Misinterpretation of the Bible's message

[rshanen]

The misinterpretation of the Bibles message is obviously a very big problem, I grew up in a church that stressed that God is Love and Jesus loves you. Love the sinner, hate the sin. That type of stuff. However, when I dug deeper into the word I found things like "God will send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie" and stuff about God creating "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" I spent many years trying to figure out why the large majority of church leaders never wanted to talk about this part of God. People often love to quote Jn 3:16, a truly beautiful scripture, but many seem to ignore scripture like 2 Thes 1: 7-9 " And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the Glory of his power." As this is a Christian forum about Christian scripture I think it is appropriate to use scripture to get my point across. With the bible being so misunderstood, and very likely by me too, I understand some will totally disagree with me. I still enjoy the fellowship.

 

[artybloke]

However, when I dug deeper into the word I found things like "God will send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie" and stuff about God creating "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction"

Perfect example of "taking something out of context and reading what you want out of it." Taking the big fundie scissors to the Bible and ignoring the literary and historical context of the passage. Cut-n-paste theology, as practised by demogogue preachers through time immemorial. Treating the Bible as a kind of magic formula.

 

[CShephard53]

Hell is a place invented by the powerful to scare the powerless into doing what they say.

I see you're still taking your big fundie scissors to the Bible by the way...



Tradition is fine as far as it goes... but it doesn't trump knowledge of the facts... The tradition can be wrong; though it should always be taken seriously.

Hell is a place created by the powerful to scare? Prove it, Arty. Show evidence instead of the same claims that it was supposedly rigged up by the church leaders.