Love Wins Companion

Rob Bell

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780062136381
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Christianisme

For anyone who wants to delve deeper into Rob Bell's bestselling Love Wins, the expansive and accessible Love Wins Companion offers scholarly support and critiques, resources for individuals, groups, and classes, and brand new material by Rob Bell himself. As Love Wins continues to become a touchstone for thousands of readers worldwide, controversy surrounds the book's arguments. Author Brian D. McClaren wrote that with Love Wins "thousands of readers will find freedom and hope and a new way of understanding the biblical story, " yet USA Today observed that "Bell has stuck a pitchfork in how Christians talk about damnation." Here, in The Love Wins Companion, Rob Bell offers commentary on the positive and negative attention his groundbreaking book is receiving, delivering a crucial supplement to one of the most talked-about books in recent memory.

Chapter One
What About the Flat Tire?

Overview by Rob Bell

Over the years I have met many people who are fascinated, compelled, or drawn to Jesus, but some reason or obstacle keeps them away. They may have heard from a Christian, “This is how it is, period, end of discussion. The Bible says it, so that settles it.” Or they might have been taught that to follow Jesus, they had to go down a certain road and believe certain things, some of which they found problematic. What I’m interested in in this chapter is the power of questioning and the experience of solidarity in finding you’re not alone—of always wondering, “But what about that?” and then finding out, “Oh, other people feel the same way.”

My interest here is that you get loosened up with the questions, that the questions pull out of you, “You’re right. That doesn’t make sense” or “You’re right. I’ve always had a problem with that explanation.” It’s okay. There should be no fear in the questioning and no hesitation in the asking. We can go there—that’s the power.

And the biblical tradition is actually filled with questions, all the way to Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Questions are actually one of the ways we meet the divine. My hope is that somewhere in here you find your own questions and you learn that you aren’t alone.

Going Deeper by David Vanderveen

Many readers of chapter 1 of Love Wins are a little taken back by all the questions Rob throws at them about what it means to be “saved.” Rob is not trying to deny or criticize what Christians believe, but to reveal that our present understanding does not explain everything. Some churches suggest there is a specific process for getting “saved.” In this chapter, Rob explores a wide range of those techniques, some of which conflict, as well as a long list of ways that Jesus told people they were accepted. Our beliefs about God, Jesus, and the meaning of Jesus’s death and resurrection need to deepen in order for us to grasp more fully what the Bible means by “saved.”

Rob is not the first to raise these issues. In a 1997 interview of evangelist Billy Graham by televangelist Robert Schuller of the “Hour of Power,”[1] the conversation was surprisingly broader than some Christians imagined it should be:

Schuller: Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?

Graham: . . . I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ. And I don’t think that we’re going to see a great sweeping revival that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that’s what God is doing today. He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world or the Buddhist world or the Christian world or the nonbelieving world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.

Schuller: What I hear you saying is that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and souls and lives, even if they’ve been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you’re saying?

Graham: Yes, it is, because I believe that. I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations who have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible and never heard of Jesus, but they’ve believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they’ve tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

Schuller: I’m so thrilled to hear you say this. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.

Graham: There is. There definitely is.

We should not be surprised that one of the greatest evangelists in the history of the church thought along these lines. As someone who had spent a career presenting the gospel to non-Christians, Graham had to think deeply and thoroughly about the logic of God’s salvation. So should we.

We have included an excerpt from Oswald Chambers’s My Utmost for His Highest as another example and model of a past Christian teacher who offers counsel. In “The Temptation of Religious Success,” Chambers describes the danger of religious conformity and taking pride in Christian success. Instead, he advises that we try to seek only the Lord’s approval. This is good, but tough advice.

People have very personal stories about how they came to accept Jesus or why they’ve rejected him. The questions, Bible studies, exercises, and readings in this chapter are designed to dig into the various claims different Christian groups make about what salvation is and the variety of ways to accomplish it, allowing you to explore more fully what you think the Bible teaches on this core issue. Before the group exercise and discussion questions, we have included a Bible study showcasing just how much the Bible embraces and models the practice of asking questions; this is followed by David Dark’s reflections on the theme of his book, The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, which we excerpt.

Bible Study: A God Who Loves Questions

Many people are afraid to question their faith, having been taught that this is tantamount to either rejecting or losing one’s faith. The best evidence against this line of thought is the Bible itself, in which both God and all the main characters ask many, many troubling questions. Asking questions is, in fact, a means God often uses to help us rid ourselves of limited and wrongheaded notions about God, so that we catch a larger and expanded vision of who we worship, which this survey of the Bible’s use of questions reveals:

God [to Adam and Eve]: Where are you? . . . Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? (Gen. 3:9–11)

Cain: Am I my brother’s keeper? (Gen. 4:9)

God: What have you done? (Gen. 4:10)

Abraham: Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety? (Gen. 17:17)

God: Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for the LORD? (Gen. 18:13–14)

Moses: Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them? (Exod. 3:13)

Job: Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days? (Job 24:1)

God: Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Prepare to defend yourself; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? (Job 38:2–5)

Jeremiah: How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, “He will not see what happens to us.”

God: If you have raced with people on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan? (Jer. 12:4–5)

Habakkuk: How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? (Hab. 1:2–3)

Expert in the law: Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus: What is written in the Law? How do you read it? (Luke 10:25–26)

Jesus: Who do people say I am?

Disciples: Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.

Jesus: But what about you? Who do you say I am? (Mark 8:27–29)

Jesus [to the Twelve]: You do not want to leave too, do you?

Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? (John 6:67–68)

Jesus: You of little faith, why are you so afraid? [Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.]

Disciples: What kind of man is this? (Matt. 8:26–27)

Jesus [on the cross]: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). (Matt. 27:46)

Jesus: Simon son of John, do you love me more than these [fish]?

Peter: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

Jesus: Feed my lambs. . . . Simon son of John, do you love me?

Peter: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

Jesus: Take care of my sheep. . . . Simon son of John, do you love me?

Peter: Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.

Jesus: Feed my sheep. (John 21:15–17)

Jesus: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Saul/Paul: Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9:4–5)

Paul: Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort? Have you experienced so much in vain? (Gal. 3:3–4)

James: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? (James 2:5–7)

John the letter writer: If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? (1 John 3:17)

Group Exercise: Knowing Your Story

Before engaging in the discussion questions below, take time to reflect on your own experiences and beliefs about conversion and salvation. How have you understood the role of conversion and salvation in your life? In the lives of others you know? What has been attractive about the idea of being “saved”? What has raised questions for you? What has seemed false? Spend time before the meeting writing down your own story about why you have embraced or rejected Jesus. Diagram or describe how you believe people get “saved” and what that means.

At the meeting, split up in groups of two or three and take the time to share each other’s stories about being saved. After each person’s story, the others in the group should provide feedback and reactions.

After everyone has shared their story, ask each other: How are our stories similar? How are they different? How did hearing others’ stories shape or change how you think about what God’s love and salvation might be about?

Discussion Questions

1. Before reading this book, how did you think of heaven and hell?

2. Do you believe God invites us, or even welcomes us, to discuss and debate the big questions of faith, doctrine, and the Bible?

3. Do you think Christians can know who does and who does not go to hell?

4. What messages have you heard about who goes (or how many go) to heaven? Or about how God can be both loving Father and Judge?

5. What percentage of people who have ever lived do you estimate will end up in hell? Do you think Gandhi is in hell?

6. What do you think non-Christians would say about the church’s views on who goes and who does not go to heaven?

7. How do you respond to the problem Rob raises of explaining how a finite life of sin could entail eternal torment?

8. Do you believe there is no hope for atheists who die? Why or why not?

9. What role does our reason play in our salvation? What about people who are mentally handicapped, for example? How are they saved?

10. How important is the question, “Do you know where you will go after you die?” to your understanding of the Christian faith? Is “going somewhere else” (either heaven or hell) the message of Christianity?

11. Does our salvation depend on someone else sharing the good news of the gospel with us? Does others’ salvation depend on our doing the same for them?

12. Of the questions Rob raises in this chapter, which did you experience as pertaining to issues you have had before or issues you would like to discuss more?

Reading
Questioning God
by David Dark

Do we really love God, or do we say we love God because we fear we will be damned otherwise? This nagging question, although primitive, nevertheless works its way into the souls of many Christians. Some respond by never letting questions arise; others deal with the questions by rejecting the faith. But what if God is actually the one behind the questions? What if God wants us to ask these questions? What if God actually loves questions? Such was the discovery of author and teacher David Dark, who writes about exactly these matters in his book The S...