₦airaland Forum

Lovelink1991:
So the Bible permit fornication. He is called pastor today because of the Bible who said thou shall not fornication.

XanderOreva:
Hell is NOT what most churches and religions say it is. While the word hell appears in the bible, the true meaning what hell is has been obscured and twisted by Greek philosophy and early so called “church leaders”.

The word “hell” is an archaic English rendition of the Hebrew word (sheol) and the Greek word (Hades) that appear in the earliest bible writings we have today. These words rendered into modern language would read, “the grave or under the ground” (sheol), “the place or location of the dead” (Hades). Nothing about a place of eternal punishment.

The English word “hell” itself was derived from the Old English "hel / helle" and Proto-Germanic haljō” which is defined as: “of or relating to a nether world or place of the dead.

Hell is not an English word. Hel/Hell comes from Germanic and Norse languages and beliefs.

Jesus and the apostles taught the death is like sleep followed by a resurrection (See John 11:11-15). The early church leaders – Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Polycarp, and others who believed that death is a sleep followed by a resurrection, taught that the resurrected deliberate and unrepentant wicked are destroyed forever as if being totally consumed in a fire – their punishment was to be annihilation. These leaders did not teach of an immortal soul to be tortured by fire for eternity.

By the middle of the 2nd Century some church “leaders” such as Athenagorus and Tertullian began to incorporate Greek philosophies into bible teachings. This diluted and in some cases contradicted what Jesus and the apostles taught.

It was Athenagorus (133 -190 AD), a professed Christian and a church leader but whose teachings, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, were heavily influenced by Plato's philosophies, who introduced Plato's teaching of an immortal soul into Christianity. In doing so he opened the way for the adoption of Plato’s argument of eternal punishment for immortal sinful souls. This was a hundred years after the apostle's and came straight from Greek philosophy.

Hell is the grave, nothing else.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 NKJB

5 For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing,
And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 New King James Bible

10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

John 5:28–29 NKJB

8 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth...

Revelation 20:14-15 King James Version

14 Then death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.

15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

These verses are very problematic for hellfire believers and teachers. Death and Hell are inanimate things which cannot be tortured by fire or anything else.

Now if one has an immortal soul they are alive. Their name should then be in the book of life. But the lake of fire is only for those who's names are not in the book of life. That is a paradox.

Now there are those who still may insist hell is a place of eternal torture by fire. This SLANDERS God as being an evil and vindictive being who would torture people for eternity for doing something that they cannot prevent doing (See Romans 5:12). The bible states the “wages of sin is death”, not eternal punishment in fire (See Romans 6:23).

FxMasterz:
Where did this question come from? Who and you are arguing about jw fixing dates?

Explore2xmore:
The 144,000 as representing the complete people of God rather than a literal, limited ruling class.

Explore2xmore:
The statement what your religion taught you cuts both ways and if at all it's due to bias. We are discussing to properly interpret without these limitations. The JW interpretive framework is itself a tradition transmitted through an institution, subject to the same transmission questions you dismissed earlier.
Nothing you have written here changes the textual sequence. Cornelius was accepted by God before Peter arrived, before preaching, before baptism. Acts 10:34-35 establishes that directly. The co-rulership passages you cite address a separate question entirely and do not disturb that prior divine recognition.
The trajectory from exclusivity to universal access is not my life view it is the trajectory your own cited passages describe.

chatinent:
Imagine and adult following these people.. omo

FxMasterz:
Quote where the apostles said these two things in the Bible.

Image123:
Okay, so it should gather us as one. Can we be gathered as one in a different denomination apart from yours?

FxMasterz:
Leaders are not perfect. True. But that does not mean leaders should be liars. It also does not mean leaders must inject their own imaginations into the Word of God.

Image123:
i see, so what is true Christianity supposed to achieve among those discussing with each other about the righteousness of God?

FxMasterz:
Another mental gymnastics. Always thinking your thoughts are the standards for biblical interpretation.
As for US, WE will never infer anything other than what we are able to see or read in Scripture.

HeatSeeker:
I have already explained what I believe
It is you that is trying to box me into your preset format that ends with your ideas being validated.
Jesus alluded to hell even if your state of consciousness does not agree with it. You cannot cherry pick and promote biblical interpretations that suits your fancy. Truth is not always as we like it to be
You might need to raise your vibrations. We all need to increase our spiritual IQ

AntiChristian:
Are you justifying the mob action?
What is clear is they are both consenting adults! Why are they being harrassed?

HeatSeeker:
I don't need to explain anything. The message is pretty clear even to the blind. You can reject the idea of eternal damnation, but you cannot wholly deny the existence of Hell.

HeatSeeker:
As I have said before. Christ has alluded to a place of torment for those who don't obey. What do you think being thrown into darkness to weep and gnash your teeth means?! It certainly does not mean to die. It certainly does not mean to have a picnic or a cup of tea with the king of England. It means you are going to suffer in torment for your persistent wrong actions.
Hell is real, to deny its existence is folly

HeatSeeker:
Jeremiah 7:31 is speaking about idol worship. It has nothing to do with the existence of Hell.
Jesus repeatedly spoke of a place where individuals are cast into to experience weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is a place of torment. It is basically hell as we understand it to mean today. Mathew 8:12 22:13, 24:51, and 25:30
Jesus alluded to hell in his teaching multiple times.

HeatSeeker:
The issue is the concept and not what the word literally means.

Image123:
Thank you. So anyone who fears the Lord and talks to others that fear the Lord have their names written in the book of life.

HeatSeeker:
There used to be a time I didn't believe in the existence of Hell.

It was not until I learnt to separate the concept of eternal damnation from the reality of an actual plane of existence where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth that I finally understood.

Whether Christ explicitly taught it or not is irrelevant. There is a Hell and you will end up there if you choose to be overbalanced on the negative end of the spectrum.

Image123:
Thanks, what did the Bible say about how names are written in the book of life? Kindly quote the specific verse.

Image123:
YES

FxMasterz:
If John understood what Jesus said.

FxMasterz:
It was in the audience of the 11. They were all conversing together. The Bible says "the brothers." The Bible didn't says Peter.

FxMasterz:
All those are your own mental gymnastics. The Bible didn't say Jesus told Peter and he then told others what he thought. It seems you were there when it all happened.

Explore2xmore:
Zechariah 8:23 describes nations approaching God through Jewish mediation but it's a framework Acts 10 dismantles. Cornelius was accepted by God before Peter arrived (Acts 10:34–35). Matthew 10:6 was temporary and later superseded by Matthew 28:19. Quoting the restriction without the commission to all nations is incomplete.
John 1:11–12 makes faith, not ethnicity, the basis of belonging, while Matthew 22 concerns response to invitation, not permanent ethnic privilege. Hope this hasn't been your life view. The trajectory of these passages moves from exclusivity to universal access, not the reverse.

FxMasterz:
Yeah. The Bible never said Peter did. So stop the speculation.

FxMasterz:
We don't use 'Perhaps' or 'Omo na Peter talk am' speculative thinking to interpret the Word of God. The problem with you JWs is that you speculate a lot, and your speculations most times are absolutely illogical.
For example, if it was Peter who spread it, then definitely, John would have said it was Peter. Now, John explicitly said it was the brothers but you're here replacing the 'the brothers' with 'Peter' because you want to prove a point.
Just look at Peter's life from that John 21 onwards. Where would he have the time to be spreading rumours? Someone who went fasting 40 days and delivered a powerful Sermon on the 40th day with over 3,000 souls won to the kingdom would be the one to have time to be spreading unfounded rumors?

Melchizzedek:
Religion is a farce bro. No hell, no heaven, no Afterlife. We are only existing here cos the conditions here on earth support our existence. We only get here by probability