Are there wicked among us? Are we at times wicked? Are there righteous among us? Are we at times righteous? Yes, the wicked will be judged. Yes, the righteous will also be judged.

The usual non-committal answer.

My argument with you is NOT about judgment. It is about your contention that unbelievers will be condemned to everlasting punishment in hell. You have offered several Bible quotations in support of your contention, but each one requires your added meaning that simply is not in the words quoted.

You refuse to see this very plain truth since it does not fit in with your established belief which you claim represents the words of Jesus when clearly it does not. At this point, I would only be repeating myself so I will exit this discussion and leave you to ponder these things.

How strange that both of you, Athos and Wondergirl, are so fearful of actually stating what you believe. You're perfectly happy to be critical, and yet so afraid and unwilling to state your own position.

Now Tal, on the other hand, has no such fear.

I have stated my position in almost every single post to you! What in the world are you talking about?

To help your reading comprehension, here's my position. To wit: that YOUR belief that unbelievers go to everlasting punishment in hell is false and non-Biblical. Not only have I stated my position, I have conclusively proven it by using your own Biblical references. You seem to think insulting those who don't believe as you do is a proof of your belief. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Go, and read some more.

So your belief is that my belief is wrong. OK, but I think you are afraid to post your positions on judgement, who will be judged, and what will the consequence of that judgement be. But perhaps I am not making myself clear in my questions, so let's try it again.

What do you think Paul means in Ephesians 2 when he says, speaking of the Ephesian Christians, "and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." What does it mean that they were (past tense), "children of wrath, like the rest of mankind"?

And then what does he mean when he says shortly after, "8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works..."

I have said more than once and in different words that ALL will be judged. That includes you and me.

"Unbelievers will go to hell and to eternal punishment in a fiery pit." Jesus used those words because He knew His listeners would quickly and easily understand the point He was making. If Jesus was on earth today, He would get my attention, not with hellfire, but by warning me that I won't want to end up in an unending kitchenful of dirty dishes that have to be handwashed and dried. That would be hell for me.

To believe that is to render all scripture meaningless, and your appalling analogy of washing dishes = hell renders His sacrifice on the cross to be no more meaningful that drying while you wash. But then we know that all that business of the cross actually meant he was really just building houses.

It's just more of the same modern idea that text only means what I think it means. The plain and clear words of language really have no meaning, and it allows people to avoid unpleasantness by simply changing what the statement plainly meant. It's nothing more than a cheap escape hatch.

So in a court of law Wondergirl says, "I was not even in town the day the bank was robbed." The judge then says, "You're guilty. I just heard you say that you robbed the bank, or at least that's the meaning I got from your statement." Well, if you can rob the words of Christ of meaning, then a judge certainly should be able to do that with yours.

Huh? What's hell for you wouldn't be hell for me, and vice versa. Hell as a "fiery pit" is an analogy.

Says you. Jesus never indicated that. You have a habit of rendering every verse that makes you uncomfortable into an analogy. It certainly is not called for here, and if you can do that here, you can do it anywhere, thus making scripture meaningless. I just prefer to take Jesus at His word.

No way you could end up in that fiery pit eh JL? Where will you end up? Just asking for your position. Me, I have too many flaws beyond the ability to translate the meaning of the words of ancient man. Too much can be lost in that TRANSLATION. We are talking of Jews as well as gentiles who spoke NO English and it was translated by those that do, well after the fact.

One would have to assume they were that good which frankly I cannot, and humans are notorious for filling in gaps with their own logic... flawed as it may be. I get more from a personal relationship with a God that I can understand than the interpretations of people long dead, or those that are here now and clearly flawed. Maybe they had good intentions writing it all down, to the best of their ability, but if you want TRUTH, you should consult the source, and listen to the answer. Not saying that's not what you are doing, JL, but you cannot claim your perfection in these matters while ignoring your own very human flaws. Surprising since you often acknowledge your flaws, but cannot accept them in others.

It's not the responsibility of others to express ones position so YOU can understand it, and maybe agree, but yours to understand them, agree or not. Having said all that, I am hardly perfect in expressing my position either, and find not understanding the position of others leads to a poor dismissive attitude, but I am working on that. That's why I don't dismiss the words of ancient man, nor do I completely embrace them. Hopefully more will be revealed and I can find that understanding and have faith in it. Lack of understanding is sometimes a serious flaw I know I must work on.

Not easy with all the other flaws I have to work on. Just more proof I am human.

Read the Ephesians passage I quoted above for your answer to that one. It is absolutely my only hope.

So you don't believe in ANY ancient history? I ask that because none of it was written in English, so if translations are really that unreliable, then all of ancient history is lost. For that matter, the United Nations is dead in the water since every major speech made there is translated into many, many languages.

Of course that is not true, and the New Testament, believe it or not, has FAR greater textual evidence for its reliability than any other work of ancient times. Nothing else even comes close. And with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Old Testament has been shown to have an extraordinary level of reliability.

I do appreciate your comments about listening well to others as that is an area where I could stand to improve. I try to be careful with my words so as not to be misunderstood. Having been a teacher for years, I feel I should be able to convey my thoughts accurately, but it is not always easy as you well know.

Well sometimes you do sound like a teacher talking to students, old habits are hard to break I suppose, and that's very understandable, so I can hardly hold that against you, nor criticize you for it.

I wouldn't go that far, but clearly the more we learn of the ways and language of the ancients the better we understand our ancient selves. The UN though is a good thing I think, as humans congregating peacefully for a common cause is a GOOD endeavor, though it is a works in progress STILL.

The thought of hellfire doesn't make people uncomfortable; it's meaningless to someone in 2018. Jesus used that vivid picture back then because His listeners were very familiar with the valley, Gehenna, a place of fire and torment and child sacrifice, a cursed place. Jesus knew His listeners would instantly understand what He was talking about.

ADDED: How can Christians get that message across to people today, people who chuckle when the words "cursed" and "hellfire" are mentioned?

This thread is about YOUR belief that unbelievers are condemned to eternal punishment in hell. Stop trying to divert the discussion. If you wish to discuss other beliefs, start a new thread.

Clearly, he does NOT mean unbelievers are condemned to eternal punishment in hell.

Clearly, and obviously, he does not mean unbelievers are condemned to eternal punishment in hell.

I thought by now you would see the absurdity of your belief. God gave you a brain - use it.

The thought of hellfire does not make people uncomfortable?? Well, you plainly live in a different world than the one I live in. Even the people on this board react strongly to it. I do agree that Jesus could have been drawing on the idea of Gehenna, but far more because of its direct relationship to hell, and to illustrate that hell will be a terrible place, not a place of dishwashing. The story of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar further reinforces the idea of a burning hell.

And then there is this passage from 1 Peter. "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

You must not watch much tv or play video games or read dystopian novels. "Hellfire and damnation" et al. are frequent threats that pop up and have become part of everyday conversation and even are jokingly referred to. And obviously, you've never experienced the hell that is a kitchenful of dirty dishes that must be hand washed and dried -- much less an ENDLESS number of them to hand wash and dry.

Everyone has a different definition of hell.