's about what Christ did for us hopeless sinners. When one is missing that, they are missing the gospel, and are preaching nothing but a moralistic therapeudic deism. Many of Rob Bell's messages could have been preached by Ghandi or the Dhali Lama.
"When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter–they are all hell on earth.
Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth.
What’s disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now. As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth.” (Velvet Elvis pg 148)
Is that really what it's about? I seem to remember Jesus saying that His kingdom was NOT of this world.
Bell's rejection of the gospel comes off perhaps more clear in his view of man. The following comes from his book, “God has an incredibly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things. I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me. I have been told that I need to have faith in God. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that God has faith in me.” (pg.134) Really? Is that what the Bible teaches? A reading of verses like Romans 3:10-18, Genesis 6:5, Psalm 58:3, Ecclesiastes 9:3 and several others will show that the opposite is true. If God had faith in us to take care of things, we would all be screwed.

Romans 9

James White did a great dividing line on Romans chapter 9 this week. I would encourage you all to listen.

http://www.aomin.org/podcasts/20070719fta.mp3

This is beautiful

From Luther's Commentary on the Apostle's Creed

"I believe in God the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth"
Here, first of all, a great light shines into your heart if you permit it to and teaches you in a few words what all the languages of the world and a multitude of books cannot describe or fathom in words, namely, who you are, whence you came, whence came heaven and earth. You are God's creation, his handiwork. That is, of yourself and in yourself you are nothing, can do nothing, know nothing, are capable of nothing. What were you a thousand years ago? What were heaven and earth before creation? Nothing, just as that which will never be created is nothing. But what you are, know, can do, and can achieve is God's creation, as you confess in the Creed by word of mouth. Therefore you have nothing to boast about before God except that you are nothing and He is your Creator who can annihilate you at any moment.
Reason knows nothing of such a light. Many great thinkers sought to know what heaven and earth, people and animals are and have found no answer. But here is declared and faith affirms that God has created everything out of nothing. Here is the soul's garden of pleasure, along whose paths we enjoy the works of God- bit it would take too long to describe all that.
Furthermore, we should give thanks to God in that His kindness He has created us out of nothing and provides for our daily needs out of nothing- has made us to be such excellent beings with body and soul, intelligence, five senses, and has ordained us to be masters of earth, of fish, bird, beast, etc. Here consider Genesis, chapters one, two and three.
Third, we should confess and lament our lack of faith and gratitude in failing to take this to heart, or to believe, ponder, and acknowledge it, and having been more stupid than unthinking beasts.
Fourth, we pray for a true and confident faith that sincerely esteems and trusts God to be our Creator, as this article declares.

More heresy from Rome

This is from CNN.com-

"VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -- The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ.

The Vatican said other churches are "wounded" since they do not recognize the primacy of the pope.

A 16-page document, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict used to head, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope.
But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in the Protestant denominations -- a view likely to further complicate relations with Protestants.
"Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them," it said."

I can only hope that the Roman "church" continues to seperate itself from all others so that ecumenical efforts may be stopped. This article makes it clear that in Rome's eyes, the Eastern Church is no real church either. And why? Because they do not bow down to the authority of the Pope. I hope everyone else can see how crazy it is that the church is willing to condemn anyone who does not bow down to a certain MAN. Yes, the Pope the vicar of Christ who sounds remarkably like the man of lawlessness of 2 Thessalonians 2 "He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God." Vicar literally means, "in place of." Anti as in antichrist can also mean either "against" or "in place of." Thus vicar of Christ and Antichrist can be synonymous terms. When Christ ascended He only had one to come in His place. It was no man but the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit.

What love is this?

I have been challenged by a friend to read the book "What Love is This: Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God" by Dave Hunt. This person agreed to listen to my point by point response to it if I did. I suppose it's worth it to hopefully bring someone else to understand the scriptural teaching of grace. Forgive me if I continually rant on this blog about it, I imagine that I will be greatly angered by much of Hunt's historical innacuracy and misunderstandings of Reformed Theology.