My response to Bob Hyatt concerning Heretics Guide to Eternity

My response to Bob Hyatt concerning Heretics Guide to Eternity

Bob Hyatt has been reviewing the book Heretics Guide to Eternity as well as myself… yet it seems we are seeing it a bit differently.

Bob,
I hate to say this, but I seem to agree with Spencer on many things more than what you just wrote... I think often pastors mistake "love" with control... or often lose sight that it is the Holy Spirit in control and not themselves.

I have had a few disagreements with the book, yet, I think I would have hours of conversation with Spencer... There are times as I read the book I think he is reading my mind...

Though I have not finished it... but I keep looking for the outlandish that some have said is there...

To me, I see Spencer as showing Jesus is the door... that we need to go through Him... in that we then lose the institutionalization of church and life in the Life of Christ.

Believe me... there is more to church than we have even begun to know... and most of what we know as church is not...

Really I do not grasp what you are getting at in this statement:

"This is a broken world and we are broken people. The good news, though, is that God Himself has come to rescue and renew all of creation through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
But telling people that they experience the saving grace of God irrespective of personal faith and trust in God's Savior, in God's provision for forgiveness is a cruel and terrible thing to do."

Doesn't the Bible say that while we were still enemies of God, Jesus died for us? So Grace is ever and always there... for where sin is Grace abounds even more? Grace is not just in the moment of receiving Christ, but in the fact that the God who spoke all things into existence can unspeak all things into non existence... to acknowledge that He is long suffering and merciful...

As far a being literal... I think we need to realize most the time we claim we take the bible literal and really we don't. Be careful to not cast stones... Do you still have two eyes and both hands? Yet, have you looked at a woman lustfully? We tend to pick and choose what we think we want literal and what we do not. I can say that I have both eyes and both hands... I can write it off as a metaphor, or whatever, yet, Jesus said it... and I think he meant it literally... but I think he had another solution... and that was the Cross.

I think the passage was meant a bit tongue in cheek that "no one actually recorded Jesus' words at the time he spoke them, so we have no proof that they are indeed his words, and what he did say, he said in Aramaic, which means that nothing in the Bible as translated into any other language can be taken literally anyway..." Have you ever noticed that the same stories in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, often have the same wordings yet not always the same exact quotes? So which one is right? Which of the Gospels is wrong in what they say Jesus actually said?

Are you going to tell me that “The Message” is a literal quote word for word of Jesus actual words? Personally there is much passing for “True Christianity” that is neither true, nor Christian…

Mostly, I think that maybe you put back that can of Driscoll and maybe approach our brother with a bit more Grace…

Blessings,
iggy

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