The Institute (協会)

I know i am probably in a minority, but I really appreciate Rob Bell. I imagine he is really going to flesh that out in the video. I can't imagine him using that kind of language without making it make sense in the end. I will have to wait until someone posts it and watch the whole thing.

I think the modern evangelical usage of "relationship" connotes something similar to a personal romantic attachment, resulting in the sort of pop-style love ballads to Jesus that we hear in many churches. In a more general sense, though, "relationship" is not quite so bubble-gummy. It refers simply to the fact that each of us, whether we like it or not, relates to other persons by our actions toward them, and they relate back to us in that same way. It is therefore not inherently problematic to talk about a "relationship with God."

It is, however, misrepresenting the truth to say that conversion involves "starting" a relationship with God because we are already in one, whether we want to be or not. He is our Creator, we are His creatures, and that fact establishes a relationship because of His authority over us. And because of our sin, original and personal, God has a problem with us, because our sin is directed at God Himself. So the relationship is there, it's just that God will punish us because of our sin.

I much prefer the terminology of "restored relationship" with God because it encourages redemptive-historical thinking (Creation, Adam's fall and death, Jesus' restoration). It also suggests that what we need is the restoration of good relations between us and God, not the beginning of relations.

As to Bell's terminology, I simply point out that he doesn't denigrate the term "personal relationship," he just confesses that it is hard to understand. I disagree with him that the relationship terminology is hard to understand because we have a whole lot that has been revealed to us by God already, but I think he makes a good point. Knowing and relating to this infinite, perfectly holy God is much more serious than we often imagine. And knowing Him better will certainly reveal how much God has not yet revealed to us.

jared, you're in the company of thousands. No worries.

What about the parables where He says "I never knew you", and John 1:12, and the passage in Revelation where "I stand at the door and knock"?

Certainly the exact phrase isn't used, but the concept is there.

I am also a recent "fan" so to speak of Rob Bell's approach to presenting these nagging questions that are certainly very real.

The personal relationship concept has to
be real if we believe that the Gospel is, as Tim Keller and Donald Carson suggests, individual and personal. We have all personally and individually offended God, and He died and rose for each of us individually as well.

It's a very hard idea to grasp, but it must be true for it to make sense, otherwise, we collectivize His death on the Cross and we fall into the trap that He didn't die for me, but for, as Geoff Moore would say, a "faceless mass of humanity", and as any libertarian knows, masses do not act...only individuals.

I don't know much about Rob Bell, he seems honest and a real seeker. Driscoll did a conference here in NC two weeks ago "Convergent" where he discussed Bell, et. al. and tried to place each of the major factions of the current emergent, etc. movement.
Good stuff.

Robert Perry,

Someone please forgive me if I'm wrong on this..NO..correct me. But that standing at the door and knocking verse is a message to an entire body of believers. It is speaking of his personal relationship with his bride, not with some one person.

It always irks me a little when that verse gets misused (my opinion) for evangelistic purposes.

Rob probably SHOULD have said something like, "Seek to have a greater presence of Jesus in your life daily, repenting of sins daily and being involved in the Christian community."

Random Guy,

Yes, your interpretation of Rev 3:20 is correct, but I also don't think that it negates the language of relationship. It continues, "If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." Yes, it is about Christ and His bride, the church, but that does not negate the relational, personal language - which is what I think Robert was getting at.

Jeff,

Agreed. I understand what Robert was getting at, and I agree that the verse in question IS personal. However, I think it is, in context, a personal message to a BODY of believers, and not to individuals. Granted, it is individuals that compose the body, and Christ saves individuals. We do have such a relationship with our Savior, I just don't think that this verse is illustrative of that relationship. But, I would probably do well to not get caught up in semantics when I know full well what the overall point is. It was an out of place comment on my part. I think I am right, but I don't think I am right in a way that is relevant to the point he is trying to make.

Not out of place at all, Random Guy. I would simply point out that, while certainly it's in the context of a note to the church, it also uses singular pronouns that would ordinarily be understood as a promise not only to the church, but also to individual believers.

Contrast this usage to Phillippians 1:5-7, where our language's lack of a clear 2nd person plural (except south of the Mason-Dixon line) gives us difficulty in understanding "he who began a good work in y'all" as a message primarily to the church.

My take; well said. The New Testament very often does address us as a group, and if we look up singular vs. plural uses, we really ought not ignore the fact that the Word is very often primarily interested in us as a church, not individuals.

Anthony (or anybody):

This was the first Nooma video I watched where I was actually appalled by Rob Bell because of the Christology he conveys -- it made me go back to the other Noomas and listen more carefully to his teaching in this series, and raise other questions.

Let's confess that we've all heard bad explanations of the trinity from allegedly-conservative people -- like the "father-son-husband" analogy, or the classic "shamrock". But here Bell takes such a long time to work out the details of his point that I find it hard to believe that he wasn't trying to be specific.

Let me ask -- did anyone else find the way he described the relationship between the Father and the Son in this video at least somewhat vague if not actually modalistic?

Anthony (or anybody):

This was the first Nooma video I watched where I was actually appalled by Rob Bell because of the Christology he conveys -- it made me go back to the other Noomas and listen more carefully to his teaching in this series, and raise other questions.

Let's confess that we've all heard bad explanations of the trinity from allegedly-conservative people -- like the "father-son-husband" analogy, or the classic "shamrock". But here Bell takes such a long time to work out the details of his point that I find it hard to believe that he wasn't trying to be specific.

Let me ask -- did anyone else find the way he described the relationship between the Father and the Son in this video at least somewhat vague if not actually modalistic?