controversy wins

The kerfluffle over the weekend (other than what on earth Melissa Leo was thinking) was Rob Bell’s new book, “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”

Although the book doesn’t come out until the end of March, reviewers who read some early-advance chapters had a lot to say.

Some were dismayed: “It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine,” wrote Justin Taylor (no relation ).

Some were intrigued: “If we’re honest with ourselves, we can acknowledge that we don’t know everything; that we have questions and even doubts about certain things,” said Eugene Cho. “While we might be attracted to absolute clarity, we  must yield to the possibility that there are some things that are mysterious; they are not fully attainable – as of yet.”

And some were smug: “Farewell Rob Bell,” tweeted John Piper, seeming to imply a) Bell is no longer a Christian and b) Piper gets to decide.


But here’s the statement I find most significant:

“What we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like,” Bell says.


I’ve not read Bell’s book and when I do his conclusions may bother me. But I’m glad he wrote it, because the doctrine of heaven and hell and its implications for evangelism, pluralism and other isms is huge—and a major reason many people can’t accept Christianity.

It’s an issue we must deal with. Unlike Piper, I don’t know what Bell believes or if he is, himself, damned for writing it. (Because I’m going to READ IT FIRST.) But the reaction to the book and the blogs is proof of the need to talk about it.


Here’s the video that sparked the controversy, and here’s Glen Elliott’s recent article on the subject. What do you think?

preach it! (how?)

Lots of comments on the last post, with an overwhelming majority agreeing they would prefer more sermons working through entire books of the Bible instead of focusing on topics.

Concern for the integrity of the text was a major factor.

“Expository preaching…feeds everyone much like they must have been fed when these letters were read to the New Testament churches,“ wrote Victor. “It also forces preachers to preach the ‘whole counsel of God.’”

“How do we know if a topical treatment is accurate unless we know it’s backed up by a thorough survey of the Bible?” wrote Al.

And Randy writes, “Topical preaching also makes it much easier to decide what we want to say and then find a verse to support it rather than exegeting the text itself to see what *it* says.”

Others wondered about the lack of originality inherent in the topical approach. 

“As someone who has worked on teams to come up with these themes, I can add that there really aren’t that many ways to apply a topic to your life: work, time, family, finances. (um… that’s 4, see?),” wrote Jan. “It also gave me pause to see so many different churches coming up with the same knock-off titles (Heroes, Lost, American Idols), and rehashing the same themes with “sexed-up” titles.”

“Textual preaching requires a lot more time, effort, study, and prayer,” wrote Randy. “It also requires much more creativity in finding ways to present the material in a compelling, interesting way (to the average church-goer).”

Some guys may avoid exegesis because it’s more work, but I know lots of preachers who work tremendously hard at their weekly messages but still choose to preach mostly on a series of topics.

I agree with Kristie’s assessment of one possible reason: “It doesn’t surprise me at all in this soundbite generation that preachers feel the need to give ‘em what they want,” she says. “Most of us have a ‘how does this apply to me?’ mentality.”

Anita points out some of this may even be good. “Trying to distill exegesis in 52 week after week sermons can be really challenging,” she writes. “Having terse principles that can be applied to life is more apropo for the general public.”

But I repeat my question from the last post—how will people grow in biblical knowledge on a steady diet of verse-sized bites?

I think there are three issues here (there have to be three, in a post about preaching!):

1. This lack of biblical knowledge among many church-goers is both a cause and an effect of our current preaching focus.

2. Balance is a worthy goal. Topical preaching isn’t bad; as Bethany points out, Jesus often preached this way, using OT scriptures to make a point. And he certainly had plenty to say on money, relationships, service, justice and other popular series topics. However, unlike Jesus, we are not bringing a new revelation but instead sharing the Good News already given. I think we need to be intentional about how we approach that source text.

3. We’re assuming exegetical studies can’t have life application. Lora agreed on the balance thing, but wrote, “Yes, I need meat in my sermons, and I love the history of the texts…but I also sometimes need something to hit me right where I am.“

The truth is ANY passage can “hit us where we are” because God’s Word is living and active.

When Rob Bell planted Mars Hill Bible Church in 1999, he preached verse by verse through Leviticus for the church’s entire first year. Today the church has a bazillion members (give or take).

Yes, Rob is a gifted communicator and could probably make my DVR setup guide interesting, but you get the point. This was before he was “The” Rob Bell. And he still hooked ‘em.

“Why start a church with Leviticus?” he writes. “Why not a series on relationships or finding peace? That would be the safer approach……This teaching hit home. Many of my listeners wanted to make sense of the Bible, yet they knew only fragments of the story. Leviticus taught us all to ask the difficult questions: How does this connect with the entire biblical narrative? How does this event point to the cross? How do I fit into the story?

“We discovered the Bible is an organic whole: these concepts do connect, these images do make sense. For the first time, many in our congregation began to realize, This story is my story. These people are my people. This God is my God.”

I so wish I could have gone to last week’s Q conference in Atlanta. Several of my friends attended, and one of them spoke. (Read their thoughts here and here.)

One of the many cool things about the event is that every speaker—from Rob Bell to the executive vice president of CNN—receives exactly 18 minutes to speak. A huge digital clock faces the speaker and another one faces the audience, and both can watch the minutes tick down, for good or bad. It forces the speakers to distill their thoughts, communicating only the most important, and it allows attendees to hear from many more leaders than at a traditional conference.

With the theme “It’s Time,” this year would have been the perfect opportunity for the NACC to adopt a similar strategy. In the absence of a countdown device, however, part of my role on this year’s tech crew will be crawling to the front row and alerting the speaker—who is sharing that it’s time for church planting or it’s time to reach the lost—that it’s also time to get off the stage.