Discussion questions for all Eight Chapters

Some have asked that I do a condensed version of the discussion questions designed for one or two sessions. So, following are excerpts and questions from all eight chapters. 

Bible study group discussion guide for Love Wins

Preface: “I believe that Jesus’s story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us – everybody, everywhere. That’s why Jesus came. That’s his message. That’s where life is found. This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear. And so this book.” ( Preface vii, viii)

Questions: Rob believes that “Jesus’ story has been hijacked by …stories Jesus isn’t interested in telling because they have nothing to do with what he came to do.” He has written Love Wins because, “It’s time to reclaim it.” (Preface vii-viii). On the other hand, there are over 162 references in the New Testament that warn of Hell. Over 70 of these references are attributed to Jesus (for examples, see Matthew 13:41-43, 18:8-9, 25:41-46; John 5:25-29). According to the gospels, Jesus spoke more on Hell than on any other subject.

1. Do you agree that Jesus story has been hijacked and needs to be reclaimed? If so who had done the hijacking and why? If not, why do you think Rob is making this accusation?

2. Do you think there is any biblical basis for the idea that Christians will “spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell?” (See Daniel 12:2,3; Matthew 25:31-46; Revelation 20:14,15)

Chapter One: “Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number ‘make it to a better place’ and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?” (page 2)

Questions:

3. How do you respond to Rob’s questions? Do you think only a “select number” will be in heaven? Will most spend eternity in anguish?

4. Jesus said, ““Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) But in Revelation 7:9-10, the Apostle John writes, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” How do you reconcile these two extremes – that only a few find the narrow road to heaven and yet a great multitude is there at the end?

One of the primary questions Rob asks in Love Wins is about the basis for salvation. He tells the story of a atheist high school student who was killed in a car accident (page 3). He writes, “And that raises another question about this high school student’s death… what exactly would have to happen in that three-year window (between the age of accountability and his accident) to change his future? Would he have had to perform a specific rite or ritual? Or take a class? Or be baptized? Or join a church? Or have something happen somewhere in his heart? Some believe he would have had to say a specific prayer. Christians don’t agree on exactly what this prayer is, but for many the essential idea is that the only way to get into heaven is to pray at some point in your life, asking God to forgive you and telling God that you accept Jesus, you believe Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, and you want to go to heaven when you die. Some call this ‘accepting Christ,’ other call it the ‘sinner’s prayer,’ and still others call it ‘getting saved,’ being ‘born again,’ or being ‘converted.’” (page 4-5)

Rob returns to this question again on pages 10 through 18. “Is it what you say, or who you are, or what you do, or what you say you’re going to do, or who your friends are, or who you’re married to, or whether you give birth to children? Or is it what questions you’re asked? Or is it what questions you ask in return? Or is it whether you do what you’re told and go into the city?” (page 16-17)

Questions:

5. Do you think the Bible is clear about how a person can be saved from God’s judgment? (See 1 John 5:11-13, Romans 10:9-10))

6. When Nicodemus asked Jesus how a person could be enter God’s kingdom, Jesus replied, “You are Israel’s teacher and do you not understand these things?” (John 3: 10) Then he explains it (see John 3:16-18). If the way of salvation is clear, why do you think Rob is making it seem unclear?

Chapter Two: “Yes, there is plenty in the scriptures about life in the age to come, about our resurrected, heaven-and-earth-finally-come-together-as-one body, a body that’s been ‘clothed in the immortal’ that will make this body, the one we inhabit at this moment, seem like a temporary tent. And yes, there were plenty of beliefs then about what the future would hold, just as there are now. But when Jesus talks with the rich man, he has one thing in mind: he wants the man to experience the life of heaven, eternal life, ‘aionian’ life, now. For that man, his wealth was in the way; for others it’s worry or stress or pride or envy – the list goes on. We know that list. Jesus invites us, in this life, in this broken beautiful world, to experience the life of heaven now. He insisted over and over that God’s peace, joy, and love are currently available to us, exactly as we are. So how do I answer the questions about heaven? How would I summarize all that Jesus teaches? There’s a heaven now, somewhere else. There’s a heaven here, sometime else. And then there’s Jesus’s invitation to heaven here and now, in this moment, in this place. Try and paint that.”

Questions:

7. Rob observes that often people who speak of heaven in a different place are not fully engaged in the needs of the world around them, while those who are focused on the suffering of those around them don’t talk much about going to heaven when they die. Has that been your experience? In your opinion, how does a person’s view of heaven affect his or her priorities on earth? What do you think is the right (biblical) view of heaven?

Chapter Three: “Trust God, accept Jesus, confess, repent, and everything will go well for you. But if you don’t, well, the Bible is quite clear… Sin, refuse to repent, harden your heart, reject Jesus, and when you die, it’s over. Or actually, the torture and anguish and eternal torment will have just begun. That’s how it is – because that’s what God is like, correct? God is loving and kind and full of grace and mercy – unless there isn’t confession and repentance and salvation in this lifetime, at which point God punishes us forever. That’s the Christian story, right? Is that what Jesus taught? For many in the modern world, the idea of hell is a holdover from primitive, mythic religion that uses fear and punishment to control people for all sorts of devious reasons. And so the logical conclusion is that we’ve evolved beyond all of that outdated belief, right? I get that. I understand that aversion, and I as well have a hard time believing that somewhere down below the earth’s crust is a really crafty figure in red tights holding a three-pointed spear, playing Pink Floyd records backward, and enjoying the hidden messages. So how should we think, or not think about hell?

Questions:

8. What does the Bible teach about hell? Does it say where it is? Who ends up there? Why? (See Matthew 13:41-43, Luke 16:19-31, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, Revelation 20:11-15)

9. Rob is having some fun with his description of Satan. How does the Bible actually describe him? (See Ezek. 28:13-17; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; Revelation 12:9; 1 Peter 5:8).

Chapter Four: “I point out these parallel claims: that God is mighty, powerful, and ‘in control’ and that billions of people will spend forever apart from this God, who is their creator, even though it’s written in the Bible that ‘God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 2) So does God get what God wants? How great is God? Great enough to achieve what God sets out to do, of kind of great, medium great, great most of the time, but in this, the fate of billions of people, not totally great. Sort of great. A little great. Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants? Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end?” (Pages 95-98)

Questions:

10. Rob quotes I Timothy 2:4, “God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” He then asks, “So does God get what God wants?” How do you answer his question? (See Ezekiel 18:23, 30-32, Romans 9:14-24)

“There are others who ask, if you get another chance after you die…endless opportunities in and endless amount of time for people to say yes to God. As long as it takes, in other words. At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.” (Pages 106-107)

Questions:

11. Rob cites Matthew 19:28 and Acts 3:21 as proof that God will eventually restore everything and everyone to Himself. Do you believe people will receive a second chance – or even multiple chances – to repent after death? Why or why not? (See Luke 16:19-31, Hebrews 9:27, 10:26-31)

Chapter Five: “When people say that Jesus came to die on the cross so that we can have a relationship with God, yes, that is true. But that explanation…puts us at the center. For the first Christians, the story was…bigger, grander. More massive. When Jesus is presented only as the answer that saves individuals from their sin and death, we run the risk of shrinking the Gospel down to something just for humans, when God has inaugurated a movement in Jesus’s resurrection to renew, restore, and reconcile everything ‘on earth or in heaven’ (Col. 1), just as God originally intended it. Yes, it includes people. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that all humanity died through the first humans, so ‘in Christ all will be made alive.’ He writes in Tutus that ‘the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people’ (chap. 2). And then, in one of his more epic passages, Paul explains to the Romans that, ‘just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all’ (chap. 5).”

Questions:

12. Rob uses the passages above to support his belief that all people will eventually be restored to God. While all of us would like think this is true, is it biblical? In your opinion, does the Bible teach universal salvation of all humanity or will there be some who end up in God’s presence forever and others who spend eternity in hell?

Chapter Six: In this chapter, Rob uses the story of Moses striking the rock in Exodus 17 and Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 10 that the rock was Christ to make the point that many people have faith encounters with Jesus without knowing it is him. “Jesus is bigger than any one religion. He didn’t come to start a new religion…He will always transcend whatever cages and labels are created to contain and name him, especially the one called ‘Christianity.’ As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptists from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that then Jesus doesn’t matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter what you believe, and so forth. Not true. Absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably no true. What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody. And then he leaves the door way, way, open. Creating all sorts of possibilities.”

Questions:

13. Do you think a Muslim, for example, will be saved by putting faith in the “rock” of his religion – finding out later that “Allah” is another name for Jesus? Why or why not? (See Acts 4:12, 17:22-31)

Chapter Seven: “Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them, in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter, who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony. If there was an earthly father who was like that, we would call the authorities. If there was an actual human dad who was that volatile, we would contact child protection immediately. Does God become somebody totally different the moment you die? That kind of God is simply devastating. Psychologically crushing. We can’t bear it. No one can. That God is terrifying and traumatizing and unbearable.”

Questions:

14. When you think about the story of the Bible – the flood, the destruction of Sodom, the punishment of Korah (Numbers 16), and the annihilation of the Canaanites – do you find it shocking that God would judge those who have rejected his salvation? Why or why not?

15. “Retributive justice” is the theory that the punishment should fit the crime. Do you think it is unfair for a person to suffer for eternity for sins they have committed during their relatively short lifetime? Is the amount of time the issue or is it the seriousness of the offense? Do you think a crime against God is in a different category than the crimes we commit against other humans?

Chapter Eight: ”This invitation to trust asks for nothing more than this moment, and yet it is infinitely urgent. Jesus told a number of stories about this urgency in which things did not turn out well for the people involved. Jesus tells these stories to wake us up to the timeless truth that history moves forward, not backward or sideways. Time does not repeat itself. Neither does life. While we continually find grace waiting to pick us up off the ground after we have fallen, there are realities to our choices. While we may get other opportunities, we won’t get the one right in front of us again. Jesus reminds us in a number of ways that it is vitally important that we take our choices here and now as seriously as we possibly can because they matter more than we can begin to imagine. Jesus passionately urges us to live like the end is here, now, today.”

Questions:

16. Rob ends the book with a warning to respond now to God’s love and trust in Christ. If a person will have numerous chances after death to repent and be restored to God, why do you think Rob ends with this sense of urgency?

17. Rob draws a sharp distinction between a God who is love and a mistaken idea of a God who is holy and just. Do you think God could be both? What do you base your opinion on?