I never know what outrage I will find in my Saturday Grand Rapids Press. Every week in their Religion section they have some column that manages to make me want to cancel my subscription, but it's kinda like a train wreck - you just can't look away. All that smoke and twisted metal is mesmerizing! Two or three weeks ago it was "Christian Yoga". Last week it was the issue of women in the Christian Reformed Church.
Today's REALLY IMPORTANT, REALLY RELEVANT article provides the kickoff for Rob Bell's SAVE THE DRINKING WATER TOUR 2006, brought to you by Zondervan.
It seems Rob is going on a cross-country tour to rub the word "spiritual" out of as many vocabularies as possible. It all sounds very worthwhile to me and something that should have been done decades ago!
"Also on Bell's list are lifeless, staid sermons that are all Bible passages and no action. He calls sermons the 'original guerilla art form,' and said they ought to address every single life aspect."
It couldn't be any plainer than the above quote. Guys like Rob and Rick Warren are what are known as Arminians. Here's a quote from Charles Spurgeon to clarify:
"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all - to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow."
I would think that Satan would also refer to Bible-based sermons full of the Word of God as a guerilla art form.
"The tour, sponsored by Zondervan Publishing House, will visit non-church venues in more than 20 cities. All proceeds will go to WaterAid, an international charity dedicated to improving lives by providing clean water and sanitation."
You see, Rob will give people clean drinking water, but this minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ seems to have a problem with giving them what the Master said we really need - living water!
Unlike this tour which will cost you $10.oo, or Rob's book Velvet Elvis which you will waste $12.99 on at Amazon, Jesus offers you the forgiveness of sins and eternal life without cost! He paid EVERYTHING. You can feast on the bounties of heaven at Jesus' table, or you can pay for the crumbs offered by snake oil vendors like Zondervan - the choice is yours.
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:13-14
I'm gonna have to pass on this one. I'll drink the good stuff, thanks. With Christ, you won't get ROBbed.
R.J.
Rob Bell "Everything is Spiritual" Tour