I am in process of preparing a sermon on hell from Luke 16, and so I’m researching the issue a bit, and thought I’d share a few resources available.

Rob Bell’s book (see prior post) has unleashed an avalanche of books supporting the traditional Biblical understanding of hell.  My former classmate and professor Michael Wittmer has a short book called Christ Alone that interacts with and critiques Bell’s book.  Francis Chan has a new book called Erasing Hell that looks at the relevent Biblical passages.  Mark Galli has a book coming soon called God Wins that according to Randy Alcorn (via Justin Taylor) looks more at the historical and theological aspects.  It also includes a small group study guide.  See Taylor’s summary of the books by Chan and Galli here.  In August, Keller, Mohler, and Packer have a brief book coming out called Is Hell For Real or Does Everyone Go To Heaven?  Too bad these last two books are coming out too late for me to look at for my sermon.

With all these new books coming out, Tim Challies looks at how well those with the traditional Biblical view of hell (himself included) responded to the Bell controversy.  In part of his critique he argues that all the uproar actually helped sell the book.  Taylor has a brief response.  I would simply add that while the uproar may have helped sell the book, Rob Bell was already a best-selling author whose book would have sold well even without an evangelical response – and the evangelical response was greatly needed (as Challies readily acknowledges).  While many may be led astray by Bell’s book, he has forced the church to re-examine and address the issue.  And with the recent slew of books, many will be better educated on the Bible’s teaching on hell.  And for that we can be grateful.