Questions From Without: Hell and the Bible 1

My friend, Scott Truman, wrote a comment to the previous post and suggested three passages where he wants me to apply McLaren's matrix. Scott thanks for the thoughtful response. We'll use your texts for conversation.

The matrix McLaren suggests is to: Identify the Passage; Identify the Behavior it addresses; What is the Consequence; What's the Point the text is making.

Passage: Matthew 13:24ff - The Parable of the Sower and the Seed
Behavior: Being weeds and bearing no fruit, no harvest. Everything that causes sin, all who do evil are
included in this passage. Being either counter to the Gospel or unproductive.
Consequence: Thrown into the fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Point: Bear fruit; hear and respond to the message, the good news.

Let's start at the end to think about this passage. Jesus wants his hearers to repent, turn, receive the good news of his coming and bear the fruit of relationship with him. The fruit is that others will come, not that they be turned away.

I had a professor in seminary who said that the purpose of this passage was to find the good soil and only sow the Gospel in that receptive ground. My hand flew up in protest and I was summarily dismissed. I believe the greater context of this passage is to say that God's message and salvation is so abundant in grace and mercy it can be spread over all kinds of soils in the attempt that it will find a place to grow. There is abundance not scarcity in this passage. Abundance of what? Grace and Good News.

I believe with McLaren that the intense language of the New Testament as regards hell and judgment, is intended to cause us to take seriously Jesus admonitions. I don't believe it is intended to create a kind of scenario that results in a "turn or burn" mentality. God is not interested in our burning, he is interested in our turning. God doesn't give up on those who reject him, but he warns us that we are in a serious and perilous spot.

So many times Christians use these passages to support our separation from those who don't believe. We quote them or hold on to them to justify our position as being right and good. We're safe, those sinners are in trouble, just like Jesus says.

Jesus however uses these illustrations to motivate those on the inside of the faith. The message is a positive one: bear fruit. It isn't the judgment against the world that Jesus is talking about, it's against those who seem to think that they know him. Can we hear his voice? Every time I preach or teach the Bible, once I understand the context of the passage, I consider the fact that it is first a word to me before it is a word to others. It is what is called "standing under the Word." Take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

I believe we'll discover that these passages are more like this, than they are condemnation for the lost. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. It seems his harshest criticism is for those who say "I see, I hear, I speak" and are blind, deaf and dumb.

Comments

[SC]

Does God send people to hell?

http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/category/hell/

[Chris Pritchett]

I recently heard Mark Labberton preach a sermon on this passage. It was perhaps, the most thoughtful and refreshing takes on the passage I've ever heard. Maybe you'd appreciate it too. The title is "The Secret of the Kingdom" and was preached on 3-4-07. You can find it here: http://www.fpcberkeley.org/avms.asp?seriesid=7