jeff gibson

Erasing Hell by Francis Chan

I just finished the book by Francis Chan called Erasing Hell.  Here's some of the highlights from my reading:

• If you were on a deserted island and you uncorked an empty bottle containing Philippians 2:9-11, you would probably be a universalist.
• The wrath of Jesus here is retributive and not corrective.
• The “all” who will be “made alive” in Christ refers to believers of all types, not every single person.
• No passage in the Bible says that there will be a second chance after death to turn to Jesus.
• The typical afterlife scenario among Jews in Jesus’ day was that after the wicked die, they go to a place called hades, sometimes called sheol.  It is a place where the wicked wait until judgment day.
• Some Jewish writers believed that the wicked would be annihilated.  Others believed it was a place of unending torment.
• In the Old Testament, the Hinnom Valley was the place where some Israelites engaged in idolatrous worship of the Canaanite gods Molech and Baal.  For first century Jews, the violent image of evildoers being punished in the Hinnom Valley provided a fitting analogy for God punishing the wicked in hell.
• If Jesus rejected the widespread Jewish belief in hell, then He would certainly need to be clear about this.
• For Jesus, hell is a place of punishment after judgement, it is described in imagery of fire and darkness, and is a place of annihilation or never ending punishment.
• The hell that Jesus described here is not a hell-on-earth that accompanies our bad decisions during this life, and it certainly isn’t the never-ending party that AC/DC describes in their song.

 In summary, the book was the counterpoint to Rob Bell's Love Wins, showing on the one hand how some could come to a certain view of hell, but on the other hand, here's how it really is.

RT @lauriegibson "In a week's time..."

In a week's time our upstairs AC went out, our pool vacuum died, our van almost didn't start and one of our girls came down with gastro-intestinitis. In that same week's time the sun rose and set each day in a beautiful array of color in the great expanse, babies were born, people discovered Jesus and I was able to kiss my kids goodnight-even if it was by blowing a kiss to Courtney in Fort Collins. Yahwah, Yahweh, we love to shout your name, oh Lord!!! (Thanks Phil Wickham!)

Hear the song:

Phil Wickham - At Your Name

What We're Learning About the Church from @Monvee at @cccev

We're a month into our journey with Monvee, and are learning a lot about the people who are taking the trip toward spiritual growth.  Monvee is a web based tool that help's you grow spiritually.

The most interesting metric to me is always the graph of what the folks at Monvee call Spritual Put Offs.  Part of using Monvee involves taking an assessment which tells you what your Signature Sin (Spiritual Put Off) is.  This sin is particular to you and is what is holding you back from becoming spiritually transformed.  The sins are based on the seven deadly sins, like greed, anger, laziness and lust.  They correlate with personality types. So far we know that a significant part of our staff struggles with deceit issues, and most Mac users struggle with pride issues.  Ok, we didn't need Monvee to tell us that. 

Here is the Central pie chart of sins:

 

The largest segment of our Monvee users struggle with Pride/Self-Centeredness.  It's the Me Generation come to roost.  Then comes Anger, which can be someone who has a righteous anger, a hatred of injustice and a strict belief in right and wrong.  Then Deception, which generally plays itself out in those who are afraid of failing or letting people down, so they tend to show things as better than they really are.

Here's where I come in, because next is Inaction.  Or laziness.  Or sloth.  I prefer to think of it as just being a good steward of my energy.  The good people at Monvee tell me it is closely related to not facing difficult situations, which of course the Anger people approach slashing and cutting, kicking butt and taking names.  The first time I ever heard that phrase was Haydn Shaw talking about Pat Ferguson.  But I digress.

Monvee takes this information, gives it a Bible character, and then tells you how to combat your particular sin.

I'll work on combatting my sin as soon as Anger gets here.  I hope she takes her time. 

 

Next: Pathways to God

 

Old times...

The Parkway Drive, circa 2007...

 

Life Groups at Central

Check out the new Life Groups page at Central!  If you are looking to connect with a Life Group, we've made it easy to find a group that fits your life.

Whether you are looking for a Women's group, a Men's group, a 50+ group or a Neighborhood group, it's easy to see what's available for you.