A Fundamentalist View of Hell

[TurningIntoDavid]

Rob, that's beautiful!

Maybe this is a sign that I'll never be a fundy preacher, but I love it when other people's arguments make sense.

I think the point of evangelism depends on the point of the atonement, and the nature of the good news that we're spreading. How I would phrase it is something like...

Quote:All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (II. Corinthians 5:18-20, Non-Inspired Version)

So the good news, then, would be that God has come to earth. That God has died for our sins. That Christ is risen, and we shall too be risen with him. That we are bound as slaves to sin no more, but free - free to serve Christ!

(04-16-2012 03:35 PM)Donb123 Wrote:  But Jesus did say we were to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. I'm thinking I'd rather not bother with all that and he shouldn't have put that burden on me if it's rather unnecessary.

That, to me, sounds incredibly tragic. But unnecessary for what? For keeping out of hell? What if we've misunderstood Jesus (imagine, ex-fundies wondering if they've misunderstood Jesus - yet again!) and He's talking about people who want to follow Him where He's going? What if He's come to set a fire on the earth, one that He wishes was already started? What if He didn't come to condemn the world, but to save it? And what if being His disciple meant being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and what if that meant something radically different than going to heaven when you die? What if, instead of Christ's central goal being onlyto take us to heaven, His goal was to bring heaven to us? To start a new sort of kingdom, a kingdom of love?