Love Wins: For Teens

by Rob Bell

Overview

If God were throwing a party, would everyone be invited?

Or does God invite some and not others?

And if so, how does God decide?

Is it what you say?
Is it what you do?
Is it what you're going to do?
Is it who your friends are?
Or what your friends do?
Or what religion you happened to be born into?
Or where you live, or what you look like, or what you believe?

What if the idea of heaven and hell that we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if Jesus meant something very different by the concepts of heaven, hell, and salvation from how we've come to understand them?

And what if the answer to life's meaning is much better than we ever imagined?

In his teen edition of the bestselling book love wins, Rob Bell tackles all these questions in a way that addresses the real challenges of growing up in today's world. This is not just a book of questions and this is not just a book of answers.

This is a book of exploration.

This is a book of discovery.

This is a book about why love wins.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062221896
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/12/2013
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	1,013,345
File size:	975 KB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Rob Bell is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and spiritual teacher. His books include Love Wins, How to Be Here, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Velvet Elvis, The Zimzum of Love, Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and Drops Like Stars. He hosts the weekly podcast The Robcast, which was named by iTunes as one of the best of 2015. He was profiled in The New Yorker and in TIME Magazine as one of 2011’s hundred most influential people. He and his wife, Kristen, have three children and live in Los Angeles.

Hometown:

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Date of Birth:

August 23, 1970

Place of Birth:

Lansing, Michigan

Education:

B.S., Wheaton College, 1992; M. Div., Fuller Seminary, 1995

Table of Contents

Introduction: Bikes and Butts 1

Chapter 1 Everyone Is Invited 17

Chapter 2 Heaven 31

Chapter 3 Hell 65

Chapter 4 Question, Questions, Questions… 73

Chapter 5 The Story in the Story 101

Chapter 6 Time for the Party 131

Recommended Reading 141

Author Q & A 143

Editorial Reviews

Christian inspiration for dudes and dudettes. Hey, it's not complicated: God has invited you to a party! Distilling messages from his similarly titled book for adults (2011), Bell offers general attitudes for living a Christian life, rather than a specific set of rules, in a combination of prose, Q-and-A's and occasional free verse. He repeatedly rejects the validity of any "system of sin management" imposed by "spiritual bullies" or organized religions that limit free questioning or envision God as anything but loving. He also acknowledges the lure of risky behavior (with an anecdote featuring his butt cheeks and a BB gun) and the natural confusion that arises from seeing evil in the world--but promises that the party has already started right here and that God's love (which encompasses everyone, including atheists and non-Christians) is an open invitation to join the festivities. Using the parable of the Prodigal Son, he argues that it's all a matter of what kind of personal stories we tell ourselves and also that "[h]ell is being at the party but refusing to join it." Easily digestible, a little glib, but reassuring: "God is there, / standing there in the driveway, / arms open, / ready to invite you in." (Q&A with author; recommended reading) (Nonfiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews