Rob Bell
Rob Bell
Robert Holmes "Rob" Bell Jr.is an American author, motivational speaker and former pastor. Bell was the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church located in Grandville, Michigan, which he pastored until 2012. Under his leadership Mars Hill was one of the fastest-growing churches in America. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Love Wins and the writer and narrator of a series of spiritual short films called NOOMA. In 2011 Time Magazine named Bell on its list...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Author
Date of Birth23 August 1970
CountryUnited States of America
It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die.
This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear,
Do we get what we want? Yes, we get what we want. God is that loving. If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given pwer to make the world in our image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to do that.that's how love works. It cant be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.
I think the church needs – I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.
Any time someone makes you feel guilty about how you are living, that is part of the old system (pre-Christ).
The thought of the word church and the word marketing in the same sentence makes me sick.
Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death.
If this understanding of the good news of Jesus prevailed among Christians, the belief that Jesus’s message is about how to get somewhere else, you could possibly end up with a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren’t known for doing much about it. If it got bad enough, you might even have people rejecting Jesus because of how his followers lived. That would be tragic.
When someone sets out to be controversial or provocative or shocking as an end in itself, I don't think that's a noble goal.
I like to say that I practice militant mysticism. I'm really absolutely sure of some things that I don't quite know.
The lesson that has been hardest for me to learn: there is nothing to prove.
The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true.
Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.
At the center of the Christian tradition since the first church have been a number who insist that history is not tragic, hell is not forever, and love, in the end, wins and all will be reconciled to God.