Posted on Tuesday,

What Do Christians Believe About Hell? [Podcast]

When it comes to the topic of Hell, everyone has questions: How could a loving God send people to hell? Is hell forever? Will everyone be saved in the end? What about those who have never heard of Jesus? Did Jesus really believe in hell?

The most important thing you need to know about hell (and heaven too!)

Have you found this blog helpful? You can have it delivered right to your inbox in one easy step.

Miss our latest podcast? Subscribe with iTunes I RSS

Posted on Tuesday,

If I Had been born in India, would I Have been a Hindu?

The short answer to this question is that nothing really follows (with logical necessity) from where I happen to be born; the truth or falsity of a religion is not determined by where someone is born. Paul Copan responds, “the same line of reasoning applies to the pluralist himself. If the pluralist grew up in Madagascar or medieval France, he would not have been a pluralist!” Furthermore, this question seems to imply that people can’t escape the cultural views they were born into. Also, the number of conversions from within closed countries to a different belief system undercut the weight of this objection. Finally, the notion of the Christian God’s providential ordering of the world rules out people being born somewhere by historical accident:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of you.” – Acts 17:24-27

Did Humans Invent God?

ThinkChristianly.org

Think Christianly on Twitter

Welcome to College

thinkChristianly Podcast

Posted on Friday,

Are Christians “stingy” for believing in the cross as a substitutionary atonement for our sins and the reality of hell? Dan Kimball says NO

I came across an interesting article by Dan Kimball in Outreach magazine. Here is a very perceptive excerpt in light of the recent cultural conversation regarding Love Wins by Rob Bell and its impact on evangelism:

Evangelism de-emphasized further. Another critical concern centers on the potential evangelistic ramifications of believing that all are saved (even through Jesus). Some have said that if we even resist the possibility that all are saved in the end, we have a “stingy” view of salvation. I find that comment almost offensive. As I said before, I would love to believe that all are saved in the end. But my personal convictions and years of studying Scripture and church history won’t allow that.

Believing in the cross as a substitutionary atonement for our sins and the reality of hell isn’t “stingy.” It would be if I delighted in the truth that all aren’t saved or became self-focused and didn’t do anything about it. But I and many others want to see God’s forgiveness shared so abundantly with other people that we have devoted ourselves to being on mission. We have started churches, taken risks and given our all to see people experience the grace, love and freedom found in Jesus in this life—and after we die.

Thinking about someone who will not experience being with God in heaven for all eternity grieves and horrifies us. And then motivates us to do something about it. That’s so much of what the church’s mission has been and is about. It’s what you see driving Jesus’ disciples in the book of Acts as they went out to speak about judgment, repentance, being “saved” and explained the Gospel as both kingdom now and future. How would Acts read if the disciples had believed everyone was eventually saved? We do need to study Jesus’ wise words on experiencing the kingdom in this life, but don’t forget that He also talked about judgment and afterlife, as did Peter, Paul, John and the writer of Hebrews. It seems that if the disciples had embraced a universal reconciliation view of everyone being saved, it would have totally taken the steam out of their message of urgency. How would Paul’s famous message at Mars Hill be different if he believed that all those worshipping other gods would eventually be saved in the end?

Read the rest of this article.

Did Humans Invent God?

ThinkChristianly.org

Think Christianly on Twitter

Welcome to College

thinkChristianly Podcast

Posted on Monday,

More Thoughts On Preaching the Simple Gospel

Is apologetics, philosophy, and worldview training really necessary? After all, shouldn’t we just preach the simple gospel and leave all that “intellectual stuff” to the academics? Nancy Pearcey offers good insight here that I agree with:

“The ultimate goal is to preach the gospel. But the gospel is not simple to those whose background prevents them from understanding it. Today’s global secular culture has erected a maze of mental barriers against even considering the biblical message” (Saving Leonardo, 15).

Recently I spoke at our church on Is Jesus the Only Way to God? There are few statements that are more politically incorrect than that one. But Jesus did not shy away from making culturally unpopular statements, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Among other things, Christianity teaches the exclusivity and uniqueness of Jesus (cf. Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5).

But according to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life study (2009) based on interviews with 35,000 adults and out of a sample size of 9472 Evangelicals, a startling 57% of Evangelical adults agreed with the statement “many religions can lead to eternal life.” That is not good soil for the Gospel to take root in!

There are many observations to make here, but I want to highlight just one. When Christians say that Jesus is the only way to God, what our culture hears is “We think Butterfinger is the best candy bar and consumers of all other candy bars are going to hell.” And that would be a ridiculous claim. Many think Christians are imposing our particular religious preferences on others.

But that is not why Jesus is the only way to God. As my friend Brett Kunkle has pointed out, Jesus offers both the diagnosis and the cure. Jesus is the only way because he is the only medicine that can cure the spiritual disease that is killing us…sin (John 8:24). That is the claim and it’s either true or false.

The simple Gospel is getting lost in translation because of the background beliefs people have today about faith, God, religion, and morality—these are no longer considered objects of knowledge in our culture. Now more than ever, we must help people see that faith is reasonable, Christianity is a knowledge tradition, and that belief in God is not religious wishful thinking (2 Cor. 10:3-5). Christianity can be investigated with eyes wide open (Luke 1:1-4). So boldly proclaim the simple Gospel but also do the hard work necessary so that others can understand what Jesus is actually claiming.