Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Questions, questions, questions

I'm going to title this after I write it, mainly because I don't know what I'm going to write/blog about right now.

Ok, I got it.

So I've been reading this book lately called Velvet Elvis. It is written by Rob Bell, who is a pastor at a church called Mars Hill (I'm pretty sure) and has written other books and made some video Bible study things too. So anyway, in this book he is just spilling some of his thoughts about Christianity and what it means to be a Christian and what Christian faith looks like.

One of the points he just made was that Christian faith is like a trampoline - it isn't rigid, but has room to flex and bend. Trampolines work by getting on them and jumping on them and doing things that may not be entirely safe, but you don't experience a trampoline by standing next to it and talking about it. Also, the springs in a trampoline help it to work, but without any one spring it would still work. Springs are like specific beliefs about Jesus/God/Bible and that sort of thing.

For example, he said that he once heard someone say that if the earth/universe was not created in 6 24-hour days, then none of the Bible is true and Jesus didn't live or die on the cross. He says that is more like a brick wall; when you take out one piece, the rest of it crumbles down too.

So anyway, with the trampoline idea, he says that part of having faith is also having doubts. Having doubts isn't a bad thing, and asking questions isn't a bad thing. Asking questions means you acknowledge that you don't have all the answers, and you are having to look outside yourself for help in some way. He also says that through asking questions we should come to truth, and since God is truth, it is good to ask questions. He clarifies this by saying that 'questions' doesn't mean things like "Can God make a rock so big that even He couldn't lift it?" (CS Lewis would reply that nonsense remains nonsense even if you try to put God in it.)

Rob Bell says that the kind of questions we should be asking are the ones that come from our hurts, our confusion, our wonder about God. They should be real, things that either we want to know about God or we don't understand about God or are keeping us from getting to know God. Something like that.

And I think that is a good point. There isn't anything wrong with asking questions, and by asking questions, we keep moving in our relationship with God and with others. You can't have a discussion without a question (or at least a starting question). And since God is truth, and God doesn't have any boundaries or limits or whatever, our questions usually lead to more questions (this is Rob Bell's point, not mine).

So yeah...I want to try to ask more questions. I haven't been doing that lately, I think. I haven't been wrestling with ideas about God and the world and the universe and life and what it looks like to live in a way that shows love to God and shows love to other people..

and that takes me to the song, "Live Like That" which I think I have posted the lyrics to somewhere on here.

Jude (1:)20-21- But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

1 comment:

  1. http://www.projectinspired.com/8-awesome-depictions-of-heaven/

    ReplyDelete