Jason,
"Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things.
For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2Pet. 1:20-21 NIV)
"He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2Pet. 3:16 NIV)
It looks to me that you've fallen prey to the heresy of private interpretation. I mean you are interpreting sacred scripture that was given to all of us in the Church, by Christ through the apostles and prophets, apart from that same Church's understanding. Don't you know it was men of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church who preserved God's Word by copying scrolls for centuries until Guttenberg (a Catholic himself) gave us the first printed version? In fact those bibles that were chained in many churches years ago were so in order to protect God's Word from being trivialized and stolen. It was not as rumor has it that the Church was trying to keep the bible from the average person. In fact don't you know that St. Paul told St. Timothy to "guard the good deposit?" St. Timothy being a deacon in the early Church.
You claim you "...don't just accept something in the Bible just because the church says it is true," yet it is the only source of infallible interpretation. You saw off the very limb you sit on so-to-speak by disavowing yourself of the Church's constant teaching! You do this as if Christ's words to St. Peter mean nothing: "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (Matt. 16:18 NIV) Christ put St. Peter in the highest office of His Church in order to protect God's Word throughout all time and it is not you or I that is protected from error, but Christ's Church.
So while you speculate as to whether soul sleep is an acceptable doctrine the Church has already settled this long ago. Today we find non-Christian cults holding to this non-Christian idea that is also philosophically unsound. Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and the Latter Day Saints Church of Christ or Mormon Church are to name the most prominent of these heretical groups.
"So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings (more accurately "Traditions" in the Greek) we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." (2Thes. 2:15 NIV)
You also seem too have banished literal hell fire from the Christian understanding yet both oral and written Tradition carry it as dogma never to be lost. Pope John Paul II once said that heaven is more than a place, meaning not that it was not a place but to put emphasis on the fact that it is to be in relationship with God. He was emphasizing the spiritual without damning the physical which you seem to have done by calling suspect the Church's teaching on literal burning in hell. How exactly do you judge the punishment to be worse than the crime when our sin is against a being who is infinite? How can our soul be punished without our body being involved (hence fire in hell) that participated in the sin? Don't you know our resurrected body will reflect our life here on earth by participating in our greater damnation in hell or greater glory in heaven?
Your struggle is not uncommon to Christians, but will end once you see the wisdom of Christ who instituted a Church so that every mother trying to keep her home and children safe, need not spend her precious, but limited time, trying to figure out what this or that scripture meant. Christians separated from the Church do spend a great deal of their time trying to reinvent the wheel, so-to-speak, as they attempt to interpret sacred scripture which is not their vocation. On the contrary, the Church was charged with teaching, governing and sanctifying the faithful and, thanks be to God! ...and the faithful to live out their life marrying and giving in marriage, so as to increase the flock. This domestic Church we call family has been given the task of loving and cooperating with God in creating new human life. God wants us all to grow in Christ to a maturity that passes on the baton of marriage and family life. Pope Paul VI called this meaning of marriage the unitive and procreative aspects. Because God loves humanity and wants us to be with Him in heaven, He expects most of us to work with the Holy Spirit by generating new life within the sacred bond of matrimony. St. Paul even tells us sinners that we who are a little lower than the angels will be judging them in the resurrection, meaning God literally died for our love which combined with grace makes us fit for heaven.
So I encourage you to come back to the center of the Christian faith and embrace the Church's centuries old constant teaching. You will discover a freedom you never knew, that many non-Christians know in fact, who hold fast to God's plan for marriage without knowing it. My family knows the fruits of Christian marriage as us six kids now take care of our mother who is dying a little more every day, and that much closer to her reward in heaven. My father and mother were faithful to each other for 57 years until my dad passed on into the next life, where he will not endure the fires of eternal hell, but for a short time be purified in purgatory, then share an eternity in heaven, in a glorified body that reflects what he gave up here on earth for God and his family; only to be with God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well as the family he faithfully took care of for God.
You see this is the unspoken core of the Christian faith, which you and your followers miss, as you fumble around outside Christ's Church. So you see the bible is not our authority (only a person can hold authority; from the Latin root: author, auctor, to increase) but the Church who gave us the bible is our authority. If you spend your time chasing strange doctrines you will miss authentic Christian teaching. If you humor non-Christian doctrine to the detriment of Church teaching you will eventually succumb to their unorthodox ways. You will take on their misconceived ideas of human sexuality and live like the pagans who don't see the sanctity of human life and procreation. Our society has fallen into a sexual perversity where an "anything goes" culture mocks traditional morality, and denies God new human persons to be with Him in heaven. Even St. Paul saw this when he pointed out how being with a prostitute violates a spiritual bond, and that we participate in Christ even in our sexual activity, which by the way was designed and is sanctioned by God!
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