For the past month or so I have had a flurry of people asking a similar question, “Have you read Heaven is for Real yet?” After receiving a short briefing, describing what the book was about, I was immediately suspicious of it and that was only heightened by reviews that I read. Well, I finally read the book and I admit reading it with a bias. My response after finishing the book was grief and discouragement over the enthusiasm for it.
I am not going to break down the book in terms of what I see are the problems with it as you can check the links below for reviews. I do, however, want to write a brief response about spiritual discernment and the reading of books like this and embracing what is written.
Tim Challies in his book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, defines discernment as “the skill of understanding and applying God’s Word with the purpose of separating truth from error, right from wrong.” When we are practicing discernment, we are applying the truth of the Bible to our lives and our experiences. It is trusting in God’s Word to give us the clarity to see things as God sees them and so to see things as they really are. In the case of reading a book that makes a claim of truth and reality, we are to interpret what is said through the grid of God’s Word as 1 Thessalonians 5:21 calls for, “Test everything, hold fast to that which is good.”
The sufficiency of Scripture is a belief that God has sufficiently revealed to us in His Word what we need to know for all matters of faith. Adding to the Scriptures through an experience can only be measured and tested by what is revealed by God. Any addition is suspect and any contradiction to the Word calls for full rejection.
The tool of discernment that we have to measure any personal experience or the experience of another is God’s Word. A secular mindset is that we interpret the Word by our experiences. This leads to events having no significant meaning other than the experience itself. A biblical worldview calls for us to rest first on the reality of God’s Word as the measure of truth and then interpret my experiences from it. If I think I had an out-of-body experience that takes me to what I think is the middle of the ocean and I describe it as being fresh water, that would invalidate my experience. If I said I went to heaven and there were inconsistencies with the Word of God about heaven, that should invalidate the reality of that experience.
The affirmation of our faith is through the Word of Christ, not anyone else (Romans 10:16-17). Even Peter wrote that the words of the prophets are not to be the matter of one’s own interpretation but that of the Holy Spirit and we have the means to know that these words are sure by the revelation of the Bible (2 Peter 1:19-21). God has revealed to us what we need to know about heaven and hell. The Holy Spirit is God’s instrument to bring illumination to our hearts and harmony between the experiences of life and their meaning.
Please do not use a book like “Heaven is for Real” as a tool to teach your children. There are much better books that teach about it from the Word and the heaven of the Bible is far more spectacular, beautiful, glorious, than the heaven of this book.
Links to reviews of "Heaven is for Real" that I recommend:
The Gospel Coalition
Tim Challies
Moms in Need of Mercy
P.S. 5/9: Randy Alcorn, author of the excellent book titled simply Heaven wrote an excellent review and also calls for careful discernment. Randy Alcorn
I am not going to break down the book in terms of what I see are the problems with it as you can check the links below for reviews. I do, however, want to write a brief response about spiritual discernment and the reading of books like this and embracing what is written.
Tim Challies in his book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, defines discernment as “the skill of understanding and applying God’s Word with the purpose of separating truth from error, right from wrong.” When we are practicing discernment, we are applying the truth of the Bible to our lives and our experiences. It is trusting in God’s Word to give us the clarity to see things as God sees them and so to see things as they really are. In the case of reading a book that makes a claim of truth and reality, we are to interpret what is said through the grid of God’s Word as 1 Thessalonians 5:21 calls for, “Test everything, hold fast to that which is good.”
The sufficiency of Scripture is a belief that God has sufficiently revealed to us in His Word what we need to know for all matters of faith. Adding to the Scriptures through an experience can only be measured and tested by what is revealed by God. Any addition is suspect and any contradiction to the Word calls for full rejection.
The tool of discernment that we have to measure any personal experience or the experience of another is God’s Word. A secular mindset is that we interpret the Word by our experiences. This leads to events having no significant meaning other than the experience itself. A biblical worldview calls for us to rest first on the reality of God’s Word as the measure of truth and then interpret my experiences from it. If I think I had an out-of-body experience that takes me to what I think is the middle of the ocean and I describe it as being fresh water, that would invalidate my experience. If I said I went to heaven and there were inconsistencies with the Word of God about heaven, that should invalidate the reality of that experience.
The affirmation of our faith is through the Word of Christ, not anyone else (Romans 10:16-17). Even Peter wrote that the words of the prophets are not to be the matter of one’s own interpretation but that of the Holy Spirit and we have the means to know that these words are sure by the revelation of the Bible (2 Peter 1:19-21). God has revealed to us what we need to know about heaven and hell. The Holy Spirit is God’s instrument to bring illumination to our hearts and harmony between the experiences of life and their meaning.
Please do not use a book like “Heaven is for Real” as a tool to teach your children. There are much better books that teach about it from the Word and the heaven of the Bible is far more spectacular, beautiful, glorious, than the heaven of this book.
Links to reviews of "Heaven is for Real" that I recommend:
The Gospel Coalition
Tim Challies
Moms in Need of Mercy
P.S. 5/9: Randy Alcorn, author of the excellent book titled simply Heaven wrote an excellent review and also calls for careful discernment. Randy Alcorn
1 comments:
I too have experienced grief and discouragement over the enthusiasm for this book. You have no idea what a breath of fresh air your article has given to my heart. Thank you for your courage to give this loving critique!
Post a Comment