Fire Insurance

[Misty]

I wonder if some Christians, especially those of the more fundamentalist persuasion, see their faith as fire insurance? It seems to do little else for them that is for sure. What is the point in having a faith if it doesn't make you a person others relate to, and want to know, rather than making them run a mile?

[ChaosBorders]

Doing the right thing has nothing to do with faith, just humanity, imo.

Eh, for some of us our faith allows us to believe there even is a right thing. We may be wrong, but just believing there is one allows us to try and do it just because we think it is right. Previous to gaining my faith I was increasingly of the opinion moral nihilism was the most logical answer in absence of God and acted accordingly.

A God who would send anyone to hell doesn't deserve any respect, let alone worship!

Depends on the reasons, imo. If it's absolutely necessary and God has no other options, I can understand it. But certainly the reasons given by the biblical view are lame and there are plenty of other options, so I can totally understand a lack of respect or desire to worship the view presented by fundamentalists.

What I don't totally understand though is how fundamentalists arrive at their particular view of Hell. Both annihilitionism (if you want oblivion, you'll eventually get it) and Universal Reconciliation (Hell is at worst temporary and probably effectively voluntary) are both much more strongly supported from a biblical standpoint, in my opinion.

[Benoni]

Job 32:9 & 13 says, "Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged always understand judgment. Lest ye should say: we have found out wisdom - God thrusteth him down, not man." Job's three friends mistakenly thought that the sole purpose of God's judgement is punitive.

I agree that they were mistaken, however:

They could not comprehend that the purpose of judgement is always to bring about a restoration or an advancement into the ways of the Lord.

In what way do you figure that Job's situation was the result of judgment? As you point out:

God was already pleased with Job

Further, though ultimately

he had a plan that would make Job even better.

is technically a true statement,

Job was a perfect man, but his perfection needed to be tested.

is illogical in that an omniscient being has no true need of 'testing' someone. At least not by any standardly used conception of a 'test'.

Job said, "God knoweth the way that I take, and when He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold. For HE performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with Him." Job 23:10 & 14. God has prepared a special kind of testing for each individual. In Job 32.13, Elihu said, "God thrusteth Job down, and not man." We can well add, "And not Satan, either!" God takes the full responsibility for every person's fall. These are parts of His ways. All negative forces are as a dog on a leash. They can only do what they are allowed to do by the Hand that holds the leash. The perplexities, the trials, the testings, the pressures and the failures are all God's responsibility

Except for the testing part, that is all a fair inference from the book of Job. However:

and it will all be worked into our good.

That just plumb falls out of the book of Job completely. When interpreting it through the lens of new testament writings and a belief in heaven, it is perhaps understandable how one arrives at this conclusion. But if taken on its own, tacking on 'and it will all be worked into our good' completely misses the original point. Job spends a large portion of the book discussing God's seemingly harsh treatment of the innocent while the wicked prosper, with no apparent justice involved and no expectation of the rewards he ended up receiving. All of his friends argue against him, but God vindicates Job. Making the conclusion that 'it will all be worked into our good' is entirely outside of the scope of this book.

So though I agree with a lot of your conclusions, some of them are simply not supportable using Job.

Job is a perfect example of the overcomer and why we are here. It was God who ask Satan about Job. Testing and trials is what makes sons not servants.

Job 1:8And the LORD said to Satan, "Have you(N) considered my(O) servant Job , that there is none like him on the earth,(P) a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?" 9Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for no reason? 10Have you not put(Q) a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have(R) blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11But(S) stretch out your hand and(T) touch all that he has, and he will(U) curse you(V) to your face." 12And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand." So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

God is in control of all things; sure He limited what Satan could do; for a reason because God is always in complete control of all things to include Satan. But it was God who was the one who introduced Satan to Job “Have you(N) considered my(O) servant Job�. It was God who took down the hedge from around Job so Satan to do his work on job. It was the process of tribulation and trial God was after; to prove Job.

Just like the Children of Israel: The Children of Israel could of taken 9 days to cross the wilderness. BUT No God led them for forty years. Now we are walking in this wilderness of life for the same reason:

Deut 8:1-2
All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers. 2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments. (KJV)

In His great victory over the power of Satan He was a sign that pointed unerringly to another company of overcoming sons. In all the churches of Revelation there were two classes of people — those who were overcomers and those who were not. It is to the overcomers that the glorious promises are given, for they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, have partaken of His mind and of His will, and thus are equipped to reign in His kingdom.

Thus to them it is said: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Rev. 2:7. "He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." Rev. 2:11. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." Rev. 2:17. "He that overcometh and keepeth My works to the end, to him will I give/wnw over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessel of the potter shall they be broken to shivers even as I received of My Father, and I will give him the morning star." Rev. 2:26-28. "He that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God which cometh down out of heaven from my God and I will write upon him my new name." Rev. 3:12, 13. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne even as I overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne." Rev. 3:21. "He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

[Benoni]

Doing the right thing has nothing to do with faith, just humanity, imo.

A God who would send anyone to hell doesn't deserve any respect, let alone worship!

Amen

[Cathar1950]

I wonder if some Christians, especially those of the more fundamentalist persuasion, see their faith as fire insurance? It seems to do little else for them that is for sure. What is the point in having a faith if it doesn't make you a person others relate to, and want to know, rather than making them run a mile?

This reminds me of a joke a friend and I shared some 30+ years ago.
He was dismayed when someone said Jesus was fire insurance.
Granted much of TV ministries and some evangelicals act like that is what they are doing.

But it is such a base view of Christianity and hardly seems worthy of any god.
I found a bumper sticker that said "Only Jesus could prevent eternal fires" as a joke.
My friend tended to take being a follower of Jesus seriously and felt it was in humans to see the world through the sympathtic eyes of God not a cheap easy out for believing the unbelivable.'

[Benoni]

Winepusher,
And you use the word "fire" as a metaphor to allude to what.



Please explain to me the difference between the cloven tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost had fully come and the fire in the lake of fire in The Book of Revelation?

What does this have to do with anything.

Are you avoiding my question? This is serious information that should be looked at. I mean you religious men believe Jesus is going to torture billions with fire? But you cannot address verses in the Bible in reference to "fire"?


Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

Mark 9:49 For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

Luke 3:16 John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:

Luke 3:17 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable

Do you know anything about farming, the chaff is the outer (flesh) of the wheat until the wheat is mature the chaff and the wheat are the same and cannot be separated.


1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:


So what is the difference? There is none.

[Guest]

We should never view suffering in a negative way. We should always see it as a totally positive handiwork of God that will always have excellent results, without any defeat whatsoever. In all Job's suffering He did not attribute folly to God. Job 1:22. God Himself is fully responsible for all of our negative situations. The statement is true that was made by a man of God back in the eighteen hundreds: "

Job 1:22 (In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.) is pretty early in the account of Job. If you read on after 1:22, you will see lots of times that Job accused God of injustice toward him. Job could not understand why God would allow these things to happen to him since he himself thought he was righteous. Suffering IS suffering. It is NOT something anyone enjoys or it would not be called suffering. Hence, to suggest that "it should not be viewed negatively" would suggest that anyone who is complaining about suffering is living in some kind of deception. This "positive" thinking theology would NOT have served anyone well at Auchswitz. IMHO