Christianity and the End Times

Tell me. Would you just open the doors to your home and let anybody who walked by enter and stay the night...without so much as an impression of their character? Yes yes, we know about doing for the least of these in regards to feeding and clothing...but I am talking about literally sharing the space that you occupy. It is my belief that God desires all to live in His "house" yet He won't simply invite them all in since some carry viruses that can infect others. Hence the sheep and the goats. You cant simply let goats in with the sheep.

LOLBut Phat, the Goats were all Jesus followers while the Sheep were all strangers.

The definition of a follower of Christ is a sheep. You have a strange habit of reversing everything Christian and getting it completely backwards. Willfully obviously.

That's a very poor analogy. Is your God that puny that he can't control what goes on in his own house?

If you consider them equally valid they are equally valid to you. The question is whether or not they all offer the same benefits

If you invited a stranger into your house and could control whether or not they stole, would you thus be controlling any and all of your guests? Would you (if you were all-powerful) allow them to simply steal whatever their freewill wanted? Would you nevertheless invite everyone in? Is there no standards for your guests?

Why would anybody in heaven need to steal? You're just making a bad analogy worse.Edited by ringo, : Fixed a baad unintentional pun.

I just read an interesting take on this parable here.To wit:

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...It is most commonly interpreted as an injunction to help the poor; most Christians (in the West at least) read this more or less as the sheep being Christians, the goats being non-Christians, and ‘the least of these my brothers [and sisters] being the poor in general.(...)

Firstly, as Dick France points out in his commentaries, Matthew never has Jesus refer to his ‘brothers’ or sisters as anyone other than those who do the will of God by becoming his followers. This is particularly clear in Matt 12.49, when Jesus is rather radically proposing that his new family are the disciples gathered around him (which of course includes women).

Secondly, Jesus is clear that to follow him means to be homeless; in reply to a teacher of the law who would follow him, Jesus replies: ‘Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head’ (Matt 8.20 = Luke 9.58). In other words, if you follow Jesus you will be like him, and this is to be without home, a wandering stranger, reliant on the charity and provision of others.

Thirdly, at the end of Jesus’ second block of teaching in Matthew (which Matthew attaches to the sending out of the 12 in chapter 10) we have a very similar ideawhoever receives the disciples in effect receives Jesus, and how they treat the disciples is in effect how they treat Jesus. (These verses, Matt 10.40-42, don’t have an exact parallel in the other gospels, though there is a similar saying in a different context in Mark 9.41).

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Thus...

To follow Jesus means (to risk?) being hungry, thirsty, naked, as stranger, sick and in prison. This has not been hard to imagine for many Christians in many parts of the world in many times in history. In fact, it is perhaps only in a rich West that Christians could have misread this teaching, by naturally reading themselves in the role of the powerful helper rather than the powerless in need of help.

It raises big questions about the status of those who don’t appear to have named Christ as Lord (Romans 10.9), but have responded to Christ in being the ‘sheep’ who have assisted his disciples because they are his disciples. This question was raised by someone listening to me teach on this recently, who works in inner cities primarily with Muslims. ‘If my Muslim friend helps me out are they counted as sheep?’ In a sense it asks the bigger question of whether it is possible to become a Muslim follower of Jesus rather than become a Christian.

Finally, it suggests a rather different model for mission. We are not going as the strong with resources to help the weak, but we come as the weak ready to receive from those to whom we have been sent. And of course, this is the idea behind the idea of finding the ‘person of peace’, taught by Mike Breen and others from the sending of the 12 and the 72 in Luke 9 and 10 and Matt 10.

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It makes the idea of being a homeless (or very poor) suffering Christian a hard life to follow and, if in fact, that is what God wants, few will actually do it...likely myself included. I at least want a place to lay my head. What makes you think everybody should end up in Heaven? Some of them likely would refuse to follow the protocol.

Have you ever wondered why? Why not? He had a simple message that he was so determined to give to the world that he sacraficed his son, yet he garbles the actual message to individuals? Does that actually make sense to you? Faith and GDR differ so violently that she thinks he can't be saved - but she can. Let alone believing that the bible is literally true to the extent that she is literally wrong about the age of the earth and floods and such. How can god do that to her, make her believe something that is demonstrably wrong? But you tell us that god is creating the inner perception! This god of yours is apparently causing the confusion between Christian beliefs. But not only that, he's also the god of the Jews and the Muslims. So he's deliberately sowing confusion and dissent amongst ALL his people. Causing wars and conflict. He's a bit satanic isn't he? What a plot twist - god is the Devil.And all those other religions that are in total error - not even the same god. Is he twisting their minds too? How come they believe what they believe?

The biggest objection to be raised against this point is that there is no third group present. There is nobody so poor as to be excluded, nor any separate group to be identified as these - whether qualified with My brethren (as in verse 40) or not (verse 45).The preceding Parable of the Talents has also told us that those who do nothing with what they are entrusted with will be cast into the outer darknessIn Matthew 23:8 Jesus tells everyone listening to him that they are all brothers. The disciples and the assembled crowd (23:1)

You can't have it both ways. Either every good person, believer or not, goes to heaven or your God is a vicious sadistic bastard. Why would there need to be a protocol?

Its rather amusing to see you deciding what a God should be or do. I'll let that one go, however. Also...are we only talking about *good* people? If so, by definition we are excluding some. Lets get back to the guest analogy. We now have you indiscriminately inviting any and all guests in to stay the night or the week in your own house. Would you allow them to stay up all night and make noise? Would you allow them to raid the fridge and eat all your food...without prior consent? Would you allow them to invite others over? Would you essentially make them co-owners of your home? Should God be so free and easy as He allows everyone in the door?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

You're being disingenuous again. What would you think of a human who caused a gigantic flood that killed millions of people? What would you think of a human who threatened to torture millions with fire? You'd have the same assessment of your God as I do if you weren't working so hard at doublethink. I answered that. We're talking about God here. Why would God be afraid of people eating his food?

Phat, it was you who said it is belief that counts. And what is promised is of no value unless there is a reason to believe it might get delivered.

I simply report what the story actually says Faith instead of parroting the Cult Dogma.

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31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

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32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

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33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

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34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

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35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

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36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

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37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

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38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

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39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

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40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

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41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

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42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

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43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

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44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

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45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

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46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

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Have you ever actually read the Bible Faith?