In my experience, in every situation where a church member tells of a non-believing family member who is deceased someone will always suggest that they must have repented on their death bed and thus they are in heaven now.
The teachings of Jesus simply do not suggest this. Before writing this I took just about 5 minutes and looked up(Matthew 7:13-14, Luke 13: 24-30, The parable of the weeds from Matthew 13, and Revelation 20:15). This is just a small sampling of New Testament teaching that express anything but “Everyone goes to Heaven”.
Saying that the non-believing relative is in heaven helps comfort the grieving church member but I believe there is a negative side effect to this in that many other church members can start to get the impression that we all go to heaven. This gives the impression that the Christian life is kind of cheap.
What about simply telling the church member this: “I am sorry that your non-believing relative died. While they may not be in heaven you have an eternal father who is in heaven and you can live in heaven forever with the body of true believers in Christ.” Or something like that.
Personally, I left the Church in my early twenties. My last pastor was a man who said often that everyone goes to heaven. So for most of my 20’s and 30’s I just saw being a Christian as kind of a nice thing but not worthy of a huge degree of my time and effort since I would just die and go to heaven anyway. Only by Gods grace has he brought me back in the last 2 years to a real relationship and an understanding of the narrow door.
When I hear a church member tell about a non believing deceased relative I want to comfort them, but also to express to them that their Christian life is not cheap and just because a relative might have missed their calling doesn’t mean that they have to also. Any ideas’s or suggestions on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You
The teachings of Jesus simply do not suggest this. Before writing this I took just about 5 minutes and looked up(Matthew 7:13-14, Luke 13: 24-30, The parable of the weeds from Matthew 13, and Revelation 20:15). This is just a small sampling of New Testament teaching that express anything but “Everyone goes to Heaven”.
Saying that the non-believing relative is in heaven helps comfort the grieving church member but I believe there is a negative side effect to this in that many other church members can start to get the impression that we all go to heaven. This gives the impression that the Christian life is kind of cheap.
What about simply telling the church member this: “I am sorry that your non-believing relative died. While they may not be in heaven you have an eternal father who is in heaven and you can live in heaven forever with the body of true believers in Christ.” Or something like that.
Personally, I left the Church in my early twenties. My last pastor was a man who said often that everyone goes to heaven. So for most of my 20’s and 30’s I just saw being a Christian as kind of a nice thing but not worthy of a huge degree of my time and effort since I would just die and go to heaven anyway. Only by Gods grace has he brought me back in the last 2 years to a real relationship and an understanding of the narrow door.
When I hear a church member tell about a non believing deceased relative I want to comfort them, but also to express to them that their Christian life is not cheap and just because a relative might have missed their calling doesn’t mean that they have to also. Any ideas’s or suggestions on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You