Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Rob Bell
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it is true. It is possible in these settings to be in, and to believe all of the correct things, and even to be effective at getting others in, and yet our hearts can remain unaffected. It’s possible to believe all the right things and be miserable. It’s possible to believe all the right doctrines and not live as Jesus teaches us to live. This is why I am so passionate about the trampoline. I want to invite people to actually live this way so the life Jesus offers gradually becomes their life. It becomes less and less about talking, and more and more about the experience we are actually having.
And what is the point, while we’re at it, of a trampoline?
Joy
The point is our joy. That is when God is most pleased.24 They aren’t two different things: God’s joy over here and our joy over there. They are the same. God takes great pleasure in us living as we were made to live. He even commands it in the Psalms: “Take delight in the Lord.”25 It’s such an odd command, isn’t it? You will be happy or else. But God is serious about this. Now this joy doesn’t rule out suffering, difficulty, and struggle. In fact, taking Jesus seriously almost guarantees that our lives will be difficult. History proves it. And very few actually set out to live such a focused, beautiful life. Narrow is the way, and only a few find it.26 But the kind of joy God speaks of transcends these struggles and difficulties. I love how one writer put it: “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding.”27
Sometimes when my boys and I are jumping and one of us starts laughing, we all start laughing. We’re jumping and we’re short of breath and we’re sweating and we’re having such a great time. When we’re too exhausted to jump anymore, we’ll lie down on the mat and stare up at the vast blue sky above us and watch the clouds go by and listen to the breeze as it moves the leaves overhead. I’ll be there on my back, and I’ll say a short prayer: “God, I can’t believe I get to live this life.”
Please understand, I stumbled into this gig.
I was teaching waterskiing the summer after I graduated from college at a camp in northern Wisconsin called Honey Rock. My job was to drive the boat all day, drag kids around the lake, plan ski shows, and get paid $30 a week for it. Every Sunday morning the camp had a chapel service in the middle of pine trees beside the lake. One week I was with the people who were planning the service, and for some reason, when they started discussing who would give the message, I told them I would do it. I had never preached or taught or tried to explain the Bible to a group of people—I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
And they said, “You’re on this Sunday.”
I walked around the woods a lot that week, asking God to give me something to say. And if God could give it to me before Sunday, that would be great.
Sunday eventually came. I remember standing up to talk in front of those hundred or so people gathered among those pine trees and being aware of the presence of God in a terrifying way. Seriously, it was terrifying. But in a good way. The word that comes to mind is holy. I became aware of something so real, yet I couldn’t see it or touch it. I was standing there and I hadn’t said a word yet, and what did I do? I took off my sandals because I knew the ground I was standing on was holy and that my life was never, ever going to be the same again.
It was in that moment that I heard a voice. Not an audible, loud, human kind of voice, but inner words spoken somewhere in my soul that were very clear and very concise. What I heard was, “Teach this book, and I will take care of everything else.”
In that moment, my entire life changed forever. It was like a rebirth. I had been so restless and rebellious and unsettled and unfocused, and I had all this energy and passion but nowhere to channel it. Now I had something I could do with my life. In that moment by the side of a lake, barefoot, with my tongue tied and my heart on fire, I found something I could give my life to.
Or it found me.
It wasn’t planned. No angels were involved that I know of—just a young, restless soul discovering a purpose.
Like I said, I stumbled into this gig.
So for a little over ten years, I have oriented my life around studying, reading, teaching, and trying to understand the Bible. I continue to find the Bible the most mysterious book—the more insight I gain, the more I realize how much I don’t know. It inspires and encourages, and it also frustrates and provokes.
The Bible is a difficult book.
It’s Difficult
We all understand that ethnic cleansing is evil, and when someone announces that God has told him or her to kill certain people, we think that person is crazy. And yet there are passages in the Bible in which God orders “his” people to kill innocent women and children. The famous story of the people marching around the wall of Jericho, blowing their horns, and then the walls falling down is also a story about slaughter of the innocent. The text reads, “They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” The section ends with this verse: “So the Lord was with Joshua.”1
God was with Joshua when he killed all those women and children?
Is God really like that?
What does a thinking, honest person do with a story like this?
And while we’re at it, what about those letters in the New Testament from one person to another group of people? Notice this verse from 2 Corinthians: “I am out of my mind to talk like this.”2 A man named Paul is writing this, so is it his word or God’s word?
Is God out of his mind?
Is God out of Paul’s mind?
Is Paul out of God’s mind?
Or does it simply mean that Paul is out of Paul’s mind?
And if the verse is simply Paul being out of Paul’s mind, then how is that God’s word?
Notice this verse from 1 Corinthians: “To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord) . . .”3 Here we have Paul writing to a group of Christians, and he wants to make it clear that the next thing he is going to say comes from him, “not the Lord.”
So when a writer of the Bible makes it clear that what he is writing comes straight from him, how is that still the word of God?
Now I think the Bible is the most amazing, beautiful, deep, inspired, engaging collection of writings ever. How is it that this ancient book continues to affect me in ways no other book does?
But sometimes when I hear people quote the Bible, I just want to throw up.
Can I just say that?
Can I get that off my chest?
Sometimes when people are backing up their points and the Bible is used to prove that they are right, everything within me says, “There is no way that’s what God meant by that verse.”
Several hundred years ago people used Bible verses to defend their right to own slaves.
Recently a woman told me that she has the absolute Word of God (the Bible) and that the “opinions of man” don’t mean a thing to her. But this same woman would also tell you that she has a personal relationship with God through Jesus. In fact, she spends a great deal of time telling people they need a personal relationship with God through Jesus. What is interesting to me is that the phrase “personal relationship” isn’t found anywhere in the Bible. Someone made up this phrase and then said you could have one with God. Apparently the “opinions of man” do mean something to her.