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    Jesus did not come to save the ((world))

    I've come to believe that Jesus truly is Savior of All (1 Tim. 4:10) as scripture declares Him to be, not just Savior of Some as is believed by most of Christendom. Paul affirms that just like the sin of Adam got us all in this mess with sin and death, the sacrifice of Christ gets us all out...
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    The Lake of Fire

    So Gehenna was used by the Pharisees to affirm punishment of sin in the afterlife. We have learned in a Boraitha: The school of Shammai said: There are three divisions of mankind at the Resurrection: the wholly righteous, the utterly wicked, and the average class. The wholly righteous are at...
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    The Lake of Fire

    btw, Hell is not a "biblical" word or concept. Tragically the Hebrew word Sheol, and Greek words Hades and Gehenna were all mistranslated as Hell in the KJV. Thankfully, these mistranslations are being progressively corrected in modern translations or at the least simply transliterated. Sheol...
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    The Lake of Fire

    Concerning Revelation's lake of fire, actually it is "the lake of the fire and the brimstone". People typically picture the LOF as a lake of molten lava, but is that what John saw? I think not. In fact, there is a lake in Israel that is very closely associated with fire and brimstone - the...
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    What exactly is hell?

    Concerning the Revelation's lake of fire, I think it would be best translated as the Dead Sea. Why? The Greek is actually "the lake of the fire and the brimstone". And on the banks of the Dead Sea are the ash remains of Sodom and Gomorrah which were destroyed by fire and brimstone. It is a...
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    What exactly is hell?

    I apologize for jumping into for jumping into the middle of the conversation, especially since I haven't taken time to read through the whole thread. So please pardon me if I repeat points others have made. In short, to answer the OP, "Hell" is actually not a scriptural word or concept. The...
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    Let's Talk About Hell

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    Let's Talk About Hell

    [/SIZE][/FONT] Actually, I've read and reread the article in the Jewish Encyclopedia multiple times, before you mentioned and since you've mentioned it. As I shared, it notes that for the average person (Jew and Gentile) Gehenna was considered a place of Remedial Punishment, as in Purgatory...
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    Let's Talk About Hell

    First note that due to it being filled with metaphorical language John's Revelation is interpretted in the church at least 4 different ways - Preteristicly (speaking to the then current terrible times of suffering in the first century), historically (revealing the rise and fall of Roman rule...
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    Let's Talk About Hell

    Concerning the NT, in Greek Tartaroo is the closest word to equating Hell. If Hell was a reality, then scripture would threaten Tartaroo at least once for the lost, but it doesn't. And surely, if Hell was a real threat, the Hebrew would have a word that meant such, but it doesn't. And surely...
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    Let's Talk About Hell

    Pardon me for interrupting, but I too do not believe in Hell for several reasons, the primary one being that not one word in the Hebrew or Greek correctly translates as "Hell". Have you noticed that the word "Hell" is progressively being illiminated from English versions. The 1610 Catholic...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    As noted before, to me "aionian" being used to modify both "judgment" and the "fire" that destroyed Sodom indicates that "aionian" does not necessarily = endless or forever. Judgment is not "endless", and neither was the fire that destroyed Sodom "endless". Also "aionian" was used in the LXX...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    If anyone is interested, the following is William Barclay's article on AIONIOS - from his work, New Testament Words. It's lengthy, but I found it interesting. We do well to search out the true meaning of the word aionios, for in the NT this is the word which is usually translated eternal or...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    [/SIZE][/FONT] Actually, I've never heard of the "hellmakers" site. I have read some of the material on "tentmakers", but it's been awhile and you actually wrote "tentbusters" in you previous post, not "tentmakers". I assumed that they were Universalist sites from your apparent derision of...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    Actually, I've studied Greek at the Masters level also and am well informed concerning this topic. And I don't recall even seeing the websites, "hellmakers" or "tentbusters", and have read little of any Universalist's material. What I believe, has come from my personal study of scripture and...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    [/SIZE][/FONT] I assumed you were familiar with them. But here you go. Heb.6:1-3 1Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, 2Of the doctrine of baptisms...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    Der Alter, I'm curious, as you know scripture speaks of "aionian" judgment; does this mean that the judgement lasts forever, is never ending? Also scripture speaks of "aionian" fire that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah; are Sodom and Gomorrah eternally burning and the fire still burning?
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    Is Our Bible Accurate?

    The TRUTH is a person, not a book. Paul notes that all scripture is inspired by God, profitable for instruction in rigteousness; and scripture itself doesn't claim "infallibility". Don't misunderstand me; I believe scripture is our primary physical current revelation of God and should be...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    [/SIZE][/FONT] no worries. [/FONT][/SIZE] Agreed, and how does this disagree or dismiss what I shared concerning understanding and interpreting the story/parable of the rich man and Lazarus based on literary context? Actually the word used there is "Hades", though in the LXX "Hades" is...
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    I believe in Jesus, but I cannot accept some mainstream Christian beliefs.

    I believe that Gehenna and its fire is a metaphor of purification that comes from the presence of the Lord. Recall how Isaiah was purified in the presence of the Lord by a coal of fire being put to his lips, making him a messenger of God. The fire of truth will, well, burn the hell out of us...