First off, let me say I have never read a “Christian book” or seen a “Christian movie” that did not make me want to sit down and write a theological dissertation about all the things they got all wrong. You may laugh if you wish, but I am not even able to write the words “Christian book” without putting them in quotations.
That is not a bad thing, nor is it evidence of a bad book. It is simply some powers of discernment at work, some critical thought in action. I’m real fun to watch movies with, let me tell you. That guy on the big screen running away from an explosion with bones sticking out of his leg, that looks so cool….and is so totally NOT possible in real life. I have a compulsion that always makes me want to expose the man behind the curtain, and Hollywood is nothing but.
However, I just want to speak to something that I have seen quite a bit on the intertoobz that kind of breaks my heart. The Shack is a popular book and now a popular movie and there are people who are benefiting from it, who are gleaning some wisdom from it. It deals with issues around abuse, our relationships with people, and ultimately with God Himself.
So, it distresses me to see someone give a testimony about something they’ve learned from The Shack and Christians I rather like come along and say things like, “filth, blasphemy, and heresy.” This is one of those times when people’s theology can go all wrong, because we have forgotten who the patient is. Just for a reminder, the patient is actually the guy bleeding out on the floor in front of you.
The patient is not “theological truth.” Call me crazy, but if someone testifies that they are finding healing, grace, and building a relationship with their heavenly Father after having experienced major trauma, that is not the time too come along and attack. That is the time to pour on some encouragement and to rejoice.
“Triage” is a term I really believe many Christians need to learn. Triage is, “the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties.” If someone has severed a major artery, we need to stop the bleeding, not proudly proclaim we have found a mole on them that looks questionable and may need a biopsy.
Paul reminds us in Philippians 1:18, “What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”
..and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
..and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
..and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I have yet to read the book or watch the movie, although I plan to do both. I had never previously heard of it until recently. My close friend had, and was gifted the book after the murder of her brother. She raved over both adaptations and expressed how reading that book helped her keep from delving into a deep depression and saved her from much anger after that traumatic event. If that isn’t a testimony, I don’t know what is. If it can help someone heal emotionally through such a tough time, and do so in a healthy manner, how can it be so bad? Again, I have not read/seen either, but that was just my thought on it. Great post!
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“This is one of those times when people’s theology can go all wrong, because we have forgotten who the patient is. Just for a reminder, the patient is actually the guy bleeding out on the floor in front of you.”
Amen and amen! (Can I say amen again!) That’s the WHOLE point of the story. Besides, it’s an ALLEGORY, not meant to be systematic theology! The Shack is describing in a creative way something about God that most people (including a lot of Christians) get all wrong. It’s answering the question, “Is God really that good?” and if He is, “What about the problem of suffering and evil in the world?” That’s it. When we see it for that reason, we get it. 🙂
I’ve read the book (back in 2008) and now have seen the movie. I thought it wonderfully demonstrated the love and nature of God, dispelling a lot of our “religious” (yes, I can barely write “religious” without quotation marks!) about God. It also does a phenomenal job, in an allegorical way, of describing the love in the Trinitarian life of God (John 15:9; 17:21-26).
Everyone should see this movie (and read the book) and make up their own mind, not be bullied by fear.
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I couldn’t get through the book.
But I really like your thoughts here. Spiritual triage. Very good concept.
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Pick your battles. I like it.
The Shack is a parable, and a starkly Christian message at its core, whatever else you think of what little explicit theology it does try to teach. People who claim the gift of discernment but cannot discern a parable from a theological essay should not be talking about their gifts.
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The Bible is full of parables and Jesus spoke in parables. Why? Because that is how the human mind relates – we are relational and seek to identify. The hurting, wounded heart can relate to and identify with a parable of grace much more quickly than it is able to respond to a theological dissertation. A parable of Christ’s grace can be like a tourniquet on the bleeding wound – a parable of grace is a defibrillator for the lifeless heart.
I have been there. All of the doctrine and theology in the world could not and did not break through the layers of trauma. It was Christ’s great love, grace, compassion, and mercy that reached me. Love, grace, compassion, and mercy is what we should be demonstrating to a wounded world.
There will not be a test on our theological prowess when we face Him, but He will call the condition of our hearts into account.
Mark 2:17 – On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
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I am not sure why my comment is as a reply. I was just commenting in general. 🙂
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For Brandon Adams-What’s wrong with you? That blasphemous book that you call a parable, completely attacks who God is and mocks the Living God by making Him into a black woman. How can you condone something so false to it’s core and then turn around and say your a Christian who by the way suppose to love Truth, where is your love for it.
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So, God is limited in how He chooses to reveal Himself? Wow! Never, ever realized that! Thanks for sharing!
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I never knew that pastors could sarcastic, just kidding I knew that. God reveals Himself in the confines of scripture, you being a pastor should know better.
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Sometimes my sarcasm just comes out. Thanks for taking it with a humorous spirit. Yes, God is revealed in the Scriptures, but the ways in which He reveals Himself is as unlimited as He is. Blessings!
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Yeah but you can’t say that God will reveal Himself apart from what the scripture already revealed God as. If someone declares that God said this or that, how do we know its from God? You as a pastor know the answer to that. We go to the scriptures and see if what the person is saying goes along with what the Bible already revealed God had said so that we may know if it is God or Satan speaking. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus used what was already revealed about God’s will, right? Jesus said it is written three times. The Shack goes against scripture, I know that you know that, you need to reject it because its giving a different gospel and you as a pastor are promoting something false. I know you will do the right thing.
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The Bible reveals God as both male and female, after all, he did say, “Let us make man in our image. So God made them, male and female.” The God to which the Bible speaks is bigger than anything we can imagine or name. As a pastor, I refuse to put God in some box, be it even what some may call a “Biblical” box. My heart is given to, my love is for, and my life is surrendered to God, who is much bigger than anything put on ink and paper.
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Oh wow, I’m sorry pastor but that was a grotesque in exegesis. Anyways, at the end it is your choice to believe in sound doctrine or go beyond it. May God have mercy on you.
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He does have mercy on me every day. And provides more than enough grace so that His image can somehow be seen in me as I follow Him into the Kingdom Battle, and one day, into the Kingdom Victory Celebration Party!
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By the way, what does “Papa” say or do in either the book or movie that is either inconsistent with the God of scriptures or is repudiated by the scriptures? Inquiring minds would like to know, and I definitely have an inquiring mind, which I understand to be both a gift from God, and a reflection of His true nature.
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It is inconsistent because the God of the Bible never revealed Himself in a feminine form for starters. Yahweh only revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ who is the only One that has seen in the Father as seen in John 1:18 which says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”
Isaiah 46:5
With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
It is wrong to try to compare God with anyone and especially with a woman which in my opinion is very demonic.
God can work through people but we cannot say that God can be any person but only Jesus Christ.
God even warned us not to depict Him in any shape or form according to Deuteronomy 4:10,12,15-16
10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”
12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.
15 You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, 16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman
Your beliefs pastor about who God is is not only wrong but twisted. I hope that you will reconsider your understanding of scripture and come along with what the Bible reveals God to be and worship God in the right way by believing and defending the God of the Bible not the god of this world that’s found in the Shack.
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Thanks for your reply. And I am sure I will offend you with this, but I do not defend the God of the Bible, but have given my heart and life to proclaim the only God, who has chosen to reveal His heart and mind through the Bible. He clearly says that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways. All I’m saying is why limit the ways that our Sovereign (that’s what the Bible teaches He is) God can reveal himself to a person? I do not defend God because, quite honestly, He is able to defend Himself should He ever need defending. Personally, I don’t see that God ever needs defending. I do not defend the Bible, but I study the words to better understand God, who is much bigger than words on ink and paper. Equating the Bible with God, now that sounds almost like making an idol out of a book. I do believe that the Bible is inspired and is to be our guide to the discovery of Truth. Truth, by the way, has a name, His name is Jesus, and He’s out in the workshop waiting for us all. (this remark means something for anyone who has read the book). God is more than a human form, and more than the color a skin. I absolutely refuse to restrict God’s ways, they are too marvelous for me to fully understand. I didn’t say I believe in the God that’s found in the Shack. I believe in God, the creator of everything, in His Son who became the only atonement for sin, in the Holy Spirit who gives me life and power. My God bigger than any human’s endeavors to describe Him, and He is even bigger than the Bible, and for this I am most thankful.
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Hi Spaniard,
I haven’t read the book or seen the film so I won’t comment on them. What concerns me is your Fundamentalism and the post over on your own website attacking Insanitybytes.
What I would recommend to you is to practice a loving-kindness meditation every day and look at the world through the eyes of compassion, healing-mercy and loving-kindness. By doing this, you might just release your spirit from your need to use the bible as a weapon of oppression and begin to use it as an instrument of liberation.
God is free and overflowing love given so generously and without any merit of reward and his/her love uplifts and ennobles the human spirit and sets us free when we respond positively to it.
Rather than attacking others and seeing yourself as a watchman on the walls, why not uplift others? If you disagree, can’t you state your position with words of generosity towards others without denying what you believe. If you believe that you must warn others, can’t you do it with loving kindness? A loving kindness meditation might just help you.
Shalom,
John Arthur
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Right on, Brandon! After hearing Paul Young in person, I think he is definitely one to stir the pot. But I am most amazed, and disappointed, at all the comments that insist God would never reveal himself as a black woman…because who would have thought that the King of Kings could born in a smelly barn full of manure…maybe there’s a point God is making, Jesus being born surrounded by manure…
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Powerful Post, reblog at theunfetteredpreacher.com
Thanks
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“Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”
Clanging gongs.
Jesus never said a thing about doctrine or crossing our tees and dotting our eyes just so. Jesus said a whole lot about love.
Love one another.
Love one another.
As I have loved, so you , too, should love one another.
I’m gonna’ go see it next week – and I’m a real Christian.
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I’d read the book out of curiosity. While I disagreed with some of its statements of fact, its theology, I thought it had a good effect on, and was able to reach, many.
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I read the book and plan to watch the movie. I loved your review and thoughts on it. Very wise, indeed. Dawn
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“if someone testifies that they are finding healing, grace, and building a relationship with their heavenly Father after having experienced major trauma, that is not the time too come along and attack. That is the time to pour on some encouragement and to rejoice.” Absolutely right, IB. Brilliant post. The Shack was never meant to be theology – it was meant to be one person’s experience of grace. When, oh when, are we going to get the Invitation of the Gospel right?
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I read the book. It seems to have helped some people understand more about the love of God. As an “evangelistic” tool, I have my doubts, but as a parable to show God’s love, go for it. Some of the very obvious politically “in” things grump me. But I do recognize who has the problem. 😀 Me. I really should read it again from the standpoint of a hurting person seeking consolation. I might like it more than first read through.
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Started reading and just couldn’t go on.
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“Christian” books, or movies, or anything NOT an individual human being is a gross misnomer! It reminds me of attending a church service where people enter the isle you’re seated in asking, “Is that seat saved”, to which someone correctly responds, “Only sinners can be saved”.
Unless you’re naive enough to think that sitting in a church makes you a Christian, as sure as sitting in a garage makes you a car, NOT even “CHURCH” is rightly used by most (when referring to a building). Scripture clearly teaches that both terms (Christian and church) are designations of real PEOPLE, NOT inanimate objects.
The idea that Christ came to save the world is frequently confused by the fact that many interpret that to mean perfecting THIS present ‘world’ (earth), rather than realizing it is the individual human beings that the ‘world’ actually refers to. When that is not understood, the fact that so much turmoil remains on this planet, causes some to question the truth of scripture while ignoring the PERSONAL responsibility to allow God to transform them. LOL!
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Calling books, movies, music, etc. “Christian” is a big pet peeve of mine. A book or movie or song or piece of music can give glory to God, but calling the thing itself “Christian” is kind of silly.
As for people asking if a seat is saved, when I was a kid we used to say “No, I was just about to tell it the Four Spiritual Laws.”
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Love that line about sitting in a garage–I’ve used that often in many sermons…
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“Paul reminds us in Philippians 1:18, “What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”
What if the “christ” of “The Shack” is not the Christ of the bible? Paul had some things to say about “other Jesus’s” too.
Brandon you disappoint me greatly, but I shoulda seen it coming. Another art worshiper. Just goes to show,(again) that intelligence and intellectual rigor don’t mean jack. Of course it’s a parable. A blasphemous one written by a pathetic postmodern apostate. It has nothing whatever to do with the love of the true and living God.
Lord Jesus help your church.
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Ironically, you always have a way of proving why my words are so needed today.
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Glad to be of service.
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But you’d serve so much better if you just understood who the real enemy is.
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I agree to a point – but beyond the narrow, specific definitions a Spirit led research with the properly applied tools of systematic theology, we must NOT put God in a box. Yes, there are many blasphemies and bad interpretations of Scripture – but there is a huge difference between the preaching of what is intended to be TRUTH, regardless of a specific media, and the mere telling of a story with spiritual inclinations. As with EVERY interpretation, it is the responsibility of the individual to discern right from wrong
and seek God for confirmation of what should become an abiding personal conviction.
Even within the pages of divinely inspired Scripture there are many parables, that were derived from original non-biblical folk-lore. The use of analogy to open one’s perspective to a broader understanding was a regular method utilized by Jesus to allow a person to BEGIN to look into spiritual realities. The perfecting of godly knowledge about the spiritual realm ALWAYS comes later, AFTER employing a more in-depth study of the Word and continued fellowship in the Holy Spirit.
An example of non-biblical ‘parables’ used to draw people to a preliminary consideration of spiritual matters is the conversion to Christ that I witnessed AFTER having taken a non-believing friend to view the 1st STAR WARS movie in the 70’s. The ‘theology’ of THAT story was ABSOLUTELY NOT Scriptural! Never-the-less, my simple mention to him that in my life ‘The Force’ is Jesus Christ, opened wide the door of opportunity to share my faith further – resulting in him accepting Christ. He has since become a very active evangelist!
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The Shack had a profound impact on me and helped turn a corner with my relationship with God. I can’t wait to see the movie.
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Satan sometimes appears as an angel of light and “The Shack” is one example of how he does this. It does contain some truth and people may be helped by reading it but in doing so they might also accept the false picture of God that it portrays. I have read the book and after finishing it I threw it in the trash. I have no intention of seeing the movie.
This morning before reading your post I read two other articles on the internet about “The Shack,” https://answersingenesis.org/reviews/movies/staying-outside-the-shack/
http://www.epm.org/resources/2012/Sep/26/reflections-shack/
If you liked “The Shack,” perhaps you should read these articles to get a different perspective on it.
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I must be lost as fog msb. I confess my ignorance and my need for illumination………….have not heard of the book or the movie. 😉
Your ‘….’ regarding ‘Christian books’ was good. I can still like your post because I can see the bigger picture nevertheless.
Especially your triplets at the end.
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IB, your focus on compassion is essential, but I believe we can focus on two things at once if we’re loving and careful, that is, on both compassion and defense of the faith. Yes, it’s wrpmg to pounce on someone, especially if they’re suffering, but as I said – really both things can and should be done. I’m going to post on this. Do you want me to link back to this? Yay or nay? :0)
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By all means Maria, I enjoy links.
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Amen Maria,
I deal with suffering people all the time. Christ is not honored, nor are they helped by leading them to believe that a hip n groovy, tied dyed n tolerant, hippified, bleeding heart, broad minded, art connoisseur Jesus came to earth to alleviate their suffering.
The angel told Joseph (Matt. 1:21) “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
SIN is what is killing them. Theirs.
Read 2nd Corinthians 11. Paul’s suffering didn’t even start until he began to follow Jesus. God may never deliver them from suffering in this life, (though He may too) but He WILL forgive their sins, and give them new and everlasting life in Christ. The glory of which dwarfs the suffering of this age. (2nd Cor. 4:17 for anybody who actually cares what the scriptures say)
There are wise and compassionate ways that the Holy Spirit will lead His faithful servants to love hurting people with HIS love. Not some pathetic Barney the purple dinosaur counterfeit.
If you are not loving them HIS way, according to HIS word, then you are walking in the wisdom of men (1st Cor. 1) and not loving them at all. If that’s the case, you are ministering death to them instead of His life, regardless of what great feelings may be generated along the way.
This is what I meant the other day on my page Gabrielle when I asked people to ask themselves whether God is the end or the means of their ministry.
Is what you do, for HIM first, with these people being the means by which you bring HIM glory? Or are THEY and THEIR relief the end, with God being the means by which you achieve it?
How that question is answered is absolutely everything and you can only know for certain from THE SCRIPTURES. That’s why He gave them to us. Anything anybody does, no matter how apparently sacrificial and noble is a stench in His nostrils if not first for HIS glory as He has Himself prescribed in HIS WORD..
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You know, you can be kind to people, stop their bleeding, speak to their abuse issues…and never compromise or contradict a single word of scripture.
Or, you can forth and bellow like a self righteous pharisee, kicking the broken and wounded as if that somehow qualifies as contending for the faith.
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Tribulus, I want to respond to the part of your comment addressed to me. I agree that we can love people who are suffering through both compassion and telling them the truth. The two must go hand in hand.
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“Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.” 2 John 1:9
Think about the number of people you help in “triage” versus the number of people who are being led astray. People will give an account to God…
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“You know, you can be kind to people, stop their bleeding, speak to their abuse issues…and never compromise or contradict a single word of scripture.
Or, you can forth and bellow like a self righteous pharisee, kicking the broken and wounded as if that somehow qualifies as contending for the faith.”
This article compromises and contradicts scripture. Treating them as if low esteem is their problem, compromises and contradicts scripture.
Also, I don’t kick anybody. I give them the gospel truth. The rest is up the Lord who alone can give the increase and produce the fruit.
I like you alot Gabrielle. I really do, but your aversion to sound doctrine, despite the scriptures crystal clear commands to uphold it, is wrong and very damaging. I pray that you are allowed to see that.
Farrakhan’s guys are all over this city and they “help” many hurting people, and in so doing they help them straight into the jaws of hell. (Unless you agree with William Paul Young?)
There is no such thing as sound practice without sound theology. I say this not as an enemy who is trying to hurt you, but as somebody wants your work to be based upon God’s truth and all the glories that that means.
Nobody is led to the true and living God or his true and living love by “The Shack.”
If you actually think they are, you are in no position to be ministering to anybody.
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“Farrakhan’s guys are all over this city and they “help” many hurting people, and in so doing they help them straight into the jaws of hell.”
Do you ever wonder why they are so successful? Why church attendance is declining,why so many people are turned off by Christians? It isn’t because they hate Christ, it’s because they quite rightly hate us. We are often harsh, cruel, judgmental, unforgiving, and completely lacking natural affection, let alone love.
If only you would condemn the child rape in The Shack with as much enthusiasm as you condemn the man who was utterly destroyed by it.
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Hey tirib-
Just an observation. did you read and discern this post? Did you get the greater point? The first paragraph kinda sets the table.
Secondly, ‘the patient is not theological truth………..’ as also noted.
Thirdly you are wrong sorry to say when you assert that one cannot have sound ‘practice’ with poor theology, (not that you may think the blog host here is guilty of same) for many a good believer is clueless as to theology, but because of tradition or upbringing, still excels in ‘triage,’ in the nuts and bolts of the wayside…….working with the infirm…….binding wounds…….who may not have an inkling where John 3.16 can be found…….not to be a theological professor, but because it is simply right.
Heck, i know many Catholics who embarrass many a Calvin insofar as the ‘greatest of these is love’ department. I think you missed the greater point of this post though. Then there is this thing called the body of Christ……..where it is utterly stupid for the toe to chastise the work of the elbow.
I know nothing of the shack. But I know enough that you are reading ib22 incorrectly. Her blog and track record of wit, wisdom, and pure gospel truth are proof enough.
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Thanks, Colorstorm, much appreciated. 🙂
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Sure thing. Anytime.
Can I add, that the bleeding, dying, hungry thief who was himself just beat to a bloody pulp by another thief…….does not need NOW a lecture on the 4 spiritual laws………..
Indeed, the one with zero theological prowess can have the greatest love of God, simply because.
Granted, in time, people learn and grow, but there is a time and a purpose….as you know.
Aren’t you glad that believers are not cookie cutters, and God loves and enjoys the Peters as much as the Nathanaels, who we know so little of……
……..while we know so little of God. He bears with us thankfully in spite of ourselves;our God is an awesome God.
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IB, I had the privilege of listening to Paul Young in person back in 2009. He wrote the story as a Christmas gift to his children and a few friends because in spite of working 2-3 jobs, it was all he could afford. Some friends encouraged him to get it published so he sent it off. “Christian” publishers rejected it because it was too “edgy”. Sent it to secular publishers who rejected the book because it was “too much Jesus”. (And yes, afterwards I had him autograph my copy of the book.) Those friends cashed out their 401k’s and maxed out their credit cards to start their own publishing company in order to publish the book.
One of the truths I gleaned from the book and from listening to Paul was that too often we put limitations on God–what he can do, how he acts, how he responds, what he is willing to do. I always have a laugh-out-loud moment when people get angry over Paul saying God could reveal himself as a black woman. The reason Paul chose a black woman was that in his younger days he was on staff at a large church and it was through a fellow staffer who was a black woman, that Paul saw Jesus the clearest.
And Paul’s understanding of the Trinity comes out of the very early church’s understanding of the Trinity–can’t get much more orthodox than that. And I’ve noticed one other thing about the Religious Police’s criticism of the book–that it promotes universalism because Mac’s abusive Dad was in heaven. Thought the book doesn’t say it, what if Mac’s abusive Dad cried out to Jesus with his last breath? Would “God” reject him because he waited so long? Anyways, just my thoughts on the book. But even better is your thoughts on spiritual triage…as a former firefighter, I understand the concept of triage. Blessings IB!
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IB says: “If only you would condemn the child rape in The Shack with as much enthusiasm as you condemn the man who was utterly destroyed by it”
Child rape, as unspeakably horrific as that is, is not even to be compared with the blasphemy and perversion of the being, nature and name of the Creator and King of the universe.
Right there is your problem Gabrielle. You exalt man above God.
Everybody hates God and His Christ until raised from death in the first man Adam to new and eternal life in the last. They are not victims. They are criminals, guilty of capital crimes before the throne of their judge. They need forgiveness and redemption. Not therapy.
—————————————
Success in God’s kingdom is not measured by results my dear. It’s measured by obedience. Noah preached 120 years and God killed everybody except him and his family.
Jeremiah preached 40 years to a whoring, world loving Israel (just like today’s flesh festival church) and nobody listened. We find him weeping in the book of Lamentations as his beloved Jerusalem burned to the ground. God told him in chapter one that He would put His words in the prophets mouth. What the people did with them was God’s problem.
Both of those great men of God helped nobody, but were complete successes because they DID WHAT THEY WERE TOLD. We are told what to think, say and do IN THE SCRIPTURES. They are the same for everybody. You don’t get to deconstruct them in your own image because it tickles your emotions.
God doesn’t need us to get Him out of jams He’s not in. He commands us to do what were told. Your definition of love comes from Woodstock. Not the SCRIPTURES.
The Gospel is in steep decline on this continent because of an arrogant, presumptuous, culture worshiping, idolatrous false church that has for decades now recreated this groovadelic false jesus in their own image. God cares that those daring to call themselves by His name are lovers and celebrators of bloody, blasphemous pornography, whether you do or not. He cares that He bothered to canonize 66 books of scripture to prescribe for us everything we need for life and godliness, and people mangle it to their own self serving purposes. God cares that He tells us who and what He is in those scriptures, commands us to worship Him in spirit and truth according to them, and His insolent creatures redefine all of that because they like it better their way.
The fact that you don’t know that, or even worse, think you do, should terrify you, but it won’t.
HIS name and honor is far more important to Him than anybody else’s suffering, if I am to take my bible seriously. Therefore it is to me too.
This is what I was talking about the other day on my Facebook page when I asked people to ask themselves whether God is to them, the means or the ends.
God is to you clearly a means to YOUR ends. Ones that make YOU feel good. Helping THEM is about YOU and Jesus is an accessory that you use to accomplish that.
I beg the Lord our God to let you hear that with ears matching the heart that sends it 😦
I am not trying to tear you down and be hurtful. I promise you that’s not my point at all. 😦
You probably won’t recognize that because, as I said, you live in fake, idolatrous substitute for biblical love.
Colorstorm. You’re clueless. It won’t do any good to say why though and especially not here.
“Pastor” Randy. You’re even worse.
We really are in a great apostasy in the church world in this country. Oh what a breathtakingly rude awakening is coming to people like you. 😦 One or both of us serves a false god. You’d have to be a post modernist to believe otherwise.
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“Child rape, as unspeakably horrific as that is, is not even to be compared with the blasphemy and perversion of the being, nature and name of the Creator and King of the universe”
Okay,well now that is just grievous. I can think of no greater blasphemy than child rape. What of Luke 17:2, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”
Or perhaps, “Woe to the world for the causes of sin. These stumbling blocks must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!…”
To rape a child is “blasphemy and perversion of the being, nature and name of the Creator and King of the universe.”
So I find it quite disturbing that the response to child rape is to say, no blasphemy is when some guy who writes a book and uses a black women as a allegory for God.
How did we ever get so lost and confused that such a thing would even make sense to us?
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You WILL get it. I just hope it’s before it’s too late.
God commanded the extermination of every man, woman, child and beast at the hands of Joshua and Saul (for instance).
Because of their idolatry.
God opened the ground and swallowed up the Jews for daring to make a golden calf to represent him. You know NOTHING of the God of the bible if you think He is pleased with some apostate heretic representing Him as politically correct human beings.
In one sense EVERY sin is the “blasphemy and perversion of the being, nature and name of the Creator and King of the universe.”
God finds nothing so offensive as the direct misrepresentation of His being and nature. You can tell by what He says and what He does.
He also has no special emotionally fuzzy place in His heart for children. Not like what today’s biblically illiterate church thinks. What he does have is a special place in His hatred for them who would exploit those most vulnerable. There’s a difference. What you are really missing is that if you are teaching any children a mindset that embraces “The Shack” (which is just an example), then God may have a millstone with you name on it.
Children who have been raped (God FORBID!!) can be raised and redeemed, but only in the true risen Christ. Even their rapist can be redeemed. NObody is redeemed by the false gods and the false christs of postmodern false gospels like we find in “The Shack.” Millstones are not only for rapists. They are for deadly deceivers too. A rapist cannot lead a child to hell. (which I doubt you believe in anyway), but a heretic certainly can.
Your intuitions, instincts and sensibilities have been formed by worldly culture and therapeutic carnality Gabrielle. Not the word of God.
If you only could understand how not enjoyable conversations like this are for me. 😦 The time for playing games is long past.
Crippled castrated, postmodern so called Christianity has done enough damage to the reputation of the God and Christ of the bible already. We absolutely ARE living in an age of broad and deep apostasy.
Judgement is not coming. It is here. A strong delusion. Eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear the looooooooong settled truths of Jesus Christ to His beloved church bride.
Helping people believe in the god and gospel of “The Shack” is not helping them. It may make the fluffy flower children on this page feel good, but it does not lead anybody into the truth as it is in Christ Jesus.
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“He also has no special emotionally fuzzy place in His heart for children.”
He laid down His very life for us.
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TIRIBULUS – Entitled to your opinion, but NOT your JUDGMENT = “Right there is your problem Gabrielle. You exalt man above God.” Your following tirade a scriptural quotes to support your allegations are destructive, NOT redemptive! You obviously do NOT know the heart of this woman you persecute and neither do you embrace a proper theological interpretation of the scripture of which you so carelessly flaunt knowledge.
Instead of humbly realizing your hypocrisy and turning away in shame, you pick up the ‘first stone to throw’ making yourself judge, jury, and executioner. How dare you!
If anything Gabrielle has always on this blog proclaimed the exact OPPOSITE of your accusations. But NONE are so blind as they that WILL NOT see…
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Look friend,. Lemme save you some time and typing. You do not impress me and I don’t care what you think about anything. Just like you don’t care what I think about anything. There. We’re even 🙂 You can try n dazzle somebody else now with your incredible erudite theological interpretations.
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Oh great greg, now you did it. Not that you called me clueless, and others worse than me…………. lol , but that you are pronouncing judgment on people where God has not and will not.
‘They shall not come into judgment……….’ ‘Where there is no law, there is no transgression……….’
I can do this all day to prove my cluelessness, but I’ll pass. GRACE is God’s operating system, for Today.
Even the very worst of theologians, including they who worship Calvin for instance, including they who have erased Israel from the plan of God, including people who are untaught or unlearned, are near and dear to God not because of who they are, but because of who God is.
Everybody in this zip code knows this, and you are creating a bonfire but providing no heat. Nice beard though. And by the way, can you juggle grapefruits? Can’t be that clueless.
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I never thought I would agree with one of your comments, CS. Bravo ! 🙂
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No more miraculous than seeing the light of the moon! Keep your eyes open for the next miracle.
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Gabrielle quotes me as saying: “He also has no special emotionally fuzzy place in His heart for children.”
And then responds with:
He laid down His very life for us.”
Of course He did, but multitudes of His people aren’t children in the sense of having lived few earthly years.
God IS love. He loves all His saints with eternal, sacrificial, everlasting love. My dear lady, how does that address His having a SPECIAL love for younger ones? I don’t find that in scripture. God loves children. Jesus loves Children. He used their simple trust as an example for us to follow in our relationship with Him. I’m certainly not denying and am all for that.
All I’m saying is that His love for the “little ones” among us does not exceed His love of His own honor and glory. Yes, He abominates and abhors child rape and child rapists, but they are not the ones the apostle, under divine inspiration, tells to castrate themselves. It was the Judaizers at Galatia who added a single, actually at one time God commanded rite, to the gospel. Folks with bad doctrine in other words.
I love children, and what’s more, children love me 😀 If you came to our church you’d see that. I do not however allow my emotional perception of how cute and precious they are form my theology. Only the scriptures are allowed to do that.
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“All I’m saying is that His love for the “little ones” among us does not exceed His love of His own honor and glory.”
The God who subjected Himself to the brutal indignity of the cross absolutely loves His own children more than His honor and glory.
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***(anybody who reads this whole thing gets some kinda prize)***
——————————————————————————–
Gabrielle says: “The God who subjected Himself to the brutal indignity of the cross absolutely loves His own children more than His honor and glory.”
Brandon, I KNOW YOU know better than this.
Right here is the crux of the matter. You think the gospel is about you first. You do indeed exalt man over God. You just said so. That is the lie of the devil and I beg you to forsake this disastrously false and upside down view. 😦 😦 😦
God’s demonstration of His flawless justice and wrath in punishing sin, thus giving Him the righteous means of demonstrating His grace and mercy in forgiving it (both just and the justifier, Rom 3:26) IS His love and glorifying of Himself first in action.
Oh yes it is. It’s all for Him and all for love. Love of His own honor and glory above all else and that is the very reason for creation itself. Like I said in another comment above:
“God is to you clearly a means to YOUR ends. Ones that make YOU feel good. Helping THEM is about YOU and Jesus is an accessory that you use to accomplish that.”
If He loves us first then what you said makes perfect sense. This is however diametrically opposed to every syllable of Holy Scripture, which is the take home point. 😦
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Ephesians 1 NASB (emphasis obviously mine)
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight
9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of HIS inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might 20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
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OHHH HALLELUJAH!! How he DOES love His people!!! His Son’s bride has been bequeathed His very life. That is love unspeakable. Please do note however, that He does so to display HIS OWN glory. I could fill this page with scripture clearly proclaiming it. That was the purpose of creation all along. Before ever He said: “LET THERE BE LIGHT” that was His purpose.
You are perilously close to “exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” and “worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator.” (Romans 1)
This is not yelling condemnation because somebody’s wrong on the internet Gabrielle. 😦 It’s heartbroken pleading for God’s sake. 😦 There’s an entire generation of biblically brain dead, self obsessed, millennial pew dwellers coming along who are pickled in this false postmodern gospel of me first. I see some of them right here. They don’t need more coddling. They need somebody to tell them the truth. The truth about their sin and God’s holiness and what it took to overcome that impassable divide and why. Their peace and joy is the result of that, and I praise God for it!!! But it is not the first goal.
Making people more comfortable in this life by telling them that the cross is because God loves them more than Himself will not save them. 😦 It’s also is not something I would want to have to answer for. My whole motivation the last couple days Gabrielle is because I don’t want you to have to answer for it either. 😦 😦 😦
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“……telling them that the cross is because God loves them more than Himself will not save them.”
Indeed it will. It’s called grace. In fact, that is the only thing that can ever save them. God died on the cross because He loves us more than He loved Himself. He sacrificed everything for us.
Your politics won’t save you,your theology won’t save you, harsh words won’t save you. The only thing that has the power to save anyone is the love that was poured out for us on that cross.
People also tend to respond to love and grace far better than they respond to harsh words. So if your goal is to edify, encourage, lead, you have to speak gently.
And the beauty of it all, is that you can do this without compromising one bit of doctrine,without sacrificing a single word of truth.
“It’s also is not something I would want to have to answer for.”
You made me laugh. If telling people that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” is the only thing I shall ever have to answer for, well that would be a good thing indeed! Not the truth by any means, but a good thing to dream about anyway. 🙂
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The more I’m forced t observe it, the more my burning hatred of utterly satanic postmodernism grows.
We are at that IMPASSE Gabrielle. You really are this confused 😦 It’s like attempting communication with somebody who speaks a different language. 😦 Make no mistake. Yours is the new one. Mine has been around for centuries.
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Here’s the deal, Tiribulus. We SHOULD be speaking the same language. I am speaking scripture to you, I am speaking love to you, and you are arguing and resisting it. I didn’t pull these things out of some artsy fartsy post modern cave somewhere, these are the words of our Father, this IS the very heart of our doctrine, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Your own hatred and fear of postmodernism, false prophets, bad theology, is now taking precedence over the love of Christ.
I’m sorry, but I’m not the one who is confused right now.
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Quoting verses means literally nothing Every crackpot cult in the world does that. Spend some time with the JW’S for instance.
You and I really should talk. I fear nothing and nobody Gabrielle. You really don’t understand how laughable that is. It would mean something to me if you did though.
Gotta go for now. Have an appointment.
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Will the real Brandon Adams please standup?
I am thrilled to announce that the mortally confused Brandon Adams on this page is not the Brandon Adams I thought it was.
Whew! There was NO way I could envision the guy in the link endorsing something so flagrantly satanic and heretical as “The Shack.” Just no way.
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For those who haven’t read the book or watched the video , TBN is featuring a video on their website called, Restoring the Shack with Wm P Young.
https://www.tbn.org/programs/restoring-shack
Thanks insanitybytes22 for your thought provoking post ! I enjoyed it greatly !
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Amen! Brilliant! Thank you so much. Yes, let the Truth out to defend itself. A lie is but for a moment. Let us apply the kindness of the Holy Spirit to bind up the suffering and bleeding.
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Pingback: Shaking the Shack Update-Update | See, there's this thing called biology...
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http://wmpaulyoung.com/universal-reconciliation/
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