The Complete Rob Bell: His Seven Bestselling Books, All in One Place. Rob Bell
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It is important to remember that we rarely find these first Christians trying to prove that the resurrection actually occurred. For one, a lot of the people who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead were still alive, so if people had questions and doubts, they could talk to somebody who was actually there.21 But there’s another reason: Everybody’s god in the first century had risen from the dead.22 To claim a resurrection had occurred was nothing new: Julius Caesar himself was reported to have ascended to the right hand of the gods after his death. To try to prove there was an empty tomb wouldn’t have gotten very far with the average citizen of the Roman Empire; they had heard it all before. This is why so many passages about the early church deal with possessions and meals and generosity.23 They understood that people are rarely persuaded by arguments, but more often by experiences. Living, breathing, flesh-and-blood experiences of the resurrection community. They saw it as their responsibility to put Jesus’s message on display. To the outside world, it was less about proving and more about inviting people to experience this community of Jesus’s followers for themselves.
And so these first Christians passed on the faith to the next generation who passed it on to the next generation who passed it on to the next generation until it got to . . . us. Here. Today. Those who follow Jesus and belong to his church. And now it is our turn. It is our turn to step up and take responsibility for who the church is going to be for a new generation. It is our turn to redefine and reshape and dream it all up again. It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to each other, really can change the world.
Serving Others
I am learning that the church is at its best when it gives itself away. And this is because blessing is always instrumental. Let me explain. In Genesis 12, God tells a man named Abram that he’s going to bless him, and through him, he is going to bless the whole world. This is the birth of the Jewish people, whom God wants to use to reach everybody. This blessing is instrumental in nature. God wants to use Abraham, to flow through him, to have him be the conduit through whom God can bless everybody else.24 Abraham is just a vessel. God doesn’t choose people just so they’ll feel good about themselves or secure in their standing with God or whatever else. God chooses people to be used to bless other people. Elected, predestined, chosen—whatever words people use for this reality, the point is never the person elected or chosen or predestined. The point is that person serving others, making their lives better.
The second significant idea in Genesis 12 is that Abraham’s calling is universal. It is for everybody. All kinds of people all over the place are going to be blessed by God through Abraham. God has no boundaries. God blesses everybody. People who don’t believe in God. People who are opposed to God. People who do violent, evil things. God’s intentions are to bless everybody. Jesus continues this idea in many of his teachings. In the book of Luke he says, “I am among you as one who serves.”25 He not only refers to himself as a servant, sent to serve others, but he teaches his disciples that the greatest in his kingdom are the ones who serve.26 For Jesus, everything is upside down. The best and greatest and most important are the ones who humble themselves, set their needs and desires aside, and selflessly serve others.
So what is a group of people living this way called? That’s the church. The church doesn’t exist for itself; it exists to serve the world. It is not ultimately about the church; it’s about all the people God wants to bless through the church. When the church loses sight of this, it loses its heart. This is especially true today in the world we live in where so many people are hostile to the church, many for good reason. We reclaim the church as a blessing machine not only because that is what Jesus intended from the beginning but also because serving people is the only way their perceptions of church are ever going to change. This is why it is so toxic for the gospel when Christians picket and boycott and complain about how bad the world is. This behavior doesn’t help. It makes it worse. It isn’t the kind of voice Jesus wants his followers to have in the world. Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be.
Good News
Another truth about the church we’re embracing is that the gospel is good news, especially for those who don’t believe it.
Imagine an average street in an average city in an average country, if there is such a place. Let’s imagine Person X lives in a house on this street. Next door is a Hindu, and on the other side is a Muslim. Across the street is an atheist, next door to them an agnostic, and next door on the other side, someone from Ohio.
Imagine Person X becomes a Christian. Maybe she read something or had friends who inspired her to learn more, or maybe she had an addiction and through a recovery movement she surrendered her life to God. However it came to be, she became a follower of Jesus. Let’s say she starts living out Jesus’s teachings, actually taking him seriously that she can become a compelling force for good in the world. She is becoming more generous, more compassionate, more forgiving, more loving. Is she becoming a better or worse neighbor? If we are her neighbors, we’re thrilled about her new faith. We find ourselves more and more grateful for a neighbor like this. We wish more people would be like this.
Let’s make some observations about this street. The good news of Jesus is good news for Person X. It’s good news for Person X’s neighbors. It’s good news for the whole street. It’s good news for people who don’t believe in Jesus. We have to be really clear about this. The good news for Person X is good news for the whole street. And if it is good news for the whole street, then it’s good news for the whole world.
If the gospel isn’t good news for everybody, then it isn’t good news for anybody.
And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the “un” and “non,” they work against Jesus’s teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody.27 We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God.28 Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, “God shows no favoritism.”29 So we don’t either.
Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn’t really love, is it? It’s something else. We have to rediscover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agendas. Because some people aren’t going to become Christians like us no matter how hard we push. They just aren’t. And at some point we have to commit them to God, trusting that God loves them more than we ever could. I obviously love to talk to people about Jesus and my faith. I’ll take every opportunity I can get. But I have learned that when I toss out my agenda and simply love as Jesus teaches me to, I often end up learning more about God than I could have imagined.
And one thing to keep in mind is that we never arrive. Ever. One of the illusions of faith is that at some point we get it all mapped out and things get smooth and predictable. It is not true. The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination. On a journey, the