Dear Doug: I will COMMENT in your email...............
Dear Ray,
Thank you, thank you for your site. I started to read a series of 4 books written in the 1850's which stated that the doctrine about hell was a fallacy and went into detail about how the words 'aeon' and so on had been written as 'eternity' rather than 'a long period of time'. Well, what I read really scared me at the time but also stuck with me as it made more sense and was more in line with God's character.
Anyway, I've been reading some of your articles and was literally jumping for joy after reading some of them - my faith has massively been increased - so thank you.
I have two questions which I understand you may not have time to answer. But even if you have an answer on the site, please point me in that direction.
a) I've already been accused of being a nutcase and I am fairly sure it is because I contradicted the established teaching on hell. This I can sort of expect but I wondered if you had written about how to go about sharing this new news with people in a way that at least gets them curious?
COMMENT: Every situation is different. I sometimes ask questions like this to those who feel so self-assured about people being tortured in hell for all eternity: "Would you have trouble torturing your own grandmother in real fire for all eternity if God asked you to do it?" Yes? Are you more holy than GOD?
b) I read tweleve truths of scripture and completely agree that the scriptures point to Jesus fulfilling Isaiah 7 and not wanting the people to understand what he taught. However, I wanted to point out the following and get you take on it. Jesus used parables for sure and also used a lot of, what is the right word?, hyperbole 'cut off your arm, hate your mother etc'. I take this as referring to the level of spiritual radicalness we are called to have.
COMMENT: Yes, of course, Jesus used such figures of speech in His teaching. Se my paper at the top of our home page: "YOU FOOLS! YOU HYPOCRITES! YOU SNAKES!"
God be with you,
Ray
My pastor says, however, that exageration, is very much part of the natural Jewish culture and it has made me wonder whether some of the statements about 'to them the secrets of the kingdom have not been given' are also subject to this cultural exageration. After all, I when Jesus says ' I want to gather Jerusalem under my wings like a mother hen and her chicks' or even somewhere it says 'God has feathers' we don't take that literally but look at the principles behind it.
Is this possible? I am seeking to understand cultural context for this.
Many thanks Ray, your writing is strengthening my faith.
Doug
