Driscoll & the truth of hell

There’s a good discussion going on over at Matthew Paul Turner’ s site about this video. MPT makes it clear that he doesn’t like Driscoll’s style. I am not familiar enough with Driscoll’s style to comment on his approach, but I can tell you that I often bristle at MPT’s style.

I’m too cranky to find humor as a means of belittling others funny.  I know I am in the minority when I say this, so just pray for me would you? Menopause has made me an impatient woman.

Okay. That’s not true either. I was impatient to begin with — its only bent out of shape my natural inclinations.

I have family members who attend the church where Driscoll pastors and they have broad, generous hearts, hearts that do bind the broken, and feed the hungry and care for the dying.

However, I came to the conclusion sometime ago that the problem with discussing who is getting into heaven and who isn’t is that we have no method of proof.

And while we are on this subject: Why is it no one ever comes back from the dead, and writes the bestseller that says, “There really is a hell!”

I mean people are all the time writing books telling us there really is a heaven.

The only thing I can figure out is that when you come back from the dead, you are suddenly very aware of the marketing capacity for your story. You seem to instinctively understand that droves of people will rush out to buy that book that tells them what they want to hear: Yes, Lord, there is a Heaven and I am in it! Whoo-Hoot!!

Whereas, the Lazarus that pens the book that says he met demons skating on a lake of fire is going to have what we call a “niche” market.  Only people who still dress in Goth are going to be buying his book.

God sent his son and his word for everyone.

“For God so loved the WORLD, that he sent his only begotten son so that WHOSOEVER, believes upon him should not PERISH but shall have everlasting life.” John 3:16.

It does seem that some people want to turn redemption into a niche market.

I’ve given a lot of thought over the years to John 14: 6, the scripture that Driscoll refers to: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

That’s pretty straightforward, right?

Except for the way we twist it.

We think of truth as a creed.  So when we go looking for truth, we make it into something we can argue about, as if life were some sort of courtroom drama and we are all Atticus trying to educate the uneducated.

But if I’m reading that right (and who knows if I am? I grew up in a trailer park and got my associates in theology from Training Union) what I hear is Jesus saying He is truth.

Which means that truth isn’t a doctrine or a creed or even the Word of God but a person.

So when people go seeking the truth, what they are really seeking, whether they know it or not, is the person of Jesus, the Son of God, Word Incarnate.

Seems we’ve messed that up somewhere, somehow, in all of our lofty arguments over who gets into heaven and who doesn’t.

What say you?