Aug13
Control & Manipulation
The biggest complaint about “divine judgment” versus HELL (and no one has a grasp on divine judgment, but visions of hell of course) is that to abandon the “ideas of hell” would be to lose control. Lose control? Lose control you say! Jesus is not about control. Jesus is about coming to freedom from the position of love. If love doesn’t win you over, nothing will! The God of the Bible (the real one) wins by His weakness. Think about it.
Eric Bonhoffer said that one of his biggest and earliest battles with the church was his rejection of the evangelistic “scare-tacrics” of the church. Our focus should be on God’s love, compassion, mercy, and grace rather than what He might or might not do when we do soemthing wrong. And yet, that’s where way too much of the church lives.
It’s great to encourage repentance, but to do so with the threat of hell if one doesn’t misses the mark!
Can you say SIN?
Can you say blackmail?
We don’t have to scare, manipulate, or threaten people into the Kingdom. As Robert Johnston put it, “Too much of traditional preaching on hell has sought to win converts through “power plays” rather than through grace. And while it might work as a temporary fix, or a bandaid, it’s not a long-term solution at all.
Love is the answer!
Curious Aug 24th 2007 at 11:19 am 1
Doesn’t Jesus say in the book of Luke to preach repentance. (Luke 24:46-49 to give it a little perspective)
What is the magical formula for doing this and still acting in Love and not bringing our own theology and agenda’s in the equation?
How are we to tell people that we love them, that God loves them and that we accept them, all while telling them that they need to repent. It all seems logically contradictive.
Ernie Aug 24th 2007 at 12:02 pm 2
You don’t use those words- that word. You SHOW them WHAT repentance is by how you love, forgive, and live a life on non-judgmental self righteousness. Follow the man, Jesus. Remember the woman taken in adultery? He forgave her, loved her, and said be FREE and GO, and don’t be put in this situation again (in other words repent- done lovingly).