Love Wins: Chapter One

So... Love Wins chapter by chapter.

They are reasonably short chapters which makes things easier. Two things, firstly, rather than re-write each chapter I’m kind of assuming you’ve read the book and can track along either by memory or with a copy of it in hand or on your kindle. Secondly, as legitimate as it might be to break each chapter down and examine with a microscope every sentence and statement I’m more going to deal with each chapter as a unit and the main idea(s) of the chapter rather than every sentence.

Chapter 1: What about the Flat Tire?

Chapter one of Love Wins asks all those supposedly pesky questions that don’t need asking. Questions like; Gandhi is in hell, we can be sure of this? Does God punish people with eternal torment for the things they did in their few finite years of life? What happens if the missionary get’s a flat tyre on his way to preach at the meeting where someone would have got ‘saved’ and thus doesn’t end up preaching and that person getting ‘saved’? Bell also asks; exactly how is it that someone get’s saved? He highlights a number of different encounters people had with Jesus  in which Jesus declares them, to be forgiven, or saved, or to have received salvation, through what seem to be totally different responses to Jesus.

In ‘What about the Flat Tyre?’ Rob gives voice to questions that I think millions of Christ followers have asked over the years and will continue to ask. I can remember asking my Dad nearly all of these questions when I was growing up. Some of them are questions I still ask now. Most Christian kids at some stage will have asked their parents about salvation and how it works for people in Muslim countries or remote tribes in the back blocks of the Amazon who may not even ever hear the gospel. A variety of answers are give. Some of the answers make sense. Others didn’t seem to add up.

Did you ever ask these kinds of questions as a kid? What answers were you given? 20, 30, 40 years on does whatever answer  it was that your parents, Sunday School teacher, youth leader or pastor gave you still resonate as you’ve grown in your understanding of God’s word?

They’re serious questions that genuinely need to be wrestled with. Even if they’re not being asked out loud you can guarantee they’re bubbling away beneath the surface.  They’re questions that aren’t going to go away as there is a great deal of mystery involved. They are important questions to be answered again and again. They force us to think about all sorts of issues and how to articulate truth in each generation.  I guarantee that if the preacher opened with these questions on Sunday and then announced that the next 40 minutes was going to be dedicated to answering each and every single one of them, you’d have one very attentive congregation!

One commentator found there to be a flaw to the questions in this chapter as they point towards people going to hell because of what they haven’t heard the gospel rather than because of sin. Fair point. However I think what Rob is getting at is the reality that, while all of humanity is lost in their sin; circumstances, chance and random selection seem to put some people in a far better position to discover the answer to their sin problem than others.

So essentially what we have in chapter one is a whole stack of questions, regularly asked by Christians all over the place, if not out loud at least in their head. Questions that need to be asked, considered and addressed in every generation.