Velvet Elvis

I just finished Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell last night and can't wait to read it again. I entered the first round just wanting to read it straight through and enjoy it, but it didn't take me long to realize that I'd want to dig a little deeper and pick it apart on the next trip through. It doesn't hurt that we worked with Matt Carder, an Associate Pastor at Union Chapel in Muncie, who had just been at a thing with Rob Bell and is obviously influenced by Bell's teaching style and content.

For those who don't know Bell, he is the founding Pastor of Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, Michigan which is one of the fastest growing churches in American history. His teaching is very grounded in the historical and cultural context of Scripture in order to get to the heart of what the Bible intended to teach the culture it was presented to, which also gives it greater meaning for us today. It goes beyond the "This is what the Greek word is and this is how it is translated" kind of thing to "This is the setting it was spoken in, this is who it was presented to and this is what they would have understood it to mean." It takes some commonly taught Scriptures and gives them entirely new meaning by teaching us the original meaning for the first time.

Velvet Elvis is a great read with some interesting perspective on our identity in Christ, the life of the Church and how we need to be constantly re-evaluating our thinking. I highly recommend it.