Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Hole in our Gospel


Every couple of years, a book will get circulated through churches and create a lot of buzz and excitement. A few years ago, it was "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. And then it was "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. Right now, the buzz book is "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns.

What is the hole? In his book, Rich tells the story of a young seminary student and some classmates who decided to look at the Bible and remove every reference to the poor, the wealthy, the oppressed and justice. All sixty six books of the Bible. Then, using an exacto knife, they cut out and removed all those references. In the end, they were left with a Bible in tatters, barely able to hold together.

And yet, they postulated, that is the very Bible that many Americans read and hear preached every Sunday. We like to skip over the unpleasant parts.

The subtitle of the book asks "What does God expect of us?"

Well, Micah tells us exactly what God expects of us in chapter 6 verse 8:

"He has showed you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Justice. Mercy. Humility. When we see a wrong, right it. When we see someone hungry, feed them. When we see the naked, clothe them. When we see the injured, heal them. But we have to open the eyes of our heart to really see the hungry and naked and hurting all around us.

This week, it's been a little hard to ignore the hurting in Haiti. In the news, on the Internet, in the newspapers...lots of images of these poor people who have suffered after the cataclysmic earthquake. If your heart is hurting, then the eyes of your heart have been opened. And now, it's time to act.

Many people may wonder, what can I do? Where can I give money or help? There are a lot of organizations out there, but World Vision is one of the tops that comes to mind. The key to World Vision's efforts is that they will already have people on the ground in these countries, ready to bring help and healing right away. You can click on the link at the upper right corner of this blog to learn more about their relief efforts.

And why do I bring up World Vision?

Because Richard Stearns, the author of this very popular book that I'm currently reading, is the president of World Vision. He has an amazing story to tell of how God transformed his life, and will transform yours, too.

We are richly blessed to be a blessing, and we are called. Let's start passing that blessing on today.

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." Ephesians 1:18

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for your blog post. It inspired me to donate money to World Vision. Have a blessed day!

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  2. My dad gave me this book for Christmas- I am looking forward to reading it!

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