Our World: heaven

Showing posts with label heaven. Show all posts

Wednesday, 20 May 2020

In Coronatime thinking about death

None of us likes thinking about death, but there are times when we have little choice. For weeks now we did not hear anything else that so many died. Everywhere in the world lives are lost.

The unseen enemy has reached every corner of society, being rich does not help you to avoid the death toll. The so-called most rich, developed and greatest nation in the world shows its very weak position and how capital gain has become more important there than human lives of ethical values.

We could notice an increase at certain websites and received more letters and phone calls from worried people, asking why God allows this to happen or what mankind has done wrong. The corona crisis has unexpectedly raised the specter of death itself, our constant companion even if, most of the time, we do our best to ignore it.

This month Time Magazine has taken the opportunity to write about death, heaven and hell.

There are over two billion Christians in the world, the vast majority of whom believe in heaven and hell. According to many Christian when people die they would have one part, which they call the soul going either to everlasting bliss or torment (or purgatory en route). Strangely enough, most Christians believe in a loving heavenly Father, but do not ask a question about such a father when he would have his children being tortured for ages and ages in a fire! Can you imagine yourself doing that to your children, even when they would have hurt yourself a lot?

Americans continue to anticipate a version of the alternatives portrayed in The Good Place: regardless of religious persuasion, 72% believe in a literal heaven, 58% in a literal hell.

Do they never went or go looking in the Bible to see what the Word of God really says?

The vast majority of these people assume also Jesus himself taught such read. But that is not true. Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain. Though there were Roman and Greek philosophers who talked about split personalities or two or more elements in a human being that could separate from the physical human being. Only many centuries later those who agreed with the Roman rulers to go for a three-headed god, also were eager to integrate the thought of separate units in the human body with a soul going to one or another place.

Unlike most Greeks, ancient Jews traditionally did not believe the soul could exist at all apart from the body. On the contrary, for them, the soul was more like the “breath.” In particular for them it was the Breath of God Which brought the breath in man, making him able to breathe and to live. Without breathing or without breath there would be no life in man.

It is good that Time magazine in these times when so many are confronted with death, brings an article to clarify the misreading of so many books and in particular the reading of the Book of books, the Bible.
Bart D. Ehrman in his article of 2020 May the 8th is willing to look at the first human God created, Adam, who began as a lump of clay; then God “breathed” life into him (Genesis 2: 7). Adam remained alive until he stopped breathing. Then it was dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Ancient Jews thought that was true of us all. When we stop breathing, our breath doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops. So too the “soul” doesn’t continue on outside the body, subject to postmortem pleasure or pain. It doesn’t exist any longer.

In the article, you shall be able to read that it was not only by the Christians that opinions changed. In several Jewish communities infiltrated the false teachings. Problem with lots of human beings is that it is very difficult to cope with the idea that we just can die and that everything would be finished with us. Not many people love the idea that when we die we can not do anything any more. Though the scriptures are very clear about it.

“For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten.” (Ec 9:5 NAS)

“Whatever your hand finds to do, verily, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.” (Ec 9:10 NAS)

For many it is unacceptable that we would just be like plants and animals and not having something better after this life. But the Bible tells us:

“19 For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. 20 All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.” (Ec 3:19-20 NAS)

It must be said also God’s own people Israel continually were by their confrontation of difficulties in life oblidged to think about life and death.

The article writer questions

If God loves his people and is sovereign over all the world why do his people experience so much tragedy?

And remarks

Contrary to what other Jewish leaders taught, Jesus preached that no one will inherit the glorious future kingdom by stringently observing all the Jewish laws in their most intimate details; or by meticulously following the rules of worship involving sacrifice, prayer, and observance of holy days; or by pursuing one’s own purity through escaping the vile world and the tainting influence of sinful others. Instead, for Jesus, the earthly utopia will come to those who are fully dedicated to the most pervasive and dominant teachings of God’s law. Put most simply, that involves loving God above all things despite personal hardship, and working diligently for the welfare of others, even when it is exceedingly difficult. People who have not been living lives of complete unselfish love need to repent and return to the two “greatest commandments” of Jewish Scripture: deep love of God (Deuteronomy 6:4-6) and committed love of neighbor (Leviticus 19:18).

Please find the Time magazine to read: What Jesus Really Said About Heaven and Hell

Find more articles about the "soul"

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Articles about hell

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Heaven and hell still high on the believers list showing a religion gender gap

Typological groups according to the Pew Research Center. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A new Pew Research Center analysis of international census and survey data finds that there is a religion gender gap: Women generally are more religious than men by several key measures of religious commitment, although this pattern is not universal and can vary by religious tradition.

In some countries and faiths, men are more religious than women, at least by some measures. For instance, among Muslims and Orthodox Jews, men are more likely than women to attend worship services at least weekly, the new study finds.

Religiousness also can be measured by asking people how important religion is to them personally. In more than half of the 84 countries surveyed (46), roughly equal shares of men and women say that religion is “very important” to them. However, in 36 other countries, more women than men say religion is important in their lives – and usually by wide margins. As a result, across all 84 countries, women surpass men in this aspect of religious commitment by an average of 5 percentage points (65% vs. 60%). Only in Mozambique and Israel do men say that religion is very important to them more often than women do.

The biggest exception to the general pattern of women being more religious than men occurs in weekly attendance at worship services. Across the 81 countries where Pew Research Center data are available for this measure, more men than women attend worship at least once a week (48% vs. 42%).

This attendance gap is largely driven by 27 countries in the survey with large Muslim populations. In many Islamic societies, men are expected to attend communal Friday worship services in the mosque, while women can fulfill this obligation either inside or outside the mosque. There are similar religious norms regarding worship attendance among Orthodox Jews in Israel. As a result, men in these 28 countries report far greater rates of attendance than women, often by margins of at least 20 percentage points.

By contrast, in countries that have large Christian populations (30 of the 81 studied on this measure), women are more likely to report attending services weekly. And in 23 other countries, men and women report attending about equally.

According to an other Pew Research Center published last month, surveys in 63 countries have asked Muslims and Christians about belief in heaven, hell and angels and showed that lots of people are still convinced that they might be tortured for ever after they die or that they go to heaven when they are finished here on earth.

In 47 of the 63 countries (75%), men and women are about equally likely to profess a belief in heaven. Women are more likely to believe in heaven in 15 countries, often by margins of 5 percentage points or more.

Men and women in 52 of 63 countries (83%) are about equally likely to say they believe in hell. Women hold this belief more than men in 10 countries, while men surpass women in this belief in Lebanon. Overall, when the 63 countries are taken together, an average of 81% of women and 80% of men believe in hell.

Across all 63 countries, a greater share of women than men believe in angels by an average gap of 3 percentage points.

Looking at Christians only, there are just a handful of countries where the genders differ significantly in their beliefs in these concepts. A larger share of Christian men believe in heaven in only one country (Lebanon); Christian men are more likely than Christian women to believe in hell in two countries (the United States and Lebanon) and to believe in angels in one country (Zambia). On the other hand, more Christian women than Christian men profess belief in heaven in five countries (Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, Botswana and the United States), in hell in four countries (Kazakhstan, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chile) and in angels in nine countries (Kazakhstan, Russia, Uruguay, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Uganda and Guatemala).

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

This month's survey question: Heaven and Hell

Heaven and Hell: What does the Bible REALLY teach?

For centuries preachers went around bringing frightful ideas about places were people would be tortured for the sins they had done here on earth. It has been commonly believed by most professing Christians that heaven is the abode of the righteous dead where they experience everlasting joy and happiness, and that hell is the eternal abiding place of the wicked who are subject to never-ending torment in its unquenchable fires.

This month's survey question:
Is the Bible's Hell a flaming torture chamber?

Yes. Unrepentant sinners deserve what they get!
No. The word translated hell simply means the grave.
The notion of a fiery hell is nothing but empty superstition.
Hell is conscious eternal separation from God, not torture in flames.
Don't know.

Go to > http://www.thisisyourbible.com/

Thursday, 24 September 2009

A remaining name

"My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress'd on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace."

"He shall present my soul,
Unblemish'd and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joys divinely great"

"I, among the blood-wash'd throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the crown,
And shout loud victory"

"Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise"

- C. H. Spurgeon

C. H. Spurgeon, "The Prince of Preachers" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Saturday, 30 May 2009

The World framed by the Word of God

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1

"Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee." Nehemiah 9:6

"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." Job 26:7

"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent." Job 26:13

"A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." Psalm 24:1-2

"By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psalm 33:6

"The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land." Psalm 95:5

"Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands." Psalm 102:25

"To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever." Psalm 136:5-6

"He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." Jeremiah 10:12

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding." Isaiah 40:28

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." Isaiah 45:7

"Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together." Isaiah 48:13

"And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?" Isaiah 51:13

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." John 1:3

"And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is:" Acts 4:24

"Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?" Acts 7:49-50

"And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:" Acts 14:15

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;" Acts 17:24

"And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:" Ephesians 3:9

"Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;" Hebrews 1:2

"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:" Hebrews 1:10

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Hebrews 11:3
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The Bible

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > De Wereld tot stand gekomen door het Woord van God

Friday, 20 February 2009

We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory

“For our citizenship is in Heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, [the] Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our body of humiliation, for it to be conformed to His body of glory, according to the working of His power, even to put all things under Himself.” (Php 3:20-21 LIT)

“And from above the expanse that [was] over their heads [was] an appearance like a sapphire stone, the likeness of a throne. And on the likeness of the throne [was] a likeness in appearance like a man on it from above. And I saw [Him], like the color of polished bronze, looking like fire within it all around. From the appearance of His loins and upward, and from the appearance of His loins and downward, I saw [Him] looking like fire; and brightness to it all around. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of the rain, so appeared the brightness all around. This [was] the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah. And I saw, and I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of One speaking.” (Eze 1:26-28 LIT)

“But we all with [our] face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of [the] Lord in a mirror, are being changed [into] the same image from glory to glory, as from [the] Lord Spirit.” (2Co 3:18 LIT)

“Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it was not yet revealed what we shall be. But we know that if He is revealed, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” (1Jo 3:2 LIT)

“And they will not hunger still, nor will they thirst still, nor at all shall fall on them the sun, nor any kind of heat.” (Re 7:16 LIT)

“And they sing the song of Moses the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous [are] Your works, Lord God Almighty, righteous and true [are] Your ways, King of the saints.” (Re 15:3 LIT)

Dutch version / Nederlands > Omgevormd van de ene heerlijkheid tot de andere

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2013 update:

Thursday, 25 December 2008

With the gift of Jesus comes an awesome responsibility

See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?

Hebrews 12:25, New International Version

Dutch version / Nederlandss versie > Met het geschenk van Jezus komt een geweldige verantwoordelijkheid

With the gift of Jesus comes an awesome responsibility: we must listen, follow, and honor him! If God demanded that his people obey his lesser messengers who were prophets or kings, what do you think the responsibility is for us to listen when he has given his Son's glory so that it might shine on us?

Thank you, dear Father, for sending your Son and my Savior, Jesus. Please, dear LORD, I do not want to ever take that gift for granted. Please empower me and give me wisdom so that I can faithfully listen and serve Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.

Heart of Jesus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Welcome

Welcome at this zone created by Marcus Ampe for the Belgian Free Christadelphians, where previous articles from the MSN Groups and Multiply are brought together and made available again to the general public. On 2012 October 26 this site came into development and new articles shall be added next to our main site and to the Christadelphian Ecclesia site: Christadelphian Ecclesia.
You are welcome at that site to find more articles.

All who want to follow Jesus/Jeshua (Yeshua/Yahsua) from Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah and wants to be united with people who sincerely want to keep to those teachings of this masterteacher are welcome to share their love for Christ and their hope for the coming Kingdom.

The names "Christadelphia" and 'Christadelphian' is compounded of two Greek words: 'christos' and 'adelphoi' and means 'brethren in Christ'.

This site is created by a Free Christadelphian only bounded to Jesus Christ. We are open to anybody who wants to share the brotherly love of Christ. Coming together by a common belief in 'the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ' (Acts 8:12).

In the older Multiply messages links to Multiply shall not always work from 2012 December 1, but you shall be able to find them by copying and pasting the title in the search machine. I have worked on re-editing those links from 2005 onwards, so that they could work in the future, but it became a to much time consuming job, so I stopped doing it after a while. (My apologies for certain links not working any more.)

Thanks for visiting us and hope to see you again.

Welkom

Wij wensen allen welkom die hier op deze pagina's terecht komen en hopen dat zij geïnspireerd mogen geraken om verder de Bijbel ter hand te nemen en zelf op onderzoek te gaan wat er in de Heilige Schrift werkelijk staat.

De namen "Christadelphia" en "Christadelphian" is een samentelling van twee Griekse woorden : "Christos" en "adelphoi" en betekent 'broer in Christus'. De Christadelphians zijn een groep van mensen die samen verbonden zijn door hun gemeenschappelijk geloof betreffende de dingen aangaande het Koninkrijk van God en de naam van Jezus Christus (Jeshua, de Messias) (Handelingen van de Apostelen 8v12).
Christadelphian mensen zouden tot een wereldwijde gemeenschap moeten behoren, wiens doel is zo trouw als mogelijke de leerstelling en voorbeeld van Jezus/Jehsua Christus te volgen, zoals het geregistreerd staat in de Bijbel.
In een wereld die vol is van onzekerheden genieten wij van een eenvoudig, rechtstreeks en logisch geloof, dat nu al vrede en voldoening aanbiedt en de belofte van het nog te komen eeuwigdurende vreugderijk: het Koninkijk van God.

Op deze site, gecreëerd door Marcus Ampe voor de Vrije Belgische Christadelphians, of Broeders in Christus, zijn in oktober 2012 de vroegere berichten uit de MSN Groepen en Multiply samen gebracht en terug zichtbaar gemaakt voor het algemeen publiek.

Meerdere linken in de vroegere artikelen zullen vermoedelijk niet werken, maar u kan de titel dan kopiëren en plakken in het "Zoek" venster om zo bij het juiste artikel te komen. Ik maakte er werk van om de artikelen vanaf 2005 terug te editen en daarin de linken te vernieuwen, zodat zij terug zouden werken. Maar dit vroeg zo veel tijd dat ik het heb opgegeven. Daarom verzoek ik mij te verontschuldigen indien u een link tegen komt die niet meer werkt.

Vanaf 26 oktober 2012 is deze website opengesteld naar het publiek en zullen er in de toekomst nog enkele artikelen bij komen. Maar de meerderheid van de teksten zullen nu geplaatst worden op de site van de Vlaamse Broeders in Christus of Christadelphians en op de kerkgemeenschapssite
Christadelphian Ecclesia.

Graag ontmoeten wij u daar voor meerdere artikelen.

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Wednesday, 20 May 2020

Find more articles about the "soul"

Articles about hell

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

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Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Thursday, 24 September 2009

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Saturday, 30 May 2009

Friday, 20 February 2009

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Thursday, 25 December 2008

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