This is what we believe. It defines our ministry.
We believe
…in the Holy Scriptures as originally given by God, divinely inspired, infallible, entirely trustworthy; and the supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct…
One God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…
Our Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, His virgin birth, His sinless human life, His divine miracles, His vicarious and atoning death, His bodily resurrection, His ascension, His mediatorial work, and His Personal return in power and glory…
The Salvation of lost and sinful man through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith apart from works, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit…
The Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the believer is enabled to live a holy life, to witness and work for the Lord Jesus Christ…
The Unity of the Spirit of all true believers, the Church, the Body of Christ…
The Resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life, they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
Compassion adheres to the statement of faith established by the World Evangelical Alliance.
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It is good that Compassion has this statement of faith. There is only one way to God and it is through Jesus. Jesus is God. May they hold fast to the statement of faith and not change it with the times we live in. Children should contuine to be released from poverty in Jesus name.
Quoting Rob Bell:
“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live?”[/quote]
If this happened I would say yes, I’m still a Christian because I REJECT these things which are obviously not God’s TRUTH. I also reject anyone trying to raise doubt about the Truth. The more I read about Rob Bell the more concern I have. I took the time to look at some of his other teachings just to be sure I was not misunderstanding him by the quote supplied.
I’m hugely disappointed. I’m not sure I want to be related to this kind of thinking in any way, shape or form. I have some serious questions about Compassion now…
If you have studied the Bible and history and heed God’s warnings to beware of false gospels, Compassion, along with the rest of Christ-followers should be careful of Rob Bell and others that are teaching and preaching new age ideologies. If one looks carefully into the occult and new age movement, you will find that this “new light movement” wrapped up in the “love package” is very appealing to post-moderns, but upon further research you will find some very disturbing things. This theology is being taught in many of our nations Christian colleges and seminaries today and the students and/or parents of these students, have no idea that they are being indoctrinated into an occultic agenda. These students are becoming pastors and bringing this into our youth groups and entire churches are grabbing onto it because it seems so peaceful and tolerant of all people. You will find that these “emergents” usually don’t believe in a literal heaven or hell, but life is what we make of it in the here and now. They usually preach the “Jesus walk”, but steer clear of sin and salvation messages. Dig deep and you will also find that they believe that it would be “awfully unloving of God” to condemn anyone at all. They tend to be promoting mystical spirituality in the forms of Eastern contemplative prayer which they say comes from the ancient church. Rob Bell, along with countless others have asked some really good questions about what is wrong with the Christian faith, but they use the humanistic philosophies of men to add and take away from the inerrant holy Word of God to re-create a “New Christianity”. This is counter to scripture. Nothing needs to be re-invented. God’s people just need to repent and get back to doing what God has commanded and that does mean that we love our neighbors and care for the poor widow and orphan. Raised on the back of entertainment, many western Christians do not know the Bible and are being led right into this false Christianity that is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. After very diligent research into the “emergent/new light church” (and Rob Bell is on the forefront of this), and battling this in my own church, I and others are finding that many senior pastors, in an effort to want to be relevant to the post-modern culture are not seeing this for what it appears to be. These emergents are preaching a feel-good gospel with a social justice label and are throwing the baby out with the bath water! I certainly hope that Compassion will not soon be preaching this to the children that we sponsor because I am afraid that this gospel will not save anyone.
I’m shocked too…for contrasting reasons
It shocks me how often people use this quote to say that Rob Bell denies the virgin birth. He doesn’t deny it. He simply asks if your faith in following Jesus is strong enough to stand up to the questions people present about doctrines like the virgin birth.
If you a Christian leader, then you would want to be very careful how you state these types of things, because as this discussion has proven, it can really backfire on you. If this is all he wanted to do, then he could have at least stated so with a few words, that he does believe the virgin birth.
The underlying thinking though is a bit troubling to me. It is basically stating that truth is not important, but that a love for Christ is important. And I am the first to say that love is paramount in both our relationship with God and our relationship with other believers and our relationship with unbelievers. However, this love is based on the Truth of God´s Word. If someone doesn´t love the Truth of God´s Word, I don´t think they can really love God.
Loving God, includes loving His Truth. Can you imagine, if I walked up to a sponsor and told them that I met their child and I wanted to tell them about the child and the sponsor said: ¨I don´t want to know anything about the child. I just want to love the child.¨ I would question this person´s love for the child.
The same with God. If you love Him, you want to know Him and know about Him. Thus theology, i.e. the knowledge of God becomes very important.
Got to agree with Andrew on one point: Compassion needs to be extremely careful with aligning themselves with the likes of folks who don’t embrace the critical doctrines as we do.
One of the biggest problems we face is the modern-day Ecumenical movement. In their attempts to bring about cooperation and unity of all believers in Christ and create the ‘seeker-friendly’ environment, they are undermining or dismissing many of the core doctrines we believe.
Some of the things they dismiss are the inerrancy of Scripture, the resurrection of Christ, justification by faith, and as we see with Mr. Bell, the denial of the virgin birth. Ultimately these things are working towards creating a universal religious system. And it’s already occurring. I had the occasion to speak with a ‘Christian’ the other day who believed (because he was mis-taught) that Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed are theoretically all the same.
Vice President Al Gore even wrote this in his book, “The richness and diversity of our religious tradition throughout history is a spiritual resource long ignored by people of faith, who are often afraid to open their minds to teachings first offered outside their own system of belief. But the emergence of a civilization in which knowledge moves freely and almost instantaneously through the world has … spurred a renewed investigation of the wisdom distilled by all faiths. This panreligious perspective may prove especially important where our global civilization’s responsibility for the earth is concerned.”
Anyway, all that is to say COMPASSION needs to be VERY careful IF IT IS OUT GOAL to share a pure Gospel Message with the children we minister to.
Very well stated Dave, I owe you a cup of Coca tea. I´m in Bolivia right now, come on over and I´ll make good on the promise.
But all kidding aside, I agree with that wholeheartedly. I´ve heard some other videos by Rob Bell and some of it has been a bit troubling to me.
Amen, Brother Dave!
Hmmm…I think Rob Bell is presenting us with some arguements that people could used against the virgin birth, and asking us whether or not we would jump ship if we heard these, or if we would still believe.
That’s just what I get from it.
Hmmm..my experiance with Jesus is, that he is real. It works for me. Holy spirit is real, gifts of the spirit are real, evil one and his dominions are real, God the Father is real, ..so , I do not really care, if Mary was a virgin or not.
Live according to the bible, and test God. Then you will see what will happen in your life. It is not possible to understand the Bible with your mind. YOu need the Holy spirit to help you. Amen.
Rob Bell of the Nooma video series that Compassion partnered with apparently does not agree with the virgin birth.
Quoting Rob Bell:
“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live?”
Well, I must say that first of all, I don´t like his reasoning very much, but, giving him all the benefit of the doubt, he doesn´t actually say that he doesn´t believe in the virgin birth. He just brings it up hypothetically. Having said that, by doing so, he does create quite a bit of doubt in that. It´s very post modern way of thinking.