I read The Shack by William P. Young last week. It is a story about a man whose young daughter is killed in a shack. A few years after her death, as he is continuing to struggle with the trajedy, he gets a note in the mail he believes to be from God, asking him to meet him at the Shack. What he finds there will change him forever.
This is a great tale about God's love, justice, plan, purpose, and nature. It is a modern day parable that will encourage you and make you think, and sheds profound light on trajedy. I highly reccommend it.
If you have not heard of this book before now, you will begin to hear more in the future. The book is gaining a lot of popularity and plans are already underway to make it into a movie. Again, I highly reccommend this story to you. But, I think there are some things to keep in mind as well.
1. It is a ficticious novel. If you are like me, and heard a guy claiming that he met God in a shack, I would suspect he was crazy. This is not that, but simply a story, a parable, to help grasp some of the characteristics of God in a fresh way.
2. The author was forced to make some judgment calls on certain aspects about God in the book, things like Calvinism vs Arminianism, the Trinity, etc. It is impossible to avoid this. If you happen to disagree with his take on a certain point, it is okay. It would be very petty (though very common for some Christians) to take one aspect from the way God is prtrayed in the book that they disagree with and let that ruin the rest of the story. Don't do that! There is some great stuff in there, but it is almost impossible to agree with the author's take on everything. Maturity means being able to take the good, and leave what you might not be able to grasp.
That's all I got. Read the book. I'm sure you will be as touched by it as I was.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
The Shack
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The Shack doesn't give a good representation of the trinity. Here's why - 1.) One of the 10 commandments says don't make a graven image of God. What is a graven image of God? It's taking the invisible God and trying to make Him visible, it's making the creator God and trying to make him part of creation. Romans 1:25 says that by definition, paganism is to exchange the truth of God for a lie, and to worship created things rather than the creator God. John 4, Jesus says that God is Spirit, He;s talking about the Father, the father is spirit, He doesn't have a physical body, He's Spirit. The Puritans understood this to mean the decleration against spirit imagery, that you can take God the father and try to represent him in a picture. If you make him look like an old man, thats a graven image. Gods not an old man, God doesn't sin and get old. We might make a picture of Jesus because God the son came as a man so we can show Jesus as a man. The Holy spirit descended on Jesus as a dove so they use the dove as a symbol of God the spirit, and thats not a sin because God himself does that in scripture, but to make an image of God the Father to show the Father as a human being, the bible says clearly, God is not a man, god the Father is not a man. Now God the Som became a man. Its graven imagery
2.) It's goddess worship. If God the Father is really God the Mother, that changes everything. That means when Jesus prayed God the Father in heaven, he should have prayed God the Mother, in the Shack. The Truth is that if God reveals himself to us as father, we are to honor him as Father, and if we say that God the father is a woman, were not worshiping God, but goddess. 3.) It's Molalism. It's heresy. Papa says at one point-" I am truely human in Jesus". Thats not true, thats motalism. The Father was not born a virgin, the Father did not die on a cross, the Son did. Motalism says that the Father became Jesus, and the Father became spirit. The Trinity says their distinct, they work together. The Father sent the Son, and the Son died and rose and the spirit was sent to dwell and regenerate us. Their working together.
Mark Driscoll's Sermon on " What are the major heresies that have contradicted the doctrine of the Trinity"
If you wanna learn about the trinity, read Gods word.
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