Kevin's Watch

Lina Heartlistener wrote:Actually... I was thinking about this and couldn't wait! (So in that last post, I lied.) If people are interested in discussing this, this could open up a whole new thread of thought.

I was talking with a friend of mine from church and she made a "pie in the sky" comment. And when I think about it, throughout the ages, some concept of heaven was dangled in front of ordinary folk (by human leaders in the church) as a carrot on a stick or a bribe to control or manipulate them. And I think alot of people resent that, and for good reason - it IS wicked! (out come my "fundie fangs"!)

I can't help but see an incredible contrast between that and the way that Jesus answers a question that is posed to Him:

Luke, the beloved physician wrote:There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife."

And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him." Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well." For they no longer dared to ask him any question.

Discuss, dissect? This was certainly one passage that rather stunned ME, for one, the first time that I read the Bible.

And I left the context in so it was clear that Jesus was in a situation where He chose to speak carefully... but I really don't think He's the sort of person Who would deny any fundamental aspect of His creed as to how the world works - given the circumstances.

from THE PROBLEM OF PAIN

"Scripture and tradition habitually put the joys of Heaven into the scale against the sufferings of earth, and no solution of the problem of pain which does not do so can be called a Christian one. We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning Heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about 'pie in the sky,' and of being told that we are trying to 'escape' from the duty of making a happy world here and now into dreams of a happy world elsewhere. But either there is a 'pie in the sky' or there is not. If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this truth, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or no. Again, we are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object."