Last I talked with one they had “Paradise” as an annex for those who don’t make the final cut – the JV team, I suppose.
Odd. I seem to recall hearing about this thing called the Kingdom of Heaven which is in our midst, indicating that Heaven starts now.
“Programmed”?
Seems you think the Devil is in charge of Heaven.
I once heard a Methodist preacher suggest that while sinning ends up in boredom and despair, doing good has infinite possibilities. This would mean that it is only in only wanting to do good that freedom is found.
This is not Heaven. Perhaps you misunderstood what Jesus was talking about.
Ahh, the joys of literal thinking.
(Read John 16ff)
Richard
Current JW population = 8.6 million. Assuming every JW that went before us didn’t make it, the chance of getting into heaven if you convert to JW is 1.67%… and that decreases with everyone you convert.
Correct. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Everyone goes to heaven and is already in heaven. We spread the Gospel so everyone can start enjoying it.
Even if the first clause is true, the second is not. Heaven is accessible to everyone, but that’s not the same.
That’s actually a very disputable translation of ἐντὸς (en-TOHS): when it is connected with a plural, as it is here with ὑμῶν (hu-MOAN) which is second person plural (rendered in most of my Greek classes with “y’all”), the rendering “in the midst” or “among” y’all seems more likely. Additionally, if it is rendered “within” there are two problems: first, that would not be true of those He was actually addressing, the Pharisees; second, ἐντὸς can be used of something inside a set of boundaries or limits when not all things within those limits are included, and that fits Luke’s down-to-earth view of things better than the rather mystical “within you”. Here then the “boundary” would be the crowd who are listening, and within that boundary the Kingdom is to be found. The Kingdom cannot include these Pharisees who are probably once again trying to entrap Jesus and thus must be found within His audience while not including them.
There’s another problem with the “within you” reading: in Luke 9, Jesus tells the disciples, "…some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.” Here the Kingdom is presented as something that can be seen, an idea reinforced by the next event in Luke’s account: the Transfiguration. There on the mount, the Kingdom was not “within them”, it was evident in the brilliant radiance from Jesus’ face and clothes and the presence of Moses and Elijah. To match that to the situation in chapter 17, it makes the most sense that the Kingdom is still present in the form of Jesus and His companions, the disciples, or possibly just Jesus Himself.
[An interesting suggestion maybe worth mentioning rests on the fact that the original text lacks punctuation; it proposes shifting the quotation marks thusly:
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There! For look! The kingdom of God is in your midst!'"
While it’s creative I don’t find it convincing.]
The way this is stated, the missionary would be wrong to say yes, but the answer to the question isn’t “no” either. It is not knowledge that saves – that is Gnosticism. The missionary may say they would be saved if the missionary had not come for many reasons. For example, he may say this because he confident that God would send someone else – and the point is that God is the one responsible for salvation not us. But of course the way you put it, was whether salvation depends on knowledge.
Knowledge is not unimportant. It is a tool which can be used in many ways. It is not the answer. It is more of a question. It is power and the question is how we use it. It is how it all began with the knowledge which made us human. Shall we throw away our humanity and become animals just because some might use human abilities for evil. Yours is similar to the suggestion we strangle babies in the cradle because they might become criminals and do bad things. This refusal of the challenge of life is actually the essence of evil itself. Yeah I know, you didn’t choose to be alive. That is a choice we logically can never have. We can only choose what to do with life now that we have it.
And that’s why I say so everyone can start enjoying it. Your not enjoying or accessing heaven if you do not know that is where you are. You don’t have to die or go anywhere to get to heaven. You do have to die to your old self though to be born again in the Kingdom.
Quoting from the KJV “you” is second person plural. It would say “thee” if it was singular. “You” still can mean plural as well as singular today, but because we stopped using the singular form, we now clarify that its plural by adding “you guys” or "y’all, etc.
Why not? It is accessible within the Pharisees as with everyone else. It is a collective you… within you, and you there, and you over there. We all together make up the body of Christ. We collectively make up the Kingdom of God (heaven).
Sounds like that is based on context. Is there another word that should be used instead for including everything within a boundary?
That is because to “see” the Kingdom is to understand that it is spiritually discerned.
Yes but the Kingdom could not fully come within us when we are looking here and there for Jesus in a physical form. He could not bring the Holy Spirit without going away.
John 16:5-16
But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.
The Holy Spirit is the return of Christ.
That is a “paradox” I never heard of. Jesus did say “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations” in Matthew 28. So the problem with such a paradox as you have stated, is that it violates some basic things. “There is no other name by which we may be saved” and a few other things in the biblical text make it REALLY unconvincing to think that “ignorance is entirely bliss.” After all, there is likely NO such society that does not have some “sense of things” --whether it is tribes who sacrifice a beating human heart to the Sun God or throw virgins off a cliff to appease some other deity ??? or other things we do not know of.
Ignorance is not necessarily really bliss. A deity Who paid the price, does not demand someone’s pulsating organ dripping with warm blood–or a carcass splattered at the foot of a cliff-----Who sounds better?.
And Someone — at any rate — did have to pay the price for our ill will and ignorance. I don’t think avoiding evangelism “at all” on the thought that this might “save more people” – is sensible.
Jesus weighs each life. “No man comes to the Father but my Me.” Not having infinite knowledge and infinite judgment, what remains is mere guessing. My own guess is that Knowledge of Christ is fine, since the more you know about souls and sin, the more your knowledge of kindness and love can both save and convict you.
The real bottom line is the importance of Christ’s love and perspective, how I relate to those around me, affects the unfolding of Christ into the civilization itself. We are individuals; none of us is going to define a civilization in Christ’s likeness. But in the aggregate, the more of us who have Christ in our hearts, the better the totality becomes.
Jesus deals with us on-on-one; “Ours not to question why, ours merely to do and die in Christ” parodying The Charge of the Light Brigade.
On earth our choices are rooted in fleshly need. Christian action works against the stress of that need. In other words our choices are constrained by sin. Paul said that the good he wanted to do did not happen and the bad that he wanted often did occur; as human he was hobbled by a sinful nature
Heaven frees us from those pressures, leaving us free to desire but always in a non-sinful way. To show remorse for the “freedom to choose” embodies a freedom to choose selfishly. Heaven will give us perfect bodies yet neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Some of course envision "perfect bodies "as a continual group grope without disease or pregnancy or jealousy, building on an earthly vision of the pleasures of the flesh.
How else, rather, than to expect Heaven’s pleasures to be all-filling, and relational, of the spirit, where pleasure consists in communion rather than pure self? Programming is a poor choice of words for this.
Aw shucks! It’s back to dry bread, water and vitamin supplements. Can’t stimulate the taste buds, that would be a sin.
I mean, look at the Pope, he lives in such squalor. If the Catholic Church sold the Vatican they could end poverty instead of wasting billions on staffing and upkeep.
Human instincts are sin?
Are you real?
Richard
I’ve not heard this before. Not in any church I’ve attended. Your premise here is dependent on your theology, which you will need to back up.
I think it’s a tough one. At what point do we consider knowledge to be essential to eventual salvation? If God is able to view a person’s heart, is that all He needs for a relationship–repentance and forgiveness?
On the one end, I think we can even be gnostic; on the other, we can ignore some pretty helpful theology that many have said is life changing.
My church is very much fundamentalist–so this would not at all jive with their theology, either.
Exactly. The writer if the OP assumes there is only one view and bases his trick question on that.
I am not advocating here for any particular view on the relationship between knowledge, salvation and damnation, but showing a logical problem in the OP.
Yes, I am glad you brought this up, and also @bluebird1 . I was puzzling over this. Thanks
Thanks, Randy. I missed @bluebird1 's post/s. Only had time to skim.
“Accessible” is not the same as present.
That’s a distributive “you”, which generally takes the singular.
Don’t spiritualize the text when there’s no reason in the text to do so.
No, the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. The return of Christ will be like His departure/ascension.
Studies have been done on this, and it isn’t true: they would still need all the office space, which would mean acquiring property and doing construction. Even if they auctioned the place and its contents, the result would only help the poor for a few years.
You missed the point.
Materialism? Yes Scriptural? Probably .Practical? No.
People use Scripture to justify or criticise lifestyles. I would claim that this was not one of the primary functions of Scripture. It is simplistic and in general impractical…
I guess it boils down to whether the eye of a needle was physically possible or not. And even then how much hyperbolae was involved.
RIchard
But to not be present, makes you inaccessible. Christ going to the Father makes him omnipresent.
We are collectively the body of Christ.
Christ returns with “clouds”. The root word for cloud according to Strong’s is nephos: “a dense crowd, a multitude, great company.” The Holy Spirit is Christ within each one of us. We are the multitude, the body of Christ.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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