Entertain? YES! Amuse? NO!

I jsut finished reading an amazing article by Rob Bell. For more on who in the planet he is click here.

Check out these tasty morsels:

"So my understanding in communication is you engage people right where they are; if you don't, they leave.
Sometimes I hear people say, "The church isn't here to entertain." To entertain means to hold people's attention, which is clearly something teachers throughout the Scriptures are doing. They engage and capture attention.
But we're not here to amuse. To "a-muse" means to "not think." And it's wrong to prevent people from pondering or distract them from thinking. I'm not here to amuse. But of course I want to engage people. I have something to say."

"Artemis: the goddess of fertility. Her world center of worship was the city of Ephesus. It was believed that if you were pregnant and you brought an offering to her temple, she would protect you in childbirth. Now in the mid-first century, one out of two women was dying in childbirth. This is a real terror. So what does Paul say to Timothy? "By the way, women will be saved in childbirth." But what about Artemis?
Paul, in a brilliant, subversive way, says Artemis doesn't save women in childbirth. God does.
Now how on earth do you understand that verse without knowing some history?"


To read the entire article (a great use of 5 minutes!) check it - http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2004/002/1.24.html