aspen
“"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few
I believe every word of those verses - all of it happened between the first and 4 centuries.
Where Does Denial of Scripture About Hell Originate?
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I believe every word of those verses - all of it happened between the first and 4 centuries.
aspen
“"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few
I do not know what you are referring to.
I believe we are in the 1000 year reign of the Kingdom of God in our hearts.
There are several NT references to the everlasting fire and punishment in the fire. You're playing word games.
Matthew 25:41 (ESV)
[sup]41 [/sup]“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
im not playing word games at all. In fact, I'd be much happier if the bible translators translate the original words into what they actually mean rather then something they do not.
If I throw a piece of wood onto a fire, that wood will be destroyed eternally...i cant rebuild the wood because it will be destroyed because fire is something that destroys whatever it touches ... Have you not considered that Jesus words mean that Satan and his angels will be destroyed eternally??
the kingdom of God is said to be much more then merely in the heart
For God to destroy the wicked eternally would be a reward compared to the eternal fire. Ain't gonna happen.
If God was only love then everyone would be saved. There wouldn't be MILLIONS starving, homeless and at war. There wouldn't be millions of abortions. There wouldn't be many helpless people mugged and murdered. This world wouldn't be a giant sewer. There wouldn't be millions of people in the Middle East being murdered as has been happening. And on and on... Did I mention the Genesis Flood where God drowned babies, elderly, cripples, etc. making them an example?
2 Peter 2:4-6 (ESV)
[sup]4 [/sup]For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; [sup]5 [/sup]if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; [sup]6 [/sup]if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
God is merciful and loving upon those who repent.
aspen
“"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few
it sounds as if you feel God is the cause of mankinds woe's
If I or you or someone else commits an evil deed, how can that be Gods fault? Interesting that you use the example of the flood to imply God is cruel somehow....that account highlights the fact that God does not like suffering and violence. But you are using it in an attempt to imply that God does like the suffering of mankind.
Im sorry, I think you have the wrong Idea and perhaps its your belief in hell that makes you think like this.
Read Deut 12:31 and tell me that God likes pain and suffering.
Read accounts from 2Kings 16:3 or 2Ch 28:3 & especially read Jeremiah 7:31 because all these accounts show that God is against the idea of burning anyone. It is only false religions who practiced and taught that their gods burned people in hell...the God of the Hebrews made it very clear that he was against such practices and ideas.
aspen
“"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few
So part of God is vengeance?
I simply don't believe it.
I believe there were a lot of misconceptions about God by the people who wrote the OT. I think they projected a lot of their fears, nationalism and need for vengeance onto God.
I believe the OT is inspired, we often miss the point - it is the story of humanity in relationship to God's declaration of Himself "I AM". People spent centuries screwing up in every way a human being can screw up in response to God's declaration. God sent His Son as our example of the best way to respond to God - selfless love.
"I AM; therefore love" is the message of the Bible.
So why would God thrash sinners when Jesus loved sinners on Earth and called us to do the same? Sinners are sick - the remedy is unconditional love.
Here is a story: When I was in graduate school, I really struggled with feeling inadequate - it seemed that nothing I did stopped this feeling, which often paralyzed me. Instead of giving up on me or criticizing me, my adviser surprised me time and time again with her ability to see through all the insecurities and relate to the real person I am. I was amazed at my own transformation - this person actually gave me the key I needed to escape the self-imposed prison I had constructed for myself - God used her to love me in a way I could understand. It was like receiving water in a desert - I flourished, The crazy thing is, my adviser is Mormon. God will go to any length to reach us with unconditional love.
Mankind doesn't need God's help to bring grief upon themselves. They're too busy bringing it upon themselves.
I didn't imply in any way that God is cruel nor likes human suffering.
The wrong idea about what? Are you denying the Genesis Flood was real?
I didn't say that. Why are you? While you're in Dt read chapter 28.
Deuteronomy 28:15 (NKJV)
[sup]15 [/sup]"But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
28:16-22 (NKJV)
[sup]18 [/sup]Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. [sup]19 [/sup]Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. [sup]20 [/sup]"The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. [sup]21 [/sup]The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. [sup]22 [/sup]The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.
28:26 (NKJV)
[sup]26 [/sup]Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away.
28:28 (NKJV)
[sup]28 [/sup]The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart.
28:30 (NKJV)
[sup]30 [/sup]You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes.
28:41 (NKJV)
[sup]41 [/sup]You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.
28:45-46 (NKJV)
[sup]45 [/sup]Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. [sup]46 [/sup]And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.
28:47-48 (NKJV)
[sup]47 [/sup]"Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, [sup]48 [/sup]therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.
28:53 (NKJV)
[sup]53 [/sup]You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.
28:58-59 (NKJV)
[sup]58 [/sup]"If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, [sup]59 [/sup]then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues--great and prolonged plagues--and serious and prolonged sicknesses.
So what you are saying is that you don't believe the NT warnings about the everlasting fire. Many will be there who don't believe it. My point that you totally missed is that God chose to allow all the EVIL in this world.
Hebrews 10:30-31 (ESV)
[sup]30 [/sup]For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” [sup]31 [/sup]It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But his allowing it to exist does not mean that he condones it.
he advises mankind to act with justice and love...that is what he wants to see. And just because he exacts punishment upon willful rebellious ones does not mean he likes to see people suffer. he will never torment people in a burning hell...Ever.
The everlasting fire spoken of in the NT refers to a complete eternal destruction. God is offering mankind the opportunity to live forever, but those who remain willfully disobedient will earn everlasting destruction. In other words, they will die and be permanently dead. Forever. Eternally. Just as when fire destroys something, its gone eternally.
Yes it is fearful to fall into the hands of the living God.... because nobody wants to die.
Never said He does. He could prevent ALL evil. He doesn't.
Gee Pegg, who said He does???
Who should we believe, you or God?
Matthew 25:41 (ESV)
[sup]41 [/sup]“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
That would be a reward. Ain't gonna happen.
Now you got it.
Revelation 14:9-11 (ESV)
[sup]9 [/sup]And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, [sup]10 [/sup]he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. [sup]11 [/sup]And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”
There will be MANY JW's in the eternal fire.
That means that Jehovah's Witnesses should repent and be saved from the eternal Hell.
wayofthespirit
More often partly wrong than wholly right
'Truth' seems to be on much the same page as me on the question of 'Hell'
The word ‘Hell’ did not exist in the days when the scriptures were written.
It didn’t emerge until the KJV took three completely dissimilar words and loosely translated each of them to mean something that medieval paganism had invented and labelled as ‘Hell’
The Youngs Literal translation uses only the three original words.
The simple one to understand is the word Hades (Sheol in the Old Testament Hebrew) meaning the ‘Grave’ (used 11 times in the New Testament)
The one which is of greatest significance to us is ‘Gehenna (used 12 times in the new testament)
Of the twelve instances where Gehenna is used, one can discount James 3:6 (which is likening it to man’s tongue) and concentrate on the other 11 (all found only in the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Gospels)
So I give them below so that readers can carefully consider what the writers were meaning when they likened something to Gehenna.
Each of the writers was Jewish.
Each of the writers knew perfectly well what Hades (Sheol in Hebrew) meant.
None had ever heard of ‘Hell’.
All they knew was the Jewish legend of a geographical site named Gehenna (or the Valley of Hinnom) which was one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem, where idolatrous Jews sacrificed their children to the god Molech, and where the dead bodies of animals and of criminals, and rubbish, were all cast and consumed by a constant fire. (probably the combustive heat of decomposition)
So here are all of the eleven quotes.
Matthew 5:22
Matthew 5:29
Matthew 5:30
Matthew 10:28
Matthew 18:9
Matthew 23:15
Matthew 23:33
Mark 9:43
Mark 9:45
Mark 9:47
Luke 12:5
The odd man out is Tartarus, used only once in 2Peter 2:4
Eventually in Jewish tradition Gehenna became the image of the place of everlasting destruction with a 'gate' which led down to a molten lake of fire.
And that is what was referred to as Tartarus and is what John would have been remembering when he wrote Revelation
I suggest that the Gospel writers were not talking of a Literal ‘Gehenna’ but had to be talking symbolically of something that they assumed existed without knowing of its details.
Do we accept the Pagan interpretation?
Or do we leave the unknown in the hands of God?
God to you, is how you see him.
Penal, vengeful, and barbaric, raising someone from the dead in order to torment them for eternity, if you must.
The word ‘Hell’ did not exist in the days when the scriptures were written.
It didn’t emerge until the KJV took three completely dissimilar words and loosely translated each of them to mean something that medieval paganism had invented and labelled as ‘Hell’
The Youngs Literal translation uses only the three original words.
The simple one to understand is the word Hades (Sheol in the Old Testament Hebrew) meaning the ‘Grave’ (used 11 times in the New Testament)
The one which is of greatest significance to us is ‘Gehenna (used 12 times in the new testament)
Of the twelve instances where Gehenna is used, one can discount James 3:6 (which is likening it to man’s tongue) and concentrate on the other 11 (all found only in the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Gospels)
So I give them below so that readers can carefully consider what the writers were meaning when they likened something to Gehenna.
Each of the writers was Jewish.
Each of the writers knew perfectly well what Hades (Sheol in Hebrew) meant.
None had ever heard of ‘Hell’.
All they knew was the Jewish legend of a geographical site named Gehenna (or the Valley of Hinnom) which was one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem, where idolatrous Jews sacrificed their children to the god Molech, and where the dead bodies of animals and of criminals, and rubbish, were all cast and consumed by a constant fire. (probably the combustive heat of decomposition)
So here are all of the eleven quotes.
Matthew 5:22
Matthew 5:29
Matthew 5:30
Matthew 10:28
Matthew 18:9
Matthew 23:15
Matthew 23:33
Mark 9:43
Mark 9:45
Mark 9:47
Luke 12:5
The odd man out is Tartarus, used only once in 2Peter 2:4
Eventually in Jewish tradition Gehenna became the image of the place of everlasting destruction with a 'gate' which led down to a molten lake of fire.
And that is what was referred to as Tartarus and is what John would have been remembering when he wrote Revelation
I suggest that the Gospel writers were not talking of a Literal ‘Gehenna’ but had to be talking symbolically of something that they assumed existed without knowing of its details.
Do we accept the Pagan interpretation?
Or do we leave the unknown in the hands of God?
God to you, is how you see him.
Penal, vengeful, and barbaric, raising someone from the dead in order to torment them for eternity, if you must.
aspen
“"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few
Dante's Inferno was published before the KJV was published - the doctrine of Hell has been around for a long time.
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