Mark Driscoll & The Shack
William P. Young is coming to Ontario this weekend and we’ve got the privilege of hosting him for an evening with our staff and elders. A bunch of us have been reading his book “The Shack” and it’s generated some good discussion. There’s been lots of talk about the book online and most of it (but not all) has been centred around his portrayal of God the Father as an African-American woman.
Some people have seen the portrayal as a bit cheeky, meant to poke holes in our typical view of God the Father as old man, long beard, waiting for lowly humans to mess up. Mark Driscoll has joined the ranks of those who feel that Young’s portrayal is purely heretical.
RSSers – Click here for the video
Responses? Thoughts? I’m looking forward to engaging some good dialogue about this on Sunday night.
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Ya, hearing about this on Twitter yesterday has really peaked my interest.
Heresy to me is all about intent. We obviously do not want to misguide or teach something as truth that is false. If our goal is to oppose something that is truth, you have heresy.
If your intent is to metaphorically design a story that gives you an image, so as to maybe understand an idea better or lead you to study more, I have a hard time calling that Heresy.
I understand Mark’s concerns, but out of the 3 he stated, I really only see one as a possible issue for me. #3, “modalism”. I would like to read the book to understand the context, cause I am not sure the modalism is the book’s intent, but when I here what the book had to say, “I am truly human through Jesus” and what Mark had to say, I agree with them both. I believe Jesus to be fully man and fully God, but the “Father” did not die on the cross. Sure that clears things right up
All this to say…I still believe in who “they” are and I am dedicated to living my life for Him…so I think all is good
I’d side with Driscoll- Though there is room for artistic interpretation, a book trying to “paint” the trinity needs to be biblically accurate if its going to be painted.
If you want a great book on the trinity check out Bruce A. Ware’s book
Father, Son, & Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Crossway, 2005)
That way you wont need to try and decipher the pitiful imagery someone could try and give the triune God in a fictional book.
i was actually in seattle last week and heard mark driscoll address that live as he dealt with the theology of the trinity. while i think a lot of people overreact to things of this nature, i think driscoll is right on this one.
Hmm, wow Driscoll seemed pretty phreaked and passionate.
I haven’t read the book.
Wow, Driscoll seems to have gotten inside the mind of William Young. Congrats to him on that, maybe he could share his newfound ability with me.
It seems to be that it’s people like Driscoll who are taking this as a theology textbook that are the ones who have the biggest problems with it. Can we not except that we don’t know everything about God and the Trinity? I know there’s some stuff that is borderline heresy, but are we really going to jump on a fiction book that portrays God as someone who meets us where we are at? That’s the whole premise of portraying God as a woman, because Mack needed a mother at that point (and Young clearly explains that in the book). It was all about God becoming “all things to all people”, and reaching out to Mack through his pain and suffering.
I know there’s a huge controversy, with Driscoll not being the first to comment, and I’m not trying to lash out at it, but can we at least remain open to the idea of not totally understanding God? Maybe we just need to break our old “graven images” and rethink what a loving God looks like.
By the way, i’ll be at the sessions at Grandview on the weekend and can’t wait to hear Young do his first session on the Trinity. It’s going to be a great time. Hope you enjoy your time with him too Chris, I know it’ll be great.
I did a review of this book and actually loved it. Is it theologically sound? NO!…does it clear up the trinity? NO!…The trinity is a mystery and thats the way God wanted it.
Was the book fiction? yes!! YES!!
I love driscol, but he misses one thing in the mystery of the faith..We dont get it and neither does he.
This book needs to be read like its fiction and just enjoy it for what it is. a cool look into how much God loves us. thats it…Base your faith on the word not on a fictional book.
I think Driscoll blames the author here for other people using it as thier absolute instead of the word. That is those peoples problems.
But again. mystery means: we dont get it. God is God and I am not
I am in the middle of the book and I agree with Jon. It’s not meant to be a textbook on the Trinity. It has helped me think about and understand the Trinity in ways I haven’t before. It has not lead me to believe any of the heretical things that Driscoll thinks it might teach. I see no harm in the book when it is taken as it is meant to be taken.
Reading these responses is like listening to today’s church. Lots of bias every which way and passionate opinion.
I have to side with Klampert here.
#1 Fictional book…NOT theology
#2 Trinity…CANNOT be truly understood and classified
#3 Fictional book…NOT theology
Yes I doubled one up
I will never dare to say I know what the trininty is. But would be happy to say what I think the trinity is.
Here is an example of how Theology cannot be black and white…
If we side with the book, we decide that sovereignty of God is a little fuzzy. If we side with Mark, we decide that Jesus was NOT fully God and fully man.
Hard to take a side, when all that matters is that I believe in the all powerful God who redeemed me though His Son and is God no matter what my little minds “that does not think like He thinks”, comes up with.
Good answer.
Oh c’mon guys – if he didn’t exaggerate the seriousness of the heretical theology what would he make youtube videos about?
I think Billy may have hit it on the head with his last comment… it sure made for some good controversy!
haven’t read it…but i am a bit tired of christians who always feel we need to be defined by what we are against, not what we are for.
love could be a revolution….
chris, once again, it was fantastic to spend the morning with you on monday… keep on my friend!
Who’s Mark Driscoll?
In general, Calvinists will probably not like the book.
Carey is RIGHT ON!
I am tired of us voting against and standing against…everything!
I am completely positive that this kind of stance is NOT Christian.
I’ve heard the author interviewed, i’ve listened to the 2 men that published the book every week and feel like I know them personally through their podcasts. All three just seem like really nice guys who love the Lord and are walking with him and hoping to understand him more. The author says over and over again that he never intended to write a theological treatise and in no way intended it as a teaching on the Trinity. After 100 pages, the book sound exactly like what it is; a man trying to wrap words around his experiences of God’s love so that his kids will understand his relationship with Papa better. I think that’s great.
I was part of this movement of young Calvinists while living in the States. I went to John Piper’s church (one of Driscol’s idols) and thought it was all great. After being away from it all for 3 years, I still love the big vision of God, I still love the heart for worship, I still love the passion for reaching the world with the gospel that I see in the reformed cliques; but I have lost all patience for the time that leaders in these circles spend showing how wrong everybody else is. It really seems counter-productive and produces churches full of fault-finders. Believe me, I used to be one of them.
so, why do we think the book is so important any way? just a book. any one familiar with publishing knows in a short time it will be given away and used for kindling. God’s word stands for all ages–man’s books—aaaiint !
it seems all intellectuality. a bag of theology–even if written by a creative one. moderns are so into “art” that we’ve lost the real. artists are notorious for “turning life into art”. how many times did jesus need a band–which took two days to set up their amplifiers, to preach alongside?
can we really bicker about a stupid @#$%^&*
book while half the planet starves?
are we so much out of touch with reality
that we worry about poor confused writers who write silly books? c’monnnn !
i once worried “God’s name will be sullied” by such books. He’s quite capable of looking after his name. The audacity of ding dongs telling people “don’t read it”—what do they really think will happen –? everyone will say, ok sir, i promise i won’t!
The next distraction slew foot would love to distract some poor soul with would be a rebuttal book !!!! hrmmmffff. but since this note is becoming close to it–i rebuke you !!
i got something from the book–don’t know if it’s benign or malignant yet. i walked out on the sweet little church i’d found just because they were so into it—-i never do such things.
and it makes me think there has to be something really wrong with this message–for be sure–it’s a message –not a “book”.
it’s like conversations with God to some degree–and that was ugly.
but the reviewers who are very concerned have spoken to my heart–there is something wrong with it. if there were not, i’d never be wasting precious time here. many earnest christians take deep exception to it—that does not mean they are right in itself–of course.
the issue of judging God for sufferring is well treated in shack. it does touch home for some of us here. the one thing ALL people complain about is that issue.
that mack never has to fight the enemy is rather suspect. all his trouble is stated repeatedly as his independance of God. That is only half the story friends–there is a world , flesh ,and devil to contend with.
shack never deals with that. all is sort of mushy in much of the book . some seem to think they speak to their culture in messages like these. the culture doesn’t care–it’s true.
well, we can go on reading writing and disecting— OR WE CAN GET ON WITH THE TRUE GOD!
I do truly wonder why it upsets people to here even a hint of universalism. one said
“if wanting the whole world to be saved makes me a heretic, where do i sign up.”
desiring all men saved is A GODLIKE DESIRE.
wanting any to perish or even preach they will
does not contain God’s heart on that matter.
If Abraham Lincoln, Hannah Whittal smith, hannah hurnard, william law, tl osborne, john g lake and zillions of other earnest brothers and sisters came to see God’s great heart for all to be saved–they do not make it true, i know smart guy_- then we can see that the issue of universalism is not so easily shrugged off. He desires and wil have his desire fulfilled–
why would you want to argue with God ?
that is his stated objective. if we don’t like it–
suck it up prince(ss). are you angry that he is merciful? heavens now i sound like the shack for pete’s sake !
God is using the shack, not for any great merit of it’s own– BUT BECAUSE GOD USES EVERY SINGLE WISP OF MATTER TO ACCOMPLISH HIS PURPOSES !
the whole controversy points to a larger issue:
do we really think we need books to reveal God to us? How does the savage know of God?
The illiterate also? HE REVEALS HIMSELF–quite independant of nifty books !!!
he might use the book. but then the mouth of an ass seems to work too. or even a donkey!!!
also…
i have it from reliable sources that mark driscoll had not even read the book when he made this speech.
i also write him off because of the many other asinine, idiotic unbiblical things he has said…so why would this be any different?
lets see, i can compare paul young a humble man to driscoll an arrogant one?
paul young – kind, gentle, accepting, loving, embraces mystery
driscoll- pushy, arrogant, judging, denies mystery.
hmmm?
paul young-kind,gentle,loving…bla,bla,bla.
Driscoll;pushy,arrogant,judging, AN BIBLICALL!!!!!!!!
HE IS NOT ARROGANT an he dosent say “asinine, idiotic unbiblical things”. He is a very Faithfull preacher of the word.
i think driscoll is right on. i have read the book and have found it to be completely heretical. although i do not agree with driscoll on everything, i do believe that he is putting out a good caution towards this book. we are called to test everything as Christians (especially things that claim truths about him) i think driscoll does a great job putting these falsities of christianity to the test.
I think we could write a book based on the comments from this post
I am in the process of reading this book and I came on to see others opinions because the foundation of this book is biblically untrue. These are William Paul Young’s words, not God’s, but his intention was to show you a God that he thinks he knows. I respect his willingness to help someone see the love of God, but what about the truth of the trinity that we can say we know because it’s in the bible? We all know Christians are not just going to say, “Its just fiction, so what? Move on”. Those people are not reading the book with their hearts like Young wants them too. You are suppose to take very profound “truths” out of this book and apply them in your relationship with God. That is the intention, so the argument that says, “It’s just fiction” is NOT good enough!
Since Mark looks like a crazy fire and brimstone preacher and Young seems to be the more desired because he represents, love acceptance, forgiveness, mystery etc. . . it is easy to get caught up in the lie that Young is more in tune with God. Young could be waaaayyyy off!
I see people in this blog who are upset with Driscoll because they think he just tries to fault-find; those people are worse than Driscoll! They are fault-finding the fault finders!! That’s hypocrisy! That’s like saying, “I cannot tolerate the intolerable” It’s foolish. Driscoll has a point. His intention was for you to see that there is a hierarchy within the trinity and there is no sin. You can’t make God into a black woman (it’s like putting a label on an all consuming fire) and you can’t put words in God’s mouth! He already said it all.
@Jared Thanks for the comments and the thoughts. I am loving the discussion that this post has generated.
How does one write a creative story of an encounter with God, including all persons of the Trinity, without being labeled a heretic? The beauty and depth of the ideas about God’s love captured in this simple book are magnificent.
My own story starts out with these words, “There was once a boy who believed in God. On the day his father was murdered he decided to start over.” you can read it here at, http://www.spiritisdeeperthanflesh.com/ So you can see how The Shack appealed to me. I found within it, the scent of life.
Intent has nothing to do with Sin. You either sin or you don’t. You either commit heresy or you don’t it doesn’t matter what you intend to do.
Please read your Bible if you do you will see that this is not God and in no way represents him.
41Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. John 9:41.
I doubt Young is going to really endure some kind of eternal punishment for this book. I’m not 100%, you are not 100% and Young is not 100%. As much as I am frustrated with this book, I don’t see God tossing it aside. I think he is using it as faulty as it is, just like he has used Young, yourself and myself for his purposes.
Actually, the anger that was triggered by this book has allowed me to see that I have some unforgiveness in my heart for people who have preached falsehoods in my ealier years. I believe God used this book to guide me in flushing this bondage of unforgiveness out. I think that’s pretty cool.
I just finished reading The Shack. I didn’t get a chance to see the Driscoll video. As I read the book, things seemed biblically askew.
The conversations between Mack and God seemed contrived and unnatural to me. Seemingly with the purpose of getting a theology out. I struggeled because there were some things that I do think were true about God. There is a wonder and mystery that is good to think about and imagine how things might truly be or how things might be in Heaven with Jesus. It is important to know that God has a great love for us. But there were so many ideas interwoven in the book that are not Biblical that really bothered me as I read. I am sure that the author is not trying to lead people astray from the truth of the Bible. I would guess that he believes what he asserts to be true and Biblical. But it is not. Not all of it. I am still trying to sort out what was true from what was false. But we must remember that the devil works that way too. Some truth, some lies. It is VERY important that the true nature if God be shown if a person is going to wite a book like this. I think if Mark Driscoll is holding up a high standard we should not call him arrogant. If we looked at the God of this book and started to love that God we would be loving a God that is not true. God is Soverign. He does have wrath towards sin. He has purposed that many will bear the wrath of God for eternity. Yet his love abounds and would that none would parish. But many will parish. He loves us but our sin is a stench in his nostrils. We must be reconciled to him, THEN “no good thing will he withhold”… so we can trust that even what satan means for evil God purposes for our good….
Oh, there are so many things in this book that should be discussed. I don’t want to say that Willie is an evil person for writing this book, I believe he is wrong and the book can be damaging for people who don’t know anything else about the Bible.
And correction should be embrassed. Let us study the word to know what is true and let us be zealous for the truth, that we might love God as he is. He is worthy.
Saw no video, don’t care to see a video. From a wounded hearts perspective of The Shack. A friend said you will love this book read it. They said it is fiction though… they didn’t say it is God’s word and the picture that it draws is Truth. The wounded heart is a bit tired of the ‘arguing’ over theology…. will that keep me out of heaven? Will it send me straight to hell bc I enjoyed ‘the story’? I honestly don’t care if God is a large black woman He looks like something else. I just care that God cares about me. I liked the book, I liked the conversations that Mack had in the book especially with God. Have you ever been so angry and walled up that you were your own worst enemy? So hurt bc of life’s circumstances and just defeated? No human words can suffice. He helped me paint a picture of survival and understanding in a world of churches of so-called christians who expect the church to ‘look’ a certain way, ‘act’ a certain way and ‘smell’ a certain way. Which also helps in building our Shacks…..Theology I think will come with maturity in the relationship and spending time in the Word not by reading fiction……
oh and btw, please please please don’t tell me that my God looks like you or me!!!!
i read the shack. i loved it. i was unsure about the reality of it though.
As stated a few times above, the problem is that most people are taking this book to be an explanation of doctrine. If you do that, you’re in error. If you take the book as a work of fiction it’s fine…. sort of like The Da Vinci Code.
[...] on this site because I’ve talked about “The Shack” several times – both about my interaction with the book and about my interaction with William Paul Young, the author. Paul was in southern Ontario last [...]
I think we need to ask a fundamental question. Does the nature and expressions of God and the trinity presented in the Shack line up with scripture. The answer after reading the book and much study is no. Mr. Young’s intent has nothing to do with answering the question of truth feelings have nothing to do with it. If it is established that this book is false and paints less then the truth about something so important as to who God is and how he relates to us then what real value does it have? Answer none. So why promote it we have a responsibility to respond to defend the faith not fiction. Popularity, feelings, excitement, money fame etc… none of these are true tests of truth. Mr. young’s book has not passed the acid test of scripture therefore despite his reasons for writing it is is dangerous and subversive. Those promoting Young and the book should take this as a warning not from me but from scripture this is another Christ and another gospel and sometimes those who appear as sheep are savage wolves.
The biggest problem I see with regards to this book are those who says “It is just fiction, who cares.” The fact is that anything that takes away from the glory of Christ and leads us to believe there is any way to the Father apart from the person of Jesus Christ is wrong. Jesus is the only way not “the best way” as Young writes.
There was a comment that mentioned this in connection with The Da Vinci Code. If I were Young, I would not want to be linked this way. The Da Vinci Code strikes against the Word and has detered several from the truth found in Scripture. Young at least claims to have the desire to draw people to God.
The problem in our churches and those who lable themselves as “Christians” is our love for anything that supercedes our love for the Word. Everything should be tested against the Word and everything that we say, should be directed towards glorifying and magnifying Jesus Christ. If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord in Jesus Christ long for “the pure spiritual milk of the word” (1 Peter 2:2-3). Our main problem is that we love fiction and feelings over truth and glory. Ultimately we are selfish, fleshly people.
Whether The Shack is heresy or not does not matter to me. The fact remains that it paints an inaccurate picture of the Trinity, Salvation, and the Magnificance of God. It should not be love for these facts. It should not be read for these facts. Those who have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6) should always long for that which places His glory over our needs of acceptance or comfort. Anything that paints a picture of someone who is in the presence of God and not on his/her knees is not something that is of value to read (see Isaiah 6). Anything that paints a picture of salvation that is not something that is needed because of the serious nature of sin is not something of value to read.
The goal of Mark Driscoll and other of his contemporaries is to stand for the truth of the Word. Anyone who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ should have this same goal and it is one that should not be taken lightly.
My name is Aram and I just finished reading The Shack. I then went online and happened across a bunch of people arguing about it, for what looks like a few years now. People are calling this a heresy, a dangerous book, and warning people not to read it.
Why?
I normally never comment on these things, but being an unbeliever – yes that’s right, I am not a Christian – I thought it might be useful for some of these theology spouting authorities to take a moment and look at what I, not a churchgoer in any way, have gleaned from this little book. And then ask yourself – because I really don’t know much about the Bible – is anything I learned leading me in the wrong direction? Perhaps all the way to this burning lake of fire so many Christians love trying to scare non-Christians with? If this is the case, then I guess you’re right, and based on what you believe people shouldn’t read this book.
For me, I don’t believe fear and rules to be the answer, I never have. This has been the main reason for my avoidance of the church. However, when you preach love and forgiveness, through whatever means conveys it the best, whether fiction or otherwise, well now, my heart begins to open a tad. It makes me actually want to pick up a Bible perhaps and maybe read a little further.
Teach love my Christian friends, because people like me, we don’t respond well to fear tactics. And we definitely don’t get turned on by arrogant church leaders who think they have it all figured out.
Below are 57 new ideas I took away from this little book. Many are direct quotes from the book itself.
1. The different appearances of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were used to help Mack break his religious conditioning.
2. You don’t get brownie points for doing something through obligation; only if you want to.
3. Life takes a lot of time and a lot of relationship.
4. How free are we really? – family genetics, social influences, personal habits, advertising, propaganda & paradigms etc. Freedom is an incremental process that happens inside a relationship with Jesus Christ.
5. When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of God.
6. Pain has a way of clipping our wings, so we can’t fly. After awhile we forget we were ever created to fly.
7. When Jesus became a man he gave up his own ability to heal people and do miracles. His miracles were accomplished by Jesus’ (a man, a dependent limited human being) trust in the Father God. We are all designed to live like that, out of God’s life and power.
8. God exists in three persons so we, his creation, can also live in love and relationship, just like God does. If God didn’t, we couldn’t. “God cannot act apart from love.”
9. Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid wanting power is to limit oneself – to serve.
10. Sin is its own punishment, devouring from the inside. It’s not God’s purpose to punish it; it’s God’s joy to cure it.
11. When people choose independence over relationship, we become a danger to each other.
12. If people learned to regard each other’s concerns as significant as their own, there would be no need for hierarchy. God does not relate inside a hierarchy; God wants us to trust him because he will never use or hurt us.
13. When Christians don’t trust God it’s because they don’t know they are loved by him. They think God is not good.
14. Mack says: “I just can’t imagine any final outcome that would justify all this (pain, suffering etc).” Papa replies: “We’re not justifying it. We are redeeming it.”
15. The choice of God to hide so many wonders from man is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life.
16. For any created being, autonomy is lunacy.
17. When something happens to us, how do we determine whether it is good or bad? By whether we like it or if it causes us pain. This is self-serving and self-centred.
18. We become the judge of good and evil; so when each person’s good and evil clashes with someone else’s, fights, even wars, break out.
19. Eating of the tree tore the universe apart, divorcing the spiritual from the physical. All of us died, expelling the very breath of God.
20. We play God in our independence. The only remedy is to give up the right to decide good and evil and choose to live in God and trust and rest in his goodness.
21. God is light and God is good. Removing ourselves from God will plunge us into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from God, you can only draw on yourself. That is death, because you have separated yourself from God, from Life.
22. This concept is difficult for us because the good may be the presence of cancer or the loss of income, or even a life. Sarayu answers: “Don’t you think we care about these people who suffer too? Each of them is the centre of another story that is untold.”
23. About having ‘rights’: “‘Rights’ are where survivors go so they won’t have to work out relationships.”
24. Jesus gave up his rights so his dependent life would open a door that would allow us to live free enough to give up our rights.
25. Each of us is wild, beautiful, and perfectly in process when God is working with a purpose in our hearts. We are an emerging, growing, and alive pattern – a living fractal.
26. We tend to live either in the past or the future; dwelling on the pain and the regret of the past, instead of a quick visit to learn something from it. Or fearing the future, letting our imagination run wild with worry, and forgetting to see the future with Jesus. This happens when: a. we don’t really know we’re loved and b. we don’t believe that God is good.
27. Apart from Jesus’ life, we cannot submit one to another. Jesus’ life is not an example to be copied. Jesus came to live his life in us; so we will see with God’s eyes, hear with his ears, love with his heart, and touch with his hands.
28. Some say love grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is the skin of knowing.
29. We human beings are constantly judging others because we are self-centred.
30. We say: “Predators deserve judgment, their parents, too, for twisting them, and their parents, and on and on, until finally we go right back to Adam, and then, why not judge God? He started it all…isn’t God to blame for our losses? He could have not created, or he could have stopped the killer, but he didn’t.” If we can judge God so easily then, of course, we can judge the world. We must then (e.g.) choose two of our five children to go to heaven and three to go to hell, because that’s what we believe God does. Mack could not choose any one of his children because he loved them no matter what they did. So instead, he begged that he could go to hell for his children. This response is exactly what Jesus did. Mack judged well. He judged his children worthy of love, even if it cost him everything. This is how Jesus loves. ‘And now we know Papa’s heart.”
31. God’s love is so much larger than our sin could ever be.
32. Evil was never a plan of God’s. We must return from our independence, give up being his judge, and know God for who he is.
33. When we receive God’s love and stop judging him we let go of the guilt and despair that had sucked the colours of life out of everything.
34. God never abandons his children. We are never alone. God could no more abandon us than he could abandon himself.
35. “Live loved.”
36. When we leave the light of God and retreat to the darkness all alone, the darkness makes our fears, lies, and regrets bigger in the dark. Sometimes, as a kid, doing this is part of survival, but now we must come to the light.
37. Jesus will travel any road to find his children. But only one road leads back to heaven.
38. Stories about a person willing to exchange their life for another reveal our need and God’s heart.
39. Even though God can work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies, it does not mean God caused it. Where there is suffering, you will find grace in many facets and colours.
40. ‘Love’ bothers to keep trying to touch people and never gives up.
41. Sometimes we hide inside lies that justify who we are and what we do.
42. Ask for forgiveness and let the forgiveness heal you. Take the risk of honesty. Faith does not grow in the house of uncertainty.
43. Our transformation is a miracle greater than raising the dead.
44. All evil flows from independence.
45. God’s purposes are always and only an expression of love. God works life out of death, freedom out of brokenness, and light out of darkness.
46. Emotions are neither good nor bad. They are the colours of the soul. They are spectacular and incredible.
47. The more you live in the truth, the more our emotions will help you see clearly.
48. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control. Keeping the law grants us the power to judge others and feel superior.
49. Responsibility and expectation are dead nouns, full of judgment, guilt, and shame. Our identity becomes wrapped up in performance. The opposite is when God gives us an ability to respond that is free to love and serve in every situation, with God in us; and expectancy is alive and dynamic with no concrete expectation – only the gift of being together.
50. To the degree we live with expectations and responsibilities is the degree we fear and the degree we don’t trust or know God.
51. If God is the centre of everything, then together we can live through everything that happens to us.
52. Forgiveness is big.
53. When bad things happen, what God had to offer us in response is his love, goodness, and relationship with us.
54. God doesn’t do humiliation, guilt, or condemnation. They don’t produce one speck of wholeness or righteousness.
55. Forgiving isn’t about forgetting; it’s about letting go of another person’s throat.
56. Forgiveness does not create a relationship; it simply removes them from your judgment.
57. Because you are important to God, everything you do is important.
I gotta tell you, this book made me want to explore the idea of God a little more, and I just can’t see how that is a bad thing.
I can’t tell you how much I loved reading your response.
“Live loved” hit me the most.
I’ve been a Christian for almost 10 years now. Crazy to think it’s been that long, but it has. And I am still learning.
I haven’t read this book (yet–it’s on my list), but if these are the things you came away from it with, I can see no reason why anyone with any TRUE sense of wisdom and trust in the ways that God works can honestly argue against this book.
There are more truth nuggets in your list of 57 things learned from a fiction book than a lot of Christians choose to live out in their every day lives.
You will make a great believer.
*wouldwill. Don’t mean to sound presumptuous.
I`m of the mind-set that God is going to fix all this eventually. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians 15. He says that He will become All In All. I believe that. How can God become All in All if He doesn`t convince people of His love, whether in life age or the next. And by the way, show me once scripture that definitively says we have to believe before we die. There isn`t one. Also, Jesus preached to spirits in prison(1 Peter3:19 and 4:6). Peter clearly tells us they believed and now live with God in the Spirit. So if you think Jesus stops loving people after they die, you are believing the traditions of men of the last 400 years. Also, the original language does not speak of eternal punishment but an age of punishment that ends with all believing. Our English translations are pretty flawed. I tend to believe God loves us much more than we realize. So many hateful people are going to be shocked when they find out just how deceived they`ve been by religion.
Aram – WOW – that was amazing
I have to say that if this book did that for one person than it was while worth being written.