Several years ago, I had a dream in which God told me, “Everyone’s going to heaven.”
Well, that settles it.
Anybody wanna resurrect the Great God Debate? :eek:
Look, God loves you. Really. But those who are dead – or just waiting to die – do not have eternal life. There are those who are alive in Christ, however, because they keep his teachings and have done what they must do to have eternal life. Let the dead bury their dead – why must every book in the Bible be about us? Those who have eternal life need guidance also, and counciling them in humility is not a bad thing. It is lucky for them they have been saved and they know it. Now, some who have faith can perform miracles, but not all, and not all are given to performing the same miracles. Not all can convert others even. So, members of the Church should not be bragging because it may seem they have greater faith – God made people capable of different things though they should strive to do good anyway.
And now, the official version:
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God–
9 not because of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of
God–
Just whose doing is it then? It’s not mine. It clearly states that. It’s God’d doing. It seems to say to me…you didn’t do it, whatever your works were, it is a gift of God. Is there another way to interpret it?
There was once a father who had two sons.
To each son he made the gift of a vineyard and both sons were well pleased.
The first son took well care of his vineyard. Keeping it well weeded, removing the pests that came, and making sure the land was well tilled.
The second son thought upon his good fortune at the gift and sat back idly waiting for the rewards to come.
When harvest time came, the first son collected a plentiful bounty. But the second son, who never once set foot into his vineyard received no fruit at all.
“Father!” The second son cried, “Please grant me another gift of land so I might have a bountiful harvest like my brother!”
“My son,” the father replied, “I would give you all the land I have, for I love you, but would you gain anything of it?”
At hearing this the son hung his head, and hid his face in shame, knowing that one gains nothing if one does not use what they are given.
Ted wrote:
… such as the ability to reason, for example.
Or are you saying that everybody goes to heaven, but for those who don’t make good use of it, heaven is really really boring?
=] I’m saying that “gift” can mean a lot of things.
I didnt’ say a thing about heaven.
Only what you do with what you’re given.
Ted, this isn’t in the Bible, is it?
“Aren’t you lucky you were able to hear the teachings of Christ and recieve them and thus gain eternal life, unlike those others I spoke about two sentences ago?”
Grace = lucky.
saved = eternal life.
faith = following Christ’s teachings.
Book of Mendacities Chapter 5
If you want to go for Biblical though, try this from Matthew(NIV)
Personaly I think my own little on the fly parabel is a bit more feel good, but they both hold the similar idea that if you don’t use the “gift” you’re given, you’re screwed.
Book of Lies. LOL. That took me a minute.
True, but usually the “master and servant” parables explain how the children of darkness do things as an illustration of how the children of light should do things, whereas the “father and son(s)” parables are of a different ilk, which I guess is the relationship between God and his followers. Please refrain from cross-pollenating these in your mind. You would not have the master saying to the servant, “I love you and would gladly have given you a hundred talents” for example – the “children of darkness” don’t work like that.
Just a quickie:
(From Ted’s post above)
If that is not a quote from a song already, somebody ought to write a song that includes it! 
Oh, no. I totatly dissagree, (of course that’s what debates are about, aren’t they? =) at least if you mean that the “master” and the “father” aren’t both meant to represent God and “servant” and “son” aren’t each meant to represent his followers.
(If you mean only that the master/servant is generaly meant to show what happens to bad people wheras the father/son is meant to show God’s love then I accede your point. [though, at the moment I can only think of one such father/son parabel though.] )
The whole of Matthew 25 seems to be refering explcity about God and the Kingdom of Heaven, and what it means to not get in: