The Shack - A Study In Discernment

I Kings 3:9 Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?

- A Novel

- About a man named Mackenzie (Mack) Phillips whose daughter, Missy, was brutally murdered by a serial killer. Three years after this tragedy, he receives an invitation by mail to meet with the holy Trinity in the same shack where his daughter was murdered.

- "Where is God in a world full of pain and hurt?"

- William P. Young (a former office manager and hotel night clerk)

- # 1 on the New York Times since June 08

- #1 Barnes & Noble since May

- No. 1 on Borders Group’s

- First wrote it as a gift for his six children.

- Its publisher, Windblown Media, a company that was formed expressly to publish “The Shack”

- Self-published with $300

- Now 4.5 million copies

- Published 2007

- More than 30 languages

- Book to movie (Young offered almost $100 million)

❶ Shack’s Endorsements

— When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!

---- Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus Of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

— The Shack is the most absorbing work of fiction I’ve read in many years. My wife & I laughed, cried and repented of our own lack of faith along th way . The Shack will leave you craving for the presence of God.

--- Michael W. Smith - Recording Artist

— "Our Goal ... not to endorse, not to bash, but to engage."

- "over-look" the views of God within the book and search for something deeper or richer. I say this lovingly.

---- Haven Today

- It is like our government saying we do not encourage drug use, but here are free needles or we do not encourage teen sexuality, but here are free condoms.

- The novel is primarily a dialogue between Mack and the Trinity.

- Mackenzie (Mack) Phillips – Daughter murdered

- God the Father is called "Papa," but his actual name is Elousia, which is Greek for tenderness.

- Papa appears in the form of a large maternal African American woman who is always cooking in the kitchen.

- At the end of the book, she turns into a pony-tailed, gray-haired man to assure Mack that God is both male and female.

- Jesus is a middle-aged Middle Eastern man, dressed in a plaid shirt, with a tool belt around his waist.

- The Holy Spirit appears as a delicate Asian woman named Sarayu, meaning "air," who loves gardening.

- Mack also meets another woman, named Sophia, Lady Wisdom

- When Isaiah met God

Isaiah 6:5KJV

5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

Isaiah 48:16 "Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time, there AM I; and now the LORD GOD, and his SPIRIT, hath sent ME. Yeshua (Jesus)

- FATHER and the SPIRIT has sent ME (Yeshua)

- All are MASCULINE sense, even the title ELOHIM indicates masculine identity,

- "im" being masculine in Hebrew and "ot" being femamine

- The Shack’s references to to the Bible is negative in it’s tone

- God is no longer heard in his Word by man

- p. 65-66

❷ Heresies In The Shack

- Heresy — Gk. To Choose

- To Divide

Galatians 5:19-21KJV

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

2 Peter 2:1KJV

1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

2 John 10-11KJV

10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

- 1. God the Father was crucified with Jesus. - p.96