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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
Love Wins is the book that just may help you not only fall in love with Jesus but truly love God for all He is and not what you may have been taught. This book is freeing!
"Love Wins" was thought provoking. It managed to question, confuse and sometimes even distress the reader while simultaneously comforting them. "Love Wins" addresses the conflicting notions and claims about God, pointing out the juxtaposition of a God who loves the world so much he gave his only son so that they would not perish with a God who would angrily damn someone to hell for all of eternity. I know that this book has caused a lot of controversy, particularly with Christians, and I can see where that would lie. However, even if you disagree with parts/lots of the book (I didn't, but some may) I would suggest it, because it is incredibly thought provoking. Moreover, it's grounded in the Word, with specific biblical references.
Far from the heresy we were told it was in the early 00s!
Call me a sucker for books with hope-filled messages!
This is a very quick read, wherein Rob Bell once again documents a lot of questions a lot of people have, and are too afraid to ask for fear of being completely rejected by their religious/faith communities. I appreciated the frankness with which Bell asks these questions, confronts those hard truths, and while I don't get a huge sense of clarity as I finish the book, I do get the sense that it's OK to wonder about all of this, and that truth can probably not be contained by any bullet list of beliefs or single treatise. I fail to see what Bell said that makes other people want to kick him out of churches... except that maybe we condemn the guilt we see in ourselves harshest when we see it in others.
Though I enjoy listening to Rob Bell in his Mars Hill podcasts, I find his writing style most irksome (the short choppy, premature placed carriage returns. I understood, however, that a less than literary loving video biased populace do find this manner much more digestible than the likes of N.T. Wright or C.S. Lewis or anything written more than 20 years ago. Did not even plan on reading this, as there is much more worthwhile works on my to-read list, but Mrs. Naum purchased a copy and it was sitting on the coffee table. And in a sitting, one breezy reading session is all it took to consume the contents therein. Even with all the hoopla and wrangling about (which propelled the book into best-seller status).
My pronouncement? I agree. Love never fails. And I am puzzled over all the controversy and fanfare about the title. Yeah, there's some space for nitpicking about some details -- but most of that strikes me in the same vein as fruitless debates over angels dancing on heads of pins.
For a little illumination, here are some Bell quips -- first on heaven:
And on hell…
I tried hard to separate from all the hullabaloo and consider the book on its own merits. I liked it, though it's hard to give a great score to a book with no index (and no scripture cross reference either). Though there are some excellent recommendations in the "Further reading" section -- Surprised by Hope (N.T. Wright), The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis), The Naked Now (Richard Rohr), Everything Belongs (Richard Rohr), The Prodigal God (Timothy Keller), etc.…
My pronouncement? I agree. Love never fails. And I am puzzled over all the controversy and fanfare about the title. Yeah, there's some space for nitpicking about some details -- but most of that strikes me in the same vein as fruitless debates over angels dancing on heads of pins.
For a little illumination, here are some Bell quips -- first on heaven:
There's heaven now, somewhere else.
There's heaven here, somewhere else.
And then there's Jesus's invitation to heaven
here
and
now,
in this moment,
in this place.
And on hell…
…we need a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, side, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God's world God's way.
And for that,
the word "hell" works quite well.
Let's keep it.
I tried hard to separate from all the hullabaloo and consider the book on its own merits. I liked it, though it's hard to give a great score to a book with no index (and no scripture cross reference either). Though there are some excellent recommendations in the "Further reading" section -- Surprised by Hope (N.T. Wright), The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis), The Naked Now (Richard Rohr), Everything Belongs (Richard Rohr), The Prodigal God (Timothy Keller), etc.…
Very well done. Bell is most often criticized by the very overly pious people he dismisses in his book. I applaud him for putting into words what I have believed about God, heaven and hell for most of my life but was never able to coherently express!
Love Wins
This explanation of heaven, hell, and God made sense to me. It’s like I finally read something and thought “YES. Now THAT I understand and agree with.”
This explanation of heaven, hell, and God made sense to me. It’s like I finally read something and thought “YES. Now THAT I understand and agree with.”
I desperately needed to read this book. It was fabulous. Thanks Rob Bell.