Church Bashing

[stunnedbygrace]

Closer. I'm talking about 411 years of arguing God's sovereignty versus Man's responsibility. I'm talking about a god who is said to be loving, but tortures those who can't/won't love him back. I'm talking about the games we play with words meanings: "World", "Until", "Punishment", "First", to name some of ones I've been involved with. I'm talking about men whose lives show love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, joy, and peace who can accept their loved ones being tormented forever. I've played this game, and with some success, but I repent, and I won't play it anymore. That's not why God sent me here.

Playing with definitions is how men build and maintain their falsities. For this reason, you can’t expect them to stop. Doesn’t mean you have to concede to their proclamations that death means life and dark means fire and black means white.
If God sent you here for a purpose and you know what that purpose is, I say get to it.

 

[VictoryinJesus]

my question is did Jesus Christ go into the lake of fire? Why else show in the OT that when the furnace was heated, turned up seven times hotter they looked inside the furnace that burned: and those men that went in bound, they saw them free and walking in the midst of the fire…another with them in the fire? They suffered no hurt not even their clothes burnt! We sing songs about Him walking in the fire with us? Why does it matter? Because to me that would change everything we say about who goes in the fire?

for example: the Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath, and his facial expression was altered. (Significant to me because of: warning of what a man is filled with? Being filled with the Spirit of God 2 Corinthians 3:7-11…how much more glorious that which remains…remains through what? Fire? What of the passage where: be careful how you build?​

He (Nebuchadnezzar) gave the orders to heat the furnace seven times…in order to cast [them] into the furnace of blazing fire. (Makes me consider where don’t they bring you up before the judges, dragging you in? As Paul said he bound many and took them to be put to death until Christ met him and ask “why do you persecute Me?”

those men where cast in the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. Because the kings command the furnace had been made extremely hot.

Odd is …the flame of fire destroyed those men that carried up Daniel's companions​

but Daniels companions fell into the midst of the blazing fire still tied. The king ask did not three go into the fire? Look four men walk unharmed in the fire and the fourth like the son of the gods…?

 

[Lambano]

If God sent you here for a purpose and you know what that purpose is, I say get to it.

There's been some clarity, but I'm still floundering around. This'll take time.

 

[Pearl]

Just wondering as, Jesus preaching in Hell always had me seeing both sides as a "could be" sort of thing.

Where is the verse that says that @Nancy - i know there is one but I can't find it.

It is also a line in the creed.

 

[Brakelite]

That’s what I’m hoping against.

I think a complete and utter end to sin and sinners, death and evil, pain and suffering, isn't something we all ought not just to be hoping for, but grateful for.

 

[Lambano]

Playing with definitions is how men build and maintain their falsities. For this reason, you can’t expect them to stop. Doesn’t mean you have to concede to their proclamations that death means life and dark means fire and black means white.

Words are symbols we use to express concepts and to model reality. By changing word definitions, we play with a person's model of reality, which may or may not match with our actual perceptions of reality. Hence, my cognitive dissonance.

 

[Lambano]

Where is the verse that says that @Nancy - i know there is one but I can't find it.

It is also a line in the creed.

1 Peter 3:19-20, I think is the source to that line.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

There's been some clarity, but I'm still floundering around. This'll take time.

It always does.
The first thing God gave me to work on was trust. It was a sometimes pitched battle.
Then He threw in fasting (not from food) and the battle to trust became harder then because I had to get over my fear that I’d done something to make Him leave me AND I had to walk in total darkness and couldn’t even read or pray.
There were some times I would come out of that but they were very brief and then He would plunge me back into the distressing darkness and I would think He was going to leave me there to die of thirst.

The last time I came out of that almost 14 years long, on again off again…(I don’t know what to call it) I no longer had to work hard with my mind. He just…gave to me. It’s been the most shocking thing.
I think it’s Teresa’s explanation of laboring to pull up water from a well with a bucket versus obtaining water from a water wheel that does the work.

 

[Pearl]

1 Peter 3:19-20, I think is the source to that line.

Thank you - I knew it was there somewhere

 

[stunnedbygrace]

I think a complete and utter end to sin and sinners, death and evil, pain and suffering, isn't something we all ought not just to be hoping for, but grateful for.

Well, I leave it to God. Until then, I maintain my hope that pay the last farthing and be beaten with more stripes or fewer stripes does not mean annihilation.
I hope because it never says outer darkness is cast into the lake of fire.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

There's been some clarity, but I'm still floundering around. Whatever it is that I'm supposed to learn or do what I'm supposed to do, it's going to take time. Lord, grant me patience - and I want it RIGHT NOW!

He has many things to tell us and gives to us when we are able to bear them.
One old saint said, to know Gods will it is only necessary to look at our circumstances.
If you BELIEVE He guides your steps as He says, some peace and patience comes as you wait. His timing is perfect. No one would try to get a child to jump into long division without add, subtract, multiply first. The child wouldn’t be ready to bear long division. It would be useless to try to teach it first.

Trust is always the first thing after He saves. Just as with Israel in the desert. If they wouldn’t trust Him about temporal things, how could He ever tell them about heavenly things?
We are in the desert. Just as they were.

 

[Lambano]

Well, I leave it to God. Until then, I maintain my hope that pay the last farthing and be beaten with more stripes or fewer stripes does not mean annihilation.
I hope because it never says outer darkness is cast into the lake of fire.

There were some times I would come out of that but they were very brief and then He would plunge me back into the distressing darkness and I would think He was going to leave me there to die of thirst.

Beware the hermeneutic of literalism. Darkness and Flame are images Jesus uses to convey Truth. I think I understand better what "darkness" means to you now, and I appreciate your transparency, this brief glimpse into your inner soul.

The Lost die in the Outer Darkness, alone and scared and blind and hungry and thirsty. It's still a horrible image - but it ends in final death.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

The Lost die in the Outer Darkness, alone and scared and blind and hungry and thirsty. It's still a horrible image - but it ends in final death.

Id be willing to look at the verses that brought you to this understanding.

 

[Nancy]

Where is the verse that says that @Nancy - i know there is one but I can't find it.

It is also a line in the creed.

1 Peter 18-20
…18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, 19in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison 20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In the ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water.…

 

[Lambano]

Id be willing to look at the verses that brought you to this understanding.

Imagery. Think imagery. Geographically, Israel borders the Negev desert. Being exiled from the cities into the desert with no food, no water, hungry jackals, and these really nasty-looking adders crawling around is a death sentence.

Scripturally, I'd start with "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied". The first shall be last, so those who did not hunger and thirst for righteousness in this life will hunger and thirst for it in the next. And cut off from the source of righteousness, they will perish without it.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Imagery. Think imagery. Geographically, Israel borders the Negev desert. Being exiled from the cities into the desert with no food, no water, hungry jackals, and these really nasty-looking adders crawling around is a death sentence.

Scripturally, I'd start with "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied". The first shall be last, so those who did not hunger and thirst for righteousness in this life will hunger and thirst for it in the next. And cut off from the source of righteousness, they will perish without it.

I would have to see more verses. Until then, I’ll stick with the ones I do have and with hope.

 

[marks]

Do you write in a book how much you love your child, and then have a teacher teach that fact to your child from that book, Or do you show a child your love for them relationally and intimately?

The fact is, David, that God gave us that Book so we Can in fact know Him.

Your question is off point.

Your suggestion was that God gives contradictory information to His children to frighten them into following Him until they grow up better, and I find that concept to be appalling. Actually much worse than that.

Have them believe a lie so they can grow up afraid? Evil parents do that.

Much love!

 

[Brakelite]

Well, I leave it to God. Until then, I maintain my hope that pay the last farthing and be beaten with more stripes or fewer stripes does not mean annihilation.
I hope because it never says outer darkness is cast into the lake of fire.

Have you considered that if the unforgiving servant had to pay the debt, his boss didn't?

 

[Nancy]

That’s what I’m hoping against.

Me too sissy.

 

[marks]

The theologians and philosophers recognize this tension and even invented a term for it: Antimony (not to be confused with the metal of the same name):

What is an antinomy in theology?
It is called an antinomy. In philosophy, an antinomy is defined as a “contradiction between principles or conclusions that seem equally necessary and reasonable; a paradox.” In theology, we narrow the focus a little. An antinomy is a logical contradiction between principles that are both affirmed in Scripture.

One theologian (whom I usually respect) goes so far as to deny the law of non-contradiction and therefore the rules of Aristotelian logic itself. Which is logical, because the rules of Aristotelian logic are axiomatic to any discussion, so contradictions in scripture which cannot be contradictory force us to re-examine our foundational axioms and premises. Unfortunately, that is an argument that commits suicide, because Aristotelian logic is the very tool we use to argue with.

I'm well familiar with the idea. But that doesn't change my opinion of it.

And rather than discuss the paradoxes in theology as a concept, let's look at specific passages that are thought to show a paradox. I haven't found them. Have you?

Much love!