Author: David Ellis
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Judgment and Jonah
Don: There are two aspects to judgment: First an invitation to grace, and then a response to the invitation. The Book of Jonah tells us much about these aspects, if it is treated as allegory (its historical and scientific plausibility are often challenged). It shows us that God is the God of all Creation, that…
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Judgment and the Chosen Few
Don: We are struggling with the Christian concept of salvation through grace, and how it fits with the concept of divine judgment. On its own, judgment would be easy to understand, but not when grace is thrown into the mix. Some have expressed the thought that an enraged God (characterized as the “King” in the…
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Judgment: The Outcome
Don: The theme of judgment runs throughout the story told in John chapter 9: As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” [Thus, the story begins with a question about judgment.] Jesus answered,…
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Judgment and Grace
Don: The concept of an afterlife is relatively easy to understand in most religions. But in Christianity, the issues of judgment—which rewards or punishes us with the afterlife we deserve—and grace, which only appears to reward, clouds the issue. Our binary concept of judgment—you are good or bad, a sheep or a goat, on the…
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Judgment: Outer Darkness
Don: All the great faiths seek to explain the afterlife. The prevailing notion is, and has long been, that this mortal life is not the end of the story; that something happens after death, and that what we do in this life affects what happens then. In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, which we…
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Judgment: Surprise, surprise!
Don: It seems that God’s plan was for Him and us to live together in harmonious unity. In the garden of Eden, the prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil made it unnecessary for us to discriminate between good and bad, right and wrong. It was God’s divine prerogative to…
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Judgment at the Wedding
Don: Many people believe that the way we live today affects our future. Most religions link a life well lived to a future of contented opportunity, if not bliss. The concept goes by many names: Heaven, paradise, moksha, nirvana, Valhalla, the heavenly garden of Eden, and so on. For the most part, these places are…
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God’s Favorite Religion
Don: We’ve discussed two parables involving vineyards: One in which the vineyard workers were all paid the same wages regardless of how many hours they worked, and one in which the vineyard owner asked his two sons to go do some work in his vineyard (with one promising to do so but then reneging on…
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Religious Authority II
Don: After the Pharisees demanded to know of Jesus the authority for His ministry, He recited a parable, now known as the parable of the Two Sons: “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered, ‘I…