Hell?
Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with colleagues around hell, wrath and judgement. It was prompted by reading M'Cheyne. Towards the end of his life he seemed to preach a lot on hell: "in the last 9 months of his ministry he preached on hell at least 4 time to his own congregation". I've just read a couple with great titles like:
"Future punishment eternal"
"The vessels of wrath fitted to destruction".
I asked 2 questions: Have we lost something by not talking about these things so much?
If that was a message for the people of his day (to promote living faith in church attenders) then what is the message for our day?
Not sure we came to any conclusions, but we had a variety of views!
The last time I posted on this subject was last year when Mclaren's The Last word... was a hot topic. Andrew Jones ran a poll on "is the gospel primarily information on how to avoid hell?" (I think I went for a view somewhere in the middle - which seems most people did!).
Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with colleagues around hell, wrath and judgement. It was prompted by reading M'Cheyne. Towards the end of his life he seemed to preach a lot on hell: "in the last 9 months of his ministry he preached on hell at least 4 time to his own congregation". I've just read a couple with great titles like:
"Future punishment eternal"
"The vessels of wrath fitted to destruction".
I asked 2 questions: Have we lost something by not talking about these things so much?
If that was a message for the people of his day (to promote living faith in church attenders) then what is the message for our day?
Not sure we came to any conclusions, but we had a variety of views!
The last time I posted on this subject was last year when Mclaren's The Last word... was a hot topic. Andrew Jones ran a poll on "is the gospel primarily information on how to avoid hell?" (I think I went for a view somewhere in the middle - which seems most people did!).
2 Comments:
Well, I think hell is an often avoided topic, simply because it makes non-believers uncomfortable. We're supposed to be reaching these people, right? But hey, we're not Methodist. We do believe there is a hell, and that those who don't choose a personal relationship with Jesus are going there! So why not tell the non-Christians that? It's not a scare tactic, it's the truth. I think ministers drift away from it because they don't want people to choose Jesus for the wrong reasons? If hell isn't a good reason to choose Jesus, then I don't know what is. Maybe that's just me. I dunno.
Thanks ally - maybe a little harsh on the Methodists though!!
I guess part of my thinking is that many people here in the UK know so litte about God, telling them they're going to hell (as some do) may not be the best place to start!
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