Ephesians ESV Wordle

Here is another Wordle, Ephesians from the New Testament. Click on it to see original size from Wordle.

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program

Here is an excellent interview Paul Edwards had with Martin Bashir on his interview with Rob Bell. Download here or listen online here.

Albert Mohler on Rob Bell's forthcoming book

Dr. Albert Mohler is one of the truly great Christian leaders I always seek to listen to when he comments on topics of theology, society, policy or culture. Dr. Mohler is very smart and well spoken on issues from a Christian worldview. The church is very blessed that God has raised him up for such a time as this.
This blog post is Dr. Mohler's review on the forthcoming Rob Bell book.

I really liked this quote Dr. Mohler placed in his review. It is by H. Richard Niebuhr and really defines liberalism in one sentence.

"H. Richard Niebuhr famously once distilled liberal theology into this sentence: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”"

Justice Wins instead of Love Wins

Here is a very creative post done by Jeremy Grinnell...

"To prove that narrative can be equally used for the opposite view, Jeremy wrote a short piece which, though not his full position (because it’s equally extreme on the other side), illustrates the rhetorically powerful yet easily refutable logic of Rob’s piece."

Several years ago I was touring a holocaust museum, and I was deeply moved the images of suffering and inhuman brutality that I saw there. And near the end of the tour on the wall was a picture of Hitler standing in front of the Eifel Tower in Paris. I and many who were with me were struck by the idea of Hitler enjoying the beauties of Paris while at the same moment one of the greatest genocides the world has ever known was being carried out on his orders.
But apparently not everyone saw it exactly the same way
Sometime in the previous few hours, somebody had attached a hand written note to the picture, and on the note they had written, “It’s okay because God forgave Hitler too.”
God forgave Hitler?
He did?
And someone knows this for sure?
And felt the need for the rest of us to know?
Do the most evil and unrepentant people in history, remaining what they are, still make it to heaven?
And what of those who aren’t quite so evil as that—Child molesters, racists, drug lords.
And what of the rest of us who only yell at our children, cut people off on the highway, and cheat on our taxes?
And what makes our evil less and Hitler’s more?
Is it the number of people you hurt? Or how badly? Or whether anyone else knows? Or whether you meant to?
And what if you’re the one who was molested or your loved ones murdered because of their ethnicity?
And then there’s the question behind the question?
The real question… What is God like?
Because millions and millions were taught that the primary message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that God is willing to forgive everybody no matter who they are or what evils they’ve committed against the rest of us.
So what gets subtly sort of caught and taught is that God is willing to forgive the perpetrators of evil, regardless of whether or not their victims ever see justice. That God is willing to let slide things that we mustn’t.
But what kind of God is that?
Can a God so uninterested in justice be good?
How can that God ever be trusted?
How could that ever be…good…news?
This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith.
They see it as an endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies, and say, “why would I ever want to be a part of that?”
See 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.
What you discover in the bible is so surprising, and unexpected, and beautiful, that whatever we’ve been told or taught, the good news is even better than that, better than we can ever imagine.
It means pure and perfect justice, no wrong accusations, no punishments that don’t fit the crime, no hidden motives, no unaccounted pains or sorrows. But overflowing compensation for anyone who’s ever been hurt or betrayed.
The good news is that “justice wins.”

MSNBC Host Makes Rob Bell Squirm: "You're Amending The Gospel So That It's Palatable!"

Here is an unbelievable exchange between Martin Bashir and Rob Bell. Bashir clearly knows quite a bit about Christianity.

W.G.T. Shedd quote on eternal punishment

In light of all the Christian blog discussion on Rob Bell's new book Love Wins which by some reviews seems to be blurry and ambiguous about what he really believes about the Biblical doctrine of eternal punishment. Here is a quote we would all do well to remember.

“The strongest support of the doctrine of endless punishment is the teaching of Christ, the Redeemer of men. Christ could not have warned men so frequently and earnestly as He did against the fire that never shall be quenched and worm that dieth not, had He known that there is no future peril to fully correspond to them. Jesus Christ is the person who is responsible for the doctrine of eternal perdition. He is the Being with whom all opponents of this theological tenant are in conflict.”

W.G.T. Shedd
Also related to this topic there is an excellent sermon by J.I. Packer given to a Welsh Congregation in 1991 titled Human Destiny and can be downloaded here.

I also found this Against Heresies blog post very helpful and informative.