What if...

Rob Bell, John Crowder and Rick Joyner walk into a pub.....definately a good joke in there somewhere......

Rob buys everyone in the bar a drink, he’s very inclusive

John asks for an empty glass, he’s already drunk.

Rick doesn’t need to order as he met the bar tender in a dream and told him what he’d want.

The Calvinist walks into the bar and thanks God he’s got that out of the way.

The Puritans walk into the bar – don’t be silly!

Brother Lawrence walks into the bar and heads for the kitchen.

The Pope walks into the bar orders a large glass of red wine, drinks the lot and wipes the glass with his hankie.

Some Sadducees walk into the bar, have a good drink and start singing Imagine.

Some Pharisees walk into the bar and check if everybody’s hands are clean before they order a drink.

St Paul walks into the bar with a friend, they check everyone has a drink and then orders a carry out.

Jesus walks into the bar, changes all the water into wine, starts a sing a long and calls for a lock in.

Rob Bell, good communicator but not sure what he is actually saying, John Crowder, preaches Christ crucified whilst 'toking the ghost', Rick Joyner the pursuit of the supernatural and a knight of Malta, Martin Luther the great reformer - unless you're a roman catholic, Paul the great evangelist but not too good with relationships - the list of ‘spiritual’ leaders who have got some things we might consider right and some things that we think we should stone them for goes on and on. We love to debate other people’s theology, prodding it here and there to see if it lines up with scripture and even there does it line up with the NIV or the KJV.

If we lived 2000 years ago would we be any different listening to Jesus? Or if Jesus lived today and we heard a few things he said via the media, maybe looked him up on YouTube or Google, see what end times prophetic were saying about him. Is he popping up on the Elijah list? Does he have a podcast we could listen to? Would we be getting on a plane to go and see him personally? Would we even know about him even if he lived today, he seemed to avoid wanting publicity. He possibly wouldn’t be a PR guy’s favourite customer.

I like some ‘teachers’, I don’t like others. The one’s I don’t like, I try and avoid. I put it down to style mostly, sometimes the content or lack of it, will make me pull a face, get a bit wound up, but hopefully not reach for my bag of pebbles. If we are going to believe that love is the centre piece of our lives then I suppose that must include those teachers that get on our spiritual nerves. I doubt those we are trying to introduce to Jesus care about our disagreements other than to note that we don’t really love each other so how can we say we love them.....