After Mack recovers from rescuing his older children from a canoe mishap, he realises his youngest daughter is missing. He tries to remain calm for a while, but as time wears on, he becomes more anxious – as first friends, and then the whole campground become involved.
Eventually a couple of young guys bring forth some information – they spotted a little girl in an old, military green truck leaving the campsite. He remembers seeing the driver shove the girl down on the seat, but thought maybe they were just playing. At this news, the sheriff is contacted, and road blocks get put in place.
The search team takes Mack back to the camp site, where Missy was last seen; to determine if anything is other than Mack remembers. There are signs of a struggle over by a tree, where Missy’s shoe and a red crayon are laying. And there is a ladybug pin on her coloring book. The pin proves to be significant to the FBI agent on the case – Special Agent Wikowsky. She says that, based on the five spots on the ladybug, this is the Little Ladykiller’s fifth murder. He tends to spot his targets a few days in advance, and waits for an opportunity to take them. The girls are always taken from campsites, the killer seems to be an excellent woodsman, and the bodies are never recovered.
With this information, Mack loses it – and he contemplates the death of his daughter, the horror of it, and how he will possibly tell his wife. He wonders how this could have happened.
At five pm a promising report comes in from a roadblock – the vehicle has been spotted, and the various search teams set out. A tracker flashed a floodlight off a hubcap, barely visible on an old unnamed road, that was almost impossible to see. At the end of the road was a cabin. Mack is called in, to identify little Missy’s ripped and bloody red dress, laying next to the fire place.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The next few weeks are full of interviews, and the Great Sadness settles over the family. Mack and his wife Nan do well together, and are in some ways closer for the tragedy. She has not blamed Mack for their loss. Mack struggles with “If onlys”. It is three and a half years later, and there is a rift in Mack’s relationship with God that he is trying to ignore. So the note is of monumental importance. He wonders if God writes notes, and if so, why does He want Mack to go to the cabin? He feels toyed with, but realising he needs answers, determines to go to the cabin and find out what is going on….
The thought of a note left by God was the most interesting part of this chapter for me. I realized that I have absolutely backed God into a cage… I have limited my faith into believing that He indeed doesn’t/won’t write notes to meet with people at a later time and date.
And yet… with faith… with our eyes open wide to see His unimaginable and beautiful ways… why wouldn’t He? (Not limited to writing notes but) Moving in extraordinary and unexpected ways and if I shut off all possibility then I might miss them. Does that make sense?
Did anyone else feel something similar?
I do.
I once had a conversation with a friend around a silly example. I asked, “Is it possible, if God so desired, for God to speak to you through a bird?”
He said, “Absolutely not! God has limited himself to his Word only!”
“So you’re saying God could not speak through a bird if he wanted too?”
“Yes, that is absolutely what I am saying.”
“Impossible?”
“Yes, impossible.”
I just could not imagine such a small, powerless God who could not speak through a bird, or note, or bush, or donkey, or whatever, if HE wanted too. But it does open up our boxes we keep him in…which can be frightening. But perhaps a fear of God (even a fear of his goodness) is not such a bad thing.
Of course, I am still waiting for him to chirp in my ear, but no such luck. Maybe that’s why I feed birds in our backyard. Wow, I am screwed up!
“Limited Himself to His word”….?? Did I miss something? I fully gather what dude was saying but is that Biblical? That the Holy Spirit would only manifest itself through the Bible? Wha?
Now I must do research… I’ve never heard of that before.
Raquel, I know a lot of people who will simply ignore anything they can’t find it in the Bible.
Man…I cannot shake the feeling of finding my daughter, Ashlyn’s, bloody dress. What a nightmare! What a nightmare.
There is a book I read written by a man, Jerry Sittser, who lost his mom, his wife, and his youngest daughter in one, horrific car accident while he was driving. It is called, “A Grace Disguised: How a Soul Grows Through Loss“. I would HIGHLY recommend this book. If you know anyone who is going through tragedy (or even yourself), past or present, this book will help shape and soften your heart in order to come alongside of them. Not an easy read, but a powerful one.
My wife heard about this chapter and decided she couldn’t read the book because of it.
Okay. I did a teensy bit of homework (aka calling my girlfriend who used to be in a sect of church where they made up their own rules in addition to the Bible and if people didn’t follow these rules then they were going to hell). And learned that this is a mainstream Christian line of thinking??
Where have I been?
Wow, what a sad church sect to be a part of…follow these rules (biblical or non-biblical) and you don’t go to hell.
Crazy, huh?
It is crazy!
Crazy that we slip into lies that easily… crazy that we are THAT easy to sway! Often makes me wonder how we’ll see things once we’re standing with Jesus in heaven. The new perspective almost scares me! Seeing how many lies that I believe…
..sigh..
…sigh…
Remember that one of the last lines in the Book of John says that if all the works that Jesus had done while walking on earth were written down, the books would fill the whole world! That’s an awful lot of stuff that was said and done that we haven’t read about in the written Word. Knowing God’s character and nature, none of it would be off, but He chose to only reveal some of what happened during those three years.
If God were limited to His Word, then He wouldn’t be God. He can’t contradict His Word, but we will never cease to learn more and more of Him throughout all eternity because He is forever. He couldn’t have gotten all that in a book. Think about the Bible as our training manual and love letter from Him. He gave us all we needed to know while living on planet earth and we are to love it and obey it and see Him revealed through it. But He is the Word made flesh and He is infinite. When we leave earth , we will be supernatural beings and will see Him as He is. The book can’t contain all of that in its fulness and we can’t even comprehend it!
Jonathon Brink… Tell your wife she is missing an incredible book that might possibly change her whole outlook on the way God views us and works in our lives. More importantly, it may change the way she views God and her relationship with Him…A must read for everyone… Enjoy!!
I agree it can change one’s perspective on God – I don’t believe it is for the better….
I was surprised to see that none of the things in this story challenged my theology. I had heard that this would stretch your thinking to a place that most people would not be comfortable with yet I found that though the particulars of the story were new to me, the expressions of who God is were all very agreeable to my spirit and who I already understand Him/Them to be. It was fun to actually have all of those deep unspoken understandings I already possessed expressed back to me in this book. The fact that God is more than I can imagine or understand is what make Him appealing to me. The fact that things don’t make sense in the everydayness of life does not make me question God, but rather it deepens my fondness and affection for Him. I pray it always will.
“I just could not imagine such a small, powerless God who could not speak through a bird, or note, or bush, or donkey, or whatever…”
You don’t have to: as He already has. There was that prophet in the Old Testament (forgot his name) that just didn’t hear/felt the leading of God, so God spoke to him via his donkey.
And yes we can have a later appointment/date with God. He didn’t send me a note or anything, He just informed me through the Holy Spirit. 3 days later I had a date with God at 20:00 in our boiler-room (prayer house). Best date I’ve ever been on.
Somebody also mentions that God couldn’t reveal Himself in a single book. Off course He can – He’s God. You don’t want Him in a box so you take Him out and put him in another box!?
The beauty of the Bible to me, is that everything is in there. A lot of it is hidden though. You really have to start mining it to get it. Study is excellent too, but differ hugely from mining. All start with a personal and intimate relationship with Him (as we learn from Song of Songs).
Stefan,
Last night I was speaking to a family member about how surprised that one might be if they actually read the Bible! People who followed ‘The Way’ were an amazing group, captured so well for the rest of us to learn from. God’s oh-so-many facets get unpacked the more that we read that wonderful book (that just doesn’t seem to get enough credit).
And I agree that it does take a relationship with God in order to get that. I can remember thinking, ‘Why does everyone always talk about Jesus in here (ref. to the Bible)? He’s bo-ring.’ And now… now it feels like I’m falling in love with Him… never able to get enough.
Regarding God’s revelation, I think that the thought line was that the Bible, of course, reveals God to us; BUT that God doesn’t stop there. He sent down the Holy Spirit to guide us as well.
-Raquel
Nicole,
I am wondering how you think this book changes a view of God for the negative?
Because I think that the god of the Shack is not presented much like He is in the Bible. In the Shack, god is just scraping life back together when things fall apart – which is not the decisive God of the Bible.
Mack: “But I still don’t understand why Missy had to die.”
God: “She didn’t have to, Mackenzie. This was no plan of Papa’s. Papa has never needed evil to accomplish His good purposes.” Pg 165
The God of all comfort offers us peace – and I am greatly comforted by Him – even as this past weekend I lost my Grandfather. I do not have to wonder if death was outside of His plan – I can instead know that it was ordained, and accomplished by Him, for His glory. I know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him – and if I were Mack, I would have found solace in knowing this WAS God’s plan, not comfort in thinking it was NOT.
Why in the world would anyone think that beyond Jesus that anyone who dies it is “God’s plan”. Jesus was the only sacrifice. The people of earth have a will and God will not change that. The death of the little girl was of evil. God wants us to live a healthy long life, all we have to do is pray and and have faith. I wouldn’t want to believe that this horrible incident was God’s plan either and I would never find solace in that ever.
I think it, because I see the concept over and over in the Bible. Even Job declares it “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” And, the Bible goes on to declare that Job did not sinin saying this. He did not sin in pronouncing the death of his family as something ultimately of God.
“I wouldn’t want to believe that this horrible incident was God’s plan either” Interestingly enough, my Dad and I were discussing this concept in the car this week. I find where people often differ in their theology, from what I see in the Bible – it begins with “I can’t believe in a God who….”
If God does plan these sorts of things – if they are ultimately in His will, if He is ordaining more than Christ’s sacrifice before the foundations of the world – could you still love Him? Would you?
The danger of saying “I can’t believe in a God who…” is that one is no longer going to the Word open to who God reveals Himself, but going looking to find the version of God they already love – which is a very different thing.
The decisive God in the Bible, is the God of the Old Testament, when he prophesied throughout the Old Testament of a savior. God’s plan never changed, however, but our plans did. We no longer have to live in fear of God’s wrath as of the old testament. Job is a book of the Old Testament, many things were given as sacrifice for their sins and now we do not have to anymore. However, the first murder in the bible was not of God’s plan either. There is nothing in the bible refferring to death as God’s plan, but Jesus’s.
There are many indications in the bible that refer to God’s Will to heal us and have a healthy prosperous life. He wants us to give his life to him and not worry about anything.
“Shall we accept good from the Lord, and not evil?”
God is unchanging. That too, is part of His nature. The God of the OT is the same God as the God of today. The word “wrath” does not stop appearing in the Bible once we hit Matthew. Ie. Romans 2:5 “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
Again, it is not a matter of me WANTING to believe these truths – in the sense that I do not sit around with a “burn and die” mentality. But I see them throughout the Bible – both Testaments, and can not but make mention of them.
Sue, you said: “There is nothing in the bible refferring to death as God’s plan, but Jesus’s.” Certainly what happened to Job’s family is an example to the contrary on this. And I think too, of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5… There are many verses that address this. Our lives, and our deaths, are in the Lord’s hands.
I am not referring to wrath other than that it does not exist. Death is of our own doing, accidents, and of old age. God then accepts us into heaven as a part of leaving our body on earth. We do not have a time to die. We are expected to treat our bodies well. Jesus’s stories of healing still exist to this day. We are to learn from it. He gave these gifts to others, not everyone has them, except the power within us to pray and have faith.
Inf fact Job’s suffering was due to Satan. His three friends ask him to repent, and Job is of no sin whatsoever. Job disagreed with four men three which were his friends and was unconvinced that he had to repent in order to ease his suffering. All God wanted was for Job to trust in the lord.
When Satan took Job’s family was that not of evil? It was not of God’s plan however God saw Satan take his family and all prosperity knowing good will come of it. God gave it all back.
Nicole,
What part of scripture did you get that from “Shall we accept good from the Lord, and not evil?” God can not be a part of evil and the thing is we are not suppose to know all things, that is what makes us human. To argue or discuss was this part of Gods will or not is to just go around in circles.
I am just confused on why you used that scripture to try and get your point across? Or am I just not sure what you are trying to get at?
I just finshed ready this book in two days and fell in love with it and the outlook he puts on God,Christ and the Holy Spirit. I think people make things way too complex when it is so simple, like how a child thinks and thats what I got from this book
Job 2:10.
I found the book very enjoying and it drew me to a deeper relationship with G-d. The revelation knowledge that I experienced was spirit quickening, as well as, enlightening. If you are grounded and rooted in the word, then you should have no problem with this book, because it is just fiction. If you know the truth, then the truth shall keep you free of all deception. Also, if you truly know G-d, this book should not distort your view of Him. The author never said that this was a replacement to the Bible. It is a Fiction novel, not non-fiction. Additionally, the author never stated that this book was the core of Christianity or any other religion. I found compassion, brokeness, forgiveness, love, grace, and mercy to abound in this novel. I believe that we all need something or someone to challenge us, during our spiritual walk, and draw us closer to Him. The Shack will prompt you to experience an encounter with the “true” living G-d and cry out to Papa. Shalom!
If you are looking for theology in a fiction novel, this book is not for you. READ YOUR BIBLE!
Know this . . . God, Yahweh by name, wants a closer relation with each and everyone of us. All of humanity. Period. Remember the Book of Ruth CJ. For individuals this closeness often comes about by the greatest of emotional swings, enter the Book of Job.
It is the existential manner of how we act and react to those emotional swings that will estrange or embrace us with God. Rebuking a question of heart and shaking a finger is not the wisdom of truth. CJ Remember the Book of Enoch is rightfully part of the Old Testament. Yet the counsel of Nicene treated it like a fiction. Thus in part giving rise to the truncated version most Christians now know as the King James and further leading many people away from Gods great gift of the Messiah.
To grow in this relation with God the real question for CJ and us all is, where is The Little Ladykiller right now? Is he the evil outside trying to get in . . . or the evil inside trying to get out?
Guys to aurgue is to miss the point. If people want to define their understanding to one verse in the bible I am sorry for you. How many religions have based their beliefs on a single verse, ask the pope. Hold these people up in your prayers. This book for me is about love, feedom and community, to have an issue with that is what is the problem with the church today. I thought it was briliant and reflect the heart of the God I know.
I agree Brad. Look at how many different Christian religions are out there and they are all reading the same Bible.Our perception of God is just that–a perception! This book has brought me closer to Jesus and his understanding of the purpose of forgiveness is beautiful. For me this understanding of God is life enhancing!
I just finished the book this morning and I loved it. It showed how we should treat each other and what a relationship with God should be. Not just a bunch of rules and doctrine. The most I got out of it was forgiveness and love. I recommend this book highly.
hey guys,
i know this might not matter if this is a real story or not to those who are questioning that (ALOT of those around me are asking such questions), i cant find any reference to “the little ladykiller” anywhere. maybe that was added for “dramatic effect”. if so, how muh more of this book of “dramatic effect”. now i havent finished reading…im only done up to this chapter. but should i really continue reading something that doesnt seem TRUE.
I understand Romans 8:28 in the sense that within a given circumstance, God can bring glory to Himself as we turn it over to Him. There are times God directs things to happen that we consider “bad” for both judgement as well as His glory (the guy Jesus healed). I also believe in free will, and that much happens because God has given us the choice to follow Him or obey Him. You use drugs, it can mess your brain and end your life. Smoking leads to health issues and cancer. A giving in to a sensual life leads to a host of issues. God doesn’t ordain those things, they are part of our choices, but God can at any time step out of the natural course of things and provide healing or judgement. When I pray for healing, I always pray “according to His will”, because God is sovereign. Allowing evil to happen is not the same as prescribing evil to happen.
Sin entered through Adam and Eve. Sin and evil are connected to free will.
Job was perhaps the first book of the Bible to be written. We have Job speaking in 2:10, not God. Just because a person says something in the Bible does not make their statement truth as if he/she was on the Pope’s chair, but is reflective of the historical story and what they believed. Potiphar’s wife said Joseph molested her. The fool has said in his heart God is dead.
Dave – the book is fiction. What we are looking at is the truth behind the fiction. For that we look at what the Biblical record says. Fiction is valuable to teach truths (ie, parables) or to start conversations like these.
As I read this chapter I imagined myself in Mack’s position and imagined Missy as my little daughter Avery. Although fiction the thought of this type of tragic loss and pain almost brought tears to my eyes. And I found myself questioning my own faith. Could this type of tragedy really be Gods will? And if so, would I embrace God or would I have a bone to pick with him? I work in a hospital, I see all types of tradegies every day, none strikes my heart as hard as seeing the young children in the oncology wing. Little kids bald from the chemo, hooked to machines, and looking like holocaust victims fighting for their littles lives. Is this Gods will? Is their some master Plan? Or did this innocent little child just get dealt a crummy hand? Maybe as I continue to read this book, I can learn a little bit more about mmyself and my relationship with God.
I understand what you are saying – we put ourselves in Mack’s position, we look at our own kids, we look at those suffering around us. But the Bible is clear that every thing that happens is God’s will.
The awesome truth is that BECAUSE God is holy, and BECAUSE God is sovereign, I can trust that He can be true to His promises. He can promise to never leave me or forsake me, and I know that is true. He can promise that ALL things work for my good, and I can know that to be true as well.
My favorite book on this subject is called “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God” which offers a much more Biblical approach than the Shack does for God’s involvement in the pains of life.
So Nicole, are you saying that God puts people through such agony at his will? How if you truly love someone could you stand to watch them go through the kind of pain that Mack experiences in this book? I don’t understand this type of relationship. I love my daughter, I would not choose to inflict pain upon her and call it love. Instead I give her the attention and affection that she requires. I don’t understand how people can go through this type of pain, call it God’s will and still look to God for comfort.
I think Anson, that the problem is starting with a premise, and filtering the Bible through it. Your thought process seems to be True Love = Not causing pain. I don’t think that is what the Bible teaches at all.
Man avoiding suffering is a western comfort zone that Paul did not encourage. Look at how the book of second Corinthians opens – how we can comfort one another because of the comfort we have received from Him. Paul counts suffering joy… Suffering, in the Bible, and throughout the last two millenium has been a blessing to Christians. Suffering produces endurance (James). And sanctification. The path of the Christian is not to walk without suffering, but to rejoice in it.
NOTHING happens apart from the Lord’s will. That is what we can take comfort in.
I don’t know how people can believe things happen apart from a holy, all powerful God’s will, and still look to God for comfort.
Look to Who the Bible says is the God of all comfort. He holds the stars in His hands, the life and death and every moment of every creature in His hands.
The suffering and the resulting “perfecting” or “refining” is a process, and is about our reaction to God working in our lives – we have to respond to that love. There is a part we play that is not works, but faith. We can quench the Spirit and deny God’s love in our lives.
Don’t get caught up in the word “will”, Anson. Sin and sickness and war and all the crap of life are present because of sin (which is a result of free will), because of what happened in the Garden of Eden. If God did not give us a choice (to obey, ie, don’t eat of this tree), there would have been no sin. The sin was not the tree, the object – it was the decision made by Adam and Eve to disobey. Some refer to this as free will, others will use the word faith. In essence it is the same. It is this “choice” to obey God or not (that is part of being made in the image of God, by the way) that confronts each of us today. Holiness is something that the Spirit does in our life in response to that choice, that surrender of our will to God’s. God didn’t create sin, He created the choice for each of us to follow Him.
We are part of a fallen world that is groaning under the burden of sin. We are connected to that sin in the Garden through Adam – all of us Romans 3:23). When a person follows and even pursues sin, it can and will affect the people around them. Did God allow what happenned to Missy to happen? Of course. Was it in His power to stop it? Of course, and many times He has (but we never hear about it because it never happenned). Trying to understand the mind of God in this is beyond our human understanding, but the Bible is clear that God is Sovereign, and can take a messy and tragic circumstance and bring grace out of it. So who do we blame? It is always easier to blame someone else (like God), but we share in the tragedies that happen all around us every day.
Don’t blame God, but blame mankind’s own selfishness, for it is out of that place in our hearts that sin originates.
i thought this was a very sad part. it also disturbes me that this killer could be true. it scares me that thats what life has come to. i cried at this part for the little girl. this part haunts me in many ways. life should not be scarier than made up monsters. sadly though when i read this book i felt The Great Sadness. if stories that could be true, in real life are more frightning than made up things to scare you than somthing is wrong with this world.
to blame god for the violence in the world is wrong. he cant control the people who do things like that. this was one of the sadess books i’ve read.
“to blame god for the violence in the world is wrong. he cant control the people who do things like that.”
Lily, I appreciate your heart, but I think that the Bible does in fact teach that God is sovereignly in control of all things, even the wicked that happens.
Proverbs 21:1 is a verse that points to this: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He will.”
We do not BLAME God. Man is always responsible for his own sin. That does not mean though, that anything happens apart from the Lord allowing it. We can, and must, take comfort in the fact that there is nothing that happens apart from His decree. We may not always understand why it happens, but we can know that in all things He is ultimately glorified, and, if it is in the life of one who loves Him, it is also ultimately for our good.
A really great resource on this is the book “Desiring God” by John Piper….
I just finished this book and really enjoyed. This book, if nothing else, causes you to think about your relationship with God. Too often our faith turns into religion and we lose sight of the God we are worshipping. God is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. He is unchanging; the alpha and omega, the beginning and end, the first and the last…He is all knowing and all powerful. His might and his majesty go beyond our human understanding and reason. He is the creator of heaven and earth. He is holy, righteous and just. The list of God’s awesomeness will continue beyond anything we could ever fathom and yet in all his greatness HE STILL LOVES US!!!!
Tragedy, hurt, pain….all so horrible for us, and when it is upon us we don’t understand it; yet we can find peace in him knowing that nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever separate us from the love of God. It never ceases to amaze me that with all my faults and failures God still loves me. He made the ultimate sacrifice to reconcile me back to him; to ever think that tragedy would come from directly from his hand goes against everything I know about God. Tragedy happens and we don’t know why, but even in the worst of the worst God is still the same. His plan does not change. The devil is very real and out there working trying to stop the plan of God; but even with all the corruption in the world God’s plan is still the same and He is still on the throne. One day we will have more knowledge but for right now we have to trust God; knowing that because He is God He will do just what he has promised.
Well, I just finished it last night and loved it. No one will change my opinion. I simply do not believe what Nicole has been saying (sorry). The Shack gave me more closure than I have had in awhile and I am just going to leave it at that.
I finished it too and really enjoyed it. It took me 4 hours to read the entire book!
I have to say that half way into the story I realized that the book was just a story. Not real but still a good story, with lots of actual experiences to build on most likely, but the writer made a tiny error in my opinion when he talked about the cross. It didn’t fit with me because I know the cross was an idol added to the story much much later in Christian History! The bible says He hung on a pole (staros- i think – means stake or upright pole.) The cross is a Constantine add-on to unite his dying Roman Empire. It was the idol of the Sun Deity and he made it the idol of his new Christian religion – all of you wearing it or worshiping it should do some research.
Nicole, I actually feel bad for you. Your explanation of who your god is makes me sad. Big bully telling everyone what to do and demanding our obedience. It’s just sad that something so wonderful has been turned into something so ugly. I think you should throw your bible out and trying talking to Yahweh directly. Men lie, so do things they print, Yahweh doesn’t. And He’s really just waiting for you to become that blind man He can heal, instead of that person that already thinks they see and therefore never has a chance! A part of me feels most Religious people are those who think they see but need to be made blind.
Close you bible people, they’re using it to control you. Yahweh doesn’t need a brochure, he’s here, you can talk to him yourself without a spiritual leader or 10% commission.
Oh by the way, Yehwah is the name God gave to us via the Bible to know Him by. In fact he gave His name over 7,000 times in the bible, but they have been removed so the common man didn’t use it improperly – now we don’t use it at all!
Corey, I’m just trying to be biblical.
I have never had anyone recommend I STOP reading the Bible to find God.
Nicole-I saw a story one evening on I think it was the discovery channel. This is a true story. The man went on a hiking trip in the desert out west somewhere. He was a very devout Christian and bible reader. He got lost. His family began searching for him. After several days they found some of his belongings. One item was his Bible. His wife freaked out saying he must be dead because he would go nowhere with out his Bible. Lo and behold the man found his way back out of the desert. He had been lost for believe it or not about 40 days! When they questioned him on how he survived he said he was lead to where to get water and find food. They asked him why he left his Bible. His answer was–he didn’t need it anymore! I listened to this man say that! He experience the lord! We cannot know God by just reading words in a Bible! I love the perception of God this book potrays. This is also the God of my understanding! The concept of forgiveness is beautiful and as I see it the avenue to conscious contact with God. This book may not line up with religious dogma–it does line up with spiritual experience!
I was reading this post and want to share my opinion.
I believe that the bible is the true spoken word of God. We need to feed our spirits on the word of God daily to get us through hardships in life. God speaks to us directly through prayers and so forth, this is true, but God also speaks and brings revelation through reading his holy scriptures. Please do not stop reading your bible, we have to trust God when he says this is his spoken word (bible) God will bring truth through the word and write in on the walls of your heart. Keep reading!! God is amazing. 🙂
Nicole. among any others who missed this point- you missed out on Genesis… death was NOT part of the Lord’s plan- it came as a consequence to Adam’s sin- its why he was removed from the garden so that he could no longer eat from the tree of life which in point he had complete access to prior to the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge incident. Death was a consequence NOT an original part of the plan.
Though the Lord made provision for sin’s existence in His perfect creation does not mean it was His PLAN…
Only satan came to kill steal and destroy. and hes still very much here and very much filled with hatred towards us. So the Lord makes His way no matter what satan tries to do to pervert his beloved. (us)
Corey is right, you can’t take the bible quite so literal, you have to remember that the bible has been altered by man. First by Constantine, then by King James to make the bible more appealing to their people. Reading the bible is great but it is really just a guideline, it is not the true spoken word of god because it has been altered many times throughout history. Having your own personal relationship with God is much more important than being a bible scholar. Nowhere in the bible does it say that he who knows the bible best will be allowed into heaven. It is rather simply he who believes will not perish but have ever lasting life.
It’s funny that they say “Throw the Bible out” yet use it to get the “true” name of God. The Bible is part of God’s revelation to us, the revelation of who He is. It is the only tangable thing unifying His followers. His Spirit is doing that as well, but you cannot leave the revelation He has given us. The final revelation of Himself was Jesus, and that is what the New Testament is all about.
Anson and Corey’s God isn’t big enough to ensure that what men put down is truth – I’m sorry you have that view.
As to “belief”, that is tied to holiness, not mere mental assent to knowledge. In our belief we are called to be like Christ, to be changed by the Spirit at work in us.2 Corinthians 3 uses the analogy of looking into a mirror, that we are being changed from glory to glory (revelation of the character of God). That is what the Old Testament is – a revelation of who God is.
Both Corey and Anson are putting words in Nicile’s mouth that she did not say.
Genesis 38:7 “Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord , and THE LORD PUT HIM TO DEATH”
Numbers 15:35 “And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”
1 Samuel 2:25 “”If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against the Lord , who can intercede for him?” But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for IT WAS THE WILL OF THE LORD TO PUT THEM TO DEATH.”
1 Chronicles 10:14 “He did not seek guidance from the Lord . Therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.”
_____________________________________________
I do not know why I still bother. I know that The Shack has sold more than five million copies. And, I’ll be honest, I think there is a spirit of disillusionment. The Bible, repeatedly, talks about the Lord’s hand in death. In passages like I listed. In the dealings with Job. But people are bound and determined to believe what they want to believe, because it makes them feel better about God, and their suffering.
Satan did come to steal and destroy. But do not err in supposing he has stolen any of the Lord’s sovereignty, or power. He had to ask permission to afflict Job – that has not changed.
I am not immune to the sufferings of others. People very close to me have suffered affairs, miscarriages, loss of mothers, and brothers and grandpas. Lost daddys to suicide. Almost lost family to drug addiction and alcohol abuse. Felt the pains of rejection, and the knowledge that their little one is born with down syndrome. The greater comfort comes though, in knowing God is in control, than in supposing He did not involve Himself in what has gone on in our fallen world.