A Study on Judgment

As I said in yesterday's post, my story, Allegory, which has just been published on Next Wave ezine, is sure to raise questions about my view on heaven, hell and the possibility of purgatory. I promised to post something about it:

[29 August 2006] I had all posted here, but it was rather long, making it inconvenient for anyone trying to scroll down to see my earlier posts. I'll supply this link instead.

Besides being more convenient, I've also edited a bit more, and added some more to the end, which should put things in even more perspective. The editing isn't 100% complete yet, so this is a work in progress.

Allegory at Next Wave. org

My novella, Allegory, has now been published in the current issue of Next Wave.org.

I'm sure that the story is going to raise many questions about what I believe regarding Heaven, Hell and the possibility of Purgatory. Either tomorrow or the next day, I'll post a rather long study I made of the issue of Judgment.

In the mean time, there have been some interesting discussions in the Bloggisphere. Some time ago, there was this entry on Alan Creech's blogsite, about Purgatory, which attracted a lot of lively discussion. While Alan's fellowship isn't within the Roman Catholic fold, he himself had his spiritual upbringing in the Catholic Church, and he has never officially left it. He still considers himself a Roman Catholic. From all my reading of his blogs, I haven't found any reason to doubt his faith in the true God through Messiah.

There's also a poll put out by Scott McKnight asking people where they stood on the issue of eternal judgment. The poll is no longer active, so there are no graphs showing the results, but the discussion in the comment section is interesting.

Anyway, I hope to hame my tuppence worth up in the next few days.

Relationships -- not something to mess around with

In my last blog entry, I said, "The church is only as strong as the relationship between you, as a believer, and that member of your local congregation to whom you feel the least inclination to express your love." I believe that 100 per cent.

It's quite obvious that our relationships are something we are to take very seriously. Yeshua says in Matthew 5:23 and 24, If you are offering a saccrifice at the alter, and you remember that someone has a grudge against you, then leave your offering, go make up with that person, and then come back and finish the sacrifice.

Consider the expense people went through in Yeshua's day just to comply with the the Torah regulations regarding the offering of their sacrifices at the Temple. It was serious business. It would easily compare with just about anything we'd do in ministry or any form of worship or service we'd do in the church today. Yet, Yeshua says, "Stop. Put it all on hold. Make sure your relationships with your brothers and sisters are right first. Then go ahead with your act of worship/ministry/spiritual obligation."

Yet, look how much priority we give to relationships today. When we hear that brother so-and-so and sister whoever had a falling out, we shrug and say it's none of our business.

That's not how the early church reacted. They took it seriously, as this passage from the Didache indicates. The Didache is like a handbook for doing church, issued towards the end of the first century. It probably dates to before the Gospels began to circulate. The full title of the document is, THE DIDACHE or THE TEACHING OF THE LORD TO THE GENTILES BY THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Anyway, here is a quote from section 14 of that document:

Let no man who has a dispute with his fellow join your assembly until they have been reconciled, so that your sacrifice may not be defiled; for it was this sacrifice that was spoken of by the Lord; "In every place and at every time offer Me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great king, says the Lord, and My name is wonderful among the nations."

What would you think of a church that applied this rule in their congregation today?

how strong is your church?

Here's a thought:

The church is only as strong as the relationship between you, as a believer, and that member of your local congregation to whom you feel the least inclination to express your love.

Transitions

For the moment, the "About Me" collumn to the right is almost up to date. Abie is now 3 years and four months. However, it's about to become even more out of date in the near future. In September, we plan to move back to Bangkok. I hope to locate a teaching job there before we leave, but even if we don't, English teaching jobs are easy to find for native speakers of the language -- many of them good paying. I will go on working at my present job (as software tester) until a few days before our departure. My wife, Bless, hopes to become involved in YWAM ministries in some capacity. She has worked in leadership and administration with YWAM for 15 or so years. However, she'll try to do it part time, so she can spend time with Abie.

We've already moved out of our own rented house into my dad's place in preparation for the bigger move.

That's all for now...

Allegory [link]

As usual, the long pause in my blogging is because I had a sudden inspiration to write somthing, so I started writing. It's taken me about three weeks, but now I have it in good enough shape to post.

It's exactly as the title says, an allegory. I won't say what it's about; you have to glean that from the story. It does include a lot of the things that have been on my mide, and have been blogging about.

You might be able to read it in one sitting, depending on how fast a reader you are, and how much time you have. It's not long enough to be a novel, but probably too big to be a short story. I guess they call it a "novella".

Anyway, here it is: Allegory

that's the way to do a funeral [link]

I got this off Len's Next Reformation blog, although he got it off Scott Williams' blog It's about a funeral in a Black Baptist church, where the pastor knows how to make the truth come alive.

A "must read"...