Any time someone makes you feel guilty about how you are living, that is part of the old system (pre-Christ).
Rob BellSuffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise.
Rob BellI would say that the powerful, revolutionary thing about Jesus' message is that he says, 'What do you do with the people that aren't like you? What do you do with the Other? What do you do with the person that's hardest to love?' . . . That's the measure of a good religion, is - you can love the people who are just like you; that's kind of easy. So what Jesus does is takes the question and talks about fruit. He's interested in what you actually produce. And that's a different discussion. How do we love the people in the world that are least like us?
Rob BellWell, I affirm orthodox Christian faith. I affirm the Nicene Creed. I don't think I'm doing anything terribly new.
Rob BellIn one of the accounts of Jesus's death we read that the curtain in the temple of God-the one that kept people out of the holiest place of God's presence-ripped.One New Testament writer said that this ripping was a picture of how, because of Jesus, we can have new, direct access to God.A beautiful idea.But the curtain ripping also means that God comes out, that God is no longer confined to the temple as God was previously.
Rob Bell