Do you talk with Christians about UR?

[rebeccat]

I'm wondering if you folks talk much with Christians about the teaching of universal reconciliation.  It's always amazing how closed people are to this good news. 

I suppose it's like my mom once told me, "I'd rather be wrong than change my mind."   :mshrug:  (And yes, she actually said that!)

I pretty much keep quiet about it unless someone is being really obnoxious about it, in which case I calmly start quoting a few choice bible verses and reminding them that their interpretation is just that - an interpretation which we are free to reject.   

Any how, I'm wondering if people here spend much time trying to talk with believers about UR. 

How about non-believers?  I think our first instinct when we accept UR is to tell other believers about it, but I'm beginning to think it's a message which is really meant, like it was 2000 years ago, for the lost rather than the "found".

So what do y'all think?  Inquiring minds want to know! 

:duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck:  (<-I just like the duck!  :laugh2:)

[1424241]

Most of the time non-believers like it better than believers. So many non-believers have been scared away, or disgusted by people telling them their loved ones were burning alive. On the other hand, believers have something to loose, their reputation. I think almost all of us know what it's like to have to tell your friends, family, fellow "church-goers" and preachers that you've been wrong for the past 10 or 20 or even 40 years. Not many people like change. Not many preachers like to be told they've taught incorrectly. Most athiests, however, are athiests because they don't believe in a loving God that is the Saviour of the world, most athiests find it hard to believe in a hateful, angry God. Most Christians find it hard to believe in a hateful, angry God, too, but they fear change even more.

[firstborn888]

Good question,
  I am developing a pretty good sense for who to talk to and not. Definitely, if someone presses the issue, I tend to tell the truth. The truth is always good, but God has to open people's eyes.
  My new favorite verse is 2 Tim. 2: 24 "And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, F5 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will."
  Definitely those who I know have rejected the 'good news' for good reasons are prime canidates. Also, in the mainstream church I find that people who are deep into personal worship or worship ministry are more open (they know Him).
 
  - byron

[SeekerSA]

I find that people who are deep into personal worship or worship ministry are more open (they know Him).
 
  - byron

Ain't that the truth?  A big Amen from me.

Still need to hear a Hymn or Gospel song that talks about hell.

As for sharing with the hell-bent crowd, all we can do is sow seed.  Once they overcome their pride of being "elected", then maybe they will listen.

I share, I do not mind debating.  Many lurkers may see what I post, if it gets them deeper into the word and study, then Hallelujah.

The time of playing church is over.  The Lord will address the Holy huddles, Bless-me Clubs and the Phrozen Chozen, The Deliriously Deceived et al. 

Many called few chosen.

Deu 20:1  When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, [and] a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the LORD thy God [is] with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt (bondage).

Blessings

[Freebird]

(by the way rebeccat, I like the ducks too,LOL!!)

OK...this is interesting to me.

I was a hell believing christian my whole life as that is what I was taught growing up. Even though I had no reason to disbelieve that, I found with my whole being, it never sat right.

I DID become an athiest for several years BECAUSE of issues such as this, plus some others.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I am just NOW coming back to God FROM that stance I was in for some years.

I chose THIS TIME NOT TO BELIEVE IN HELL.
I reject it, I don't want to worship a God like that and I no longer will.

The good news (relating to the OP)

THE WHOLE REASON WHY I am feeling this new found freedom is .....

When I felt God calling me again (amazing when you're an athiest) I was a member of a christian board and had been with these folks for over seven years. Even when I was an athiest, I would still go there to visit friends, I just "tuned out" the stuff they were saying pertaining to christianity. It still turned me off, big time.

I felt God calling me again recently like I was saying....and DUE TO the members HERE that go THERE, the board I was on....I am HERE NOW. :girlheart:

I found myself drawn to their posts....and very intrigued. Believe in God without all the wrath, hell, etc? My eyes piped right up!! :icon_flower:
So, that is how I came to be here and I am new and am amazed every day at the posts I read here and the FREEDOM that I feel that others actually share!

There are even topics here that would be such a no-no on my other board....too offensive for some to handle. I just love that we can talk openly here and that it is OK!!! :bgdance:

Thanks for listening.

[SLN]

For me personally, it depends on who I'm talking to. I've already converted my mom, but I wouldn't even dare preach it to a fundie yet.  :2c:

[dboutwell]

and DUE TO the members HERE that go THERE, the board I was on....I am HERE NOW.

I found myself drawn to their posts....and very intrigued.

That is sooo beautiful!! :HeartThrob:

Welcome Home, Freebird :grin:

[PaulTheJesusFreak]

Yes, many called, few chosen!

I have shared my belief with a lot of people (online), on a Christian Forum I regularly post on. Universal Salvation has been my hot topic since August until now, it died down for about a week or two, and now it's slowly creeping up again and it is driving them mad. I just pray everyday that God will open their eyes! I'm even trying to convince some teens my age who believe in Eternal Hell, it isn't very easy. But I have to realize it will be God who changes them not me. It saddens me how stubborn some of them are and how they treat everything I say. They act like the Scriptures and things I say are of the devil! I have been accused of believing in an anti-christ Jesus, I have been called pagan, New Age, Heretic, I have been cursed to hell, as this one guy said I 'better hope God is in a good mood or we may see some burns on your back side'!

Christians can be some of the most judgmental and hateful people!  :thumbdown: :sigh: :mshock:

Every person offline except one person that I have shared this with, has gotten angry, angry, angry. I have never seen someone get so angry before because I don't believe in the "traditional" eternal torturings of hell. My Aunt was down in Kentucky and her brother, who has known her beliefs for 40 years, his wife had a huge fit and they got so angry that my Aunt had to leave their house because they were so angry about her not believing in hell. And he told her they'd "never, ever change their belief"

My mom told me I have to be careful who I share things with -- the minute I start sharing things with my family -- I'll see a total change in the person I've always known. Shoot, I was telling my Grandpa and Uncle how I think people who believe the Earth is 10-6,000 years old are crazy -- well, they ARE those people. They started getting all fired up about how the Earth is not billions of years old, Evolution is the devils lie, etc etc. I'm like, WHOA.

And even trying to talk about speaking in tongues with my Grandfather -- well, he is Baptist.

ANGER, is not a sign of godliness. We are supposed to be kind and willing to learn off one another --- even if it contradicts the "norm". Sure, its "NORMAL" to fall into place with everyone else -- but its dangerous. Traditions this, traditions that. No. I'm not going to fall into that category. God pulled me out, and He's not letting me back in. 

People are so quick to anger, quick to judge, quick to yell false this and false that, quick to yell heresy. Start doing the research for yourself and pray and see what God has to show you. You'll see things differently then.

My mom and my entire family on my Dad's side for the most part (Grandfather, Uncles. Aunts, etc) do not believe in the "traditional" hell. But my mom's side is dominantly Baptist... so, uh, my mother has kept her mouth shut with many of her beliefs (especially since we hold a lot of Pentecostal Doctrinal beliefs).

Otherwise, I have mostly shared my belief with non-believers, and a few "new Christians". God has opened their eyes and has used me to help a few people come to this wonderful truth!  :winkgrin:

I will fear no evil, and fear NO man. I will be FEARLESS for God, and for the Glory of His truth, and his Unending Love!  :boyheart:

If anyone's interested, I have debated through and through Universal Salvation  here,
here, andhere.

[ragamuffin34]

I pretty much keep quiet about it unless someone is being really obnoxious about it, in which case I calmly start quoting a few choice bible verses and reminding them that their interpretation is just that - an interpretation which we are free to reject.   

That's pretty much what I do.  It's probably mainly because I dislike conflict.  Also, I usually try to avoid discussing the issue with people I know believe in ET because it bothers me to hear people I love and respect defend such a doctrine.  I don't really understand what makes people hang on so tightly to belief in ET other than the fact that it's what they've always believed.

I really like your ideas about sharing UR with nonbelievers.  I think that might be something we are called to do more than we realize.

[reFORMer]

My dad, his three brothers and my mother's father were all Pentecostal ministers who taught eternal torment (though I can't remember my granddad, who had started at least 39 churches in the Midwest that were still going when he died in '63, I don't remember him ever preaching it.)  After a couple years on my own, lost in drugs and casual immorality, I experienced God's reality manifest in me.  For the first time I actually read the Bible for my self, book by book, like it's written, rather than a sermonic proof text here and there or a memory verse for Sunday school.  Still, all I had was the "knowledge" I'd been raised with.  While I began to realize right away it was different than what I was getting directly from the Bible, it took some years to get the principle of listening to alternative views while holding a patient and redemptive attitude to people thought to be in error.

I know I walked with God and, even though it seldom came up, I earnestly defended an unending hell for years without being aware that I didn't clearly know how to even study the topic.  I wasn't taught to use concordances and only gradually acquired confidence in the results of my studies.  One hindrance is the extra difficulty in finding any sense of having proved something is NOT written.  With it seeming like everybody who was spiritual believed  certain things, I thought the lack of Scriptural evidence in several topics was my faulty search.  I came across nobody who taught the reconciliation of all to God, at least not in a rigorously Biblical way and never thought but to avoid those writings that might teach what I'd been told was false.  Now I know that rather than swallowing other peoples regurgitations, to go to the source, even if it's "error," is important to be an authority.  I did have a friend I argued with, all night 'til dawn one time, who believed in this way of the love of God, but for him it was more relational than systematically Biblical.  When I did study the  "eons" and came to understand the truth of God's word about hell and damnation I marked the time, July 18, 1981 at 3 a.m., because I knew enough about Christianity and it's sects to realize I'd just dropped off the map as far as they were concerned.  I'm still looking to go off the deep end I've been warned about, though.

The small group of believers I was with at the time was comprised of people who held all three views (eternal torment, annihilation and universalism) and accepted one another so to share it was not much of an issue.  I think we tended to avoid it to get along.  Even now I believe initially the foremost need is for the Holy Spirit and to experience His presence regenerating our spirit, though doctrine of various sorts my be brought to bear in bringing people together with God.  After a while I began to mostly keep the teaching of the salvation of all to myself, thinking it was wisdom what Origen had said about it, that It was not for the world or beginning believers whose carnal minds might use it as an excuse to not press on into the spirit.  I no longer believe that way and haven't for some time.  I wanted peace with other men at what now I consider too high a price.  It's interesting the way things look after years of seeing them from a certain vantage point.  I now see unending torment in a much darker hue, born of devils slandering God to turn the minds of men away from Him.  Often precious things are rare.  According to the list of teachings considered foundational and the first principles of the oracles of God (Hebrews 6:1-3) the last two or three are not there for most of the popular versions of Christianity in the marketplace.  While some holding the salvation of all have wondered into things fallen and ruinous, the presence of that part of the foundation in the knowledge of God is in the deeper Teachers that I've found.  Very few have entered sufficiently to offer much of substance without it.

Where I live most people have some kind of faith.  It's hard to ever run across an unbeliever.  It has been remarked that Georgia has more Baptists than people.  Talk to one of the local drunks and he starts preachin' real loud.  It's not just here that everybody seems to know everything.  It doesn't seem to be noticed when I tell many of them things they've never heard before.  It's all grist for their mill.  Several people God used me to bring on in various areas of understanding made it a point to tell me how irrelevant I was (though I'd taught them regularly over several years) because I had given them just the right book or recommended just the right ministry at a time when God had been dealing with them about that very thing.  They seem to think it's just about them.  They don't seem to be aware that I might know something more, nor that I haven't exactly been sittin' still since then either.

I accost any and all strangers that I can with words about the truth of God that I've been granted to dispense.  I've already lost everything to follow Him anyway.  If my vultures eye sees anyone with a Bible or a pin or sticker or T-shirt about Jesus, they're my victims.  If I get a hint they're among the deceived, I must feel something like a rat terrier feels when it sees a rat.  If you want to see me salivate, offer me a new believers ear.  I'm not the speaker at the conference but I can see how much damage I can do, talking to everybody I can outside the preaching sessions where nobody confers.  When you're rejected enough by man and get a taste of God's approval, it's like an instant irreversible addiction.  He sees me!  I can bask in that!  Some around here reject me for false rumors they keep cookin' without ever coming to me to find out if any of it has any basis in reality.  Mutual friends that they know regularly spend time with me they refuse to believe, preferring their baseless gossip.  Like it says of Jesus, "They hated Him without a cause."  How some of them believe these lies when I know I've spoken to them as no man has spoken to them before is beyond me.  God also has worked miracles, as some well know.  There are manifestations of power.  One is like electric rain that can get so intense you lose consciousness.  Well, "I can tell the world about this!"  (Can you hear the music?)

---James Rohde

[Craig]

I'm wondering if you folks talk much with Christians about the teaching of universal reconciliation.  It's always amazing how closed people are to this good news. 

I suppose it's like my mom once told me, "I'd rather be wrong than change my mind."   :mshrug:  (And yes, she actually said that!)

I pretty much keep quiet about it unless someone is being really obnoxious about it, in which case I calmly start quoting a few choice bible verses and reminding them that their interpretation is just that - an interpretation which we are free to reject.   

Any how, I'm wondering if people here spend much time trying to talk with believers about UR. 

How about non-believers?  I think our first instinct when we accept UR is to tell other believers about it, but I'm beginning to think it's a message which is really meant, like it was 2000 years ago, for the lost rather than the "found".

So what do y'all think?  Inquiring minds want to know! 

:duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck: :duck:  (<-I just like the duck!  :laugh2:)

I talk to believers and non-believers a like. I will share good news with believers who will accept it until a certain point. Once they reach that point, I never talk about it again. (It buzzes inside them, they are waiting for me to talk about it and I never do until one day a crisis happens and they ask me, "Remember last year when you talked about...well I was thinking..." Seed planted and growing).

I talk to non-believers about it, but most are indifferent. They are like, "Yea, that is an awesome belief, a lot better than..." or "I believe that there is a god or God or Spirit, but it is arrogance to label it' etc. Though non-believers are easier to talk to about the Good News, it isn't accepted as the truth as much either.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: I don't think about it beforehand. I just let Him bring out what He wants to bring out to whomever. I'm always amazed at the different ways He brings it out to people without me ever saying the UR words.

And Freebird.......just want to tell you how happy I am you're here with us....... :thumbsup:

[willieH]

willieH: Hi PaulTheJesusFreak!   :welcome:

I read a little in your discussions... very typical and common TRADITIONAL objections...

Most of them didn't want to discuss it with you, giving you the EXCUSE that the subject had been beaten to death already...  :Yeahright: 

These are just ears which are plugged of SPIRIT... and the name of that PLUG is TRADITION!

Please don't be discouraged... You did a real good job, and noted your belief in detail, for which you recieved harrasment and ridicule... and NO REBUTTALS... (although I only read a few pages of discussion - maybe someone put up some later?)

The easy way out of discussion is to ridicule the other WITHOUT using verses in that objection... to disprove YOU...

Just as the Pharisees did with JESUS, so does tradition do with the TRUTH... it binds it up, and in any way available (mostly through unfounded and unBIBLICAL replies), attempts to silence it...   :faint:

My daughters ears are stopped up this way... (bless her heart)...  :pitiful:

She knows that she is unable to debate this subject with me on the level I am able, and so discounts it to me being decieved...

I tell her that FEW are chosen, and that MANY are decieved... and that in her TRADITIONAL beliefs there are MANY, and that in mine there are FEW... and she still doesnt get the MATH!   :Mcry:

I have even told her... Even if I and the FEW that believe this are decieved...  How may we DECIEVE the MANY? 

For CHRIST said:  MANY shall come in my name saying I am CHRIST, and shall DECEIVE ...MANY! 

SORRY about that, FEW do not have the required numbers to decieve MANY... but the TRADITIONALISTS which are MANY, ...DO have the numbers to decieve MANY... 

Not only do they have the Religious numbers in their church memberships, but they have periodicals & tv shows & movie productions... and here I am... One man, with one computer...

Keep teaching the LOVE of GOD, and His GOOD news Paul... the FEW that are intended to hear... shall!   :bgdance:

And the MANY which are DECIEVED, will stubbornly, as did the Jews (to this day!), remain DECIEVED...  :sigh:

It is up to GOD who shall hear... and who shall NOT!  Our job is to continue to tell others... and leave the results to Him...  :yes:

PeaCE  :drummer:

In  JESUS  ...name above all names......willieH   :giveheart:

[reFORMer]

excerpt from reply #9 above:

I accost any and all strangers that I can with words about the truth of God that I've been granted to dispense.  I've already lost everything to follow Him anyway.  If my vultures eye sees anyone with a Bible or a pin or sticker or T-shirt about Jesus, they're my victims.  If I get a hint they're among the deceived, I must feel something like a rat terrier feels when it sees a rat.  If you want to see me salivate, offer me a new believers ear.  I'm not the speaker at the conference but I can see how much damage I can do, talking to everybody I can outside the preaching sessions where nobody confers.  When you're rejected enough by man and get a taste of God's approval, it's like an instant irreversible addiction.  He sees me!  I can bask in that!

I advise you to do the same!

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Good point, Willie, on the many and the few...  :thumbsup:

[Hennessey]

I accost any and all strangers that I can with words about the truth of God that I've been granted to dispense.  I've already lost everything to follow Him anyway.  If my vultures eye sees anyone with a Bible or a pin or sticker or T-shirt about Jesus, they're my victims.  If I get a hint they're among the deceived, I must feel something like a rat terrier feels when it sees a rat.  If you want to see me salivate, offer me a new believers ear.  I'm not the speaker at the conference but I can see how much damage I can do, talking to everybody I can outside the preaching sessions where nobody confers.  When you're rejected enough by man and get a taste of God's approval, it's like an instant irreversible addiction.  He sees me!  I can bask in that!

I am a salivating terror myself.  :laughing7:

When you're rejected enough by man and get a taste of God's approval, it's like an instant irreversible addiction.  He sees me!  I can bask in that!

I understand this James ........ I like the way you put it.  :thumbsup:

[hopeful]

When you're rejected enough by man and get a taste of God's approval, it's like an instant irreversible addiction.  He sees me!  I can bask in that! [/b]

I guess I haven't been rejected enough yet.   :sigh:

[Kept]

Willie loved how you put the many and the few and how its the many that deceives the many lol

hadnt really thought about that

you crack me up  :grin:

kept

[Cardinal]

I am a salivating terror myself.  :laughing7: [/quote]

:rolllol: :mrflo: :winkgrin:

[Hennessey]

One of my favorite things to do Card is make you laugh.  :happygrin:

[Cardinal]

 :thumbsup: Well, I'm grateful for that, 'cause right now I need all the laughs I can get.....

[joian]

I'm still looking to go off the deep end I've been warned about, though.

Good James, now that was funny!!!

James, Jack, Willie and Card............

I don't consider myself deep but it encourages me to try to swim with the big boys.......

and James,

God also has worked miracles, as some well know.  There are manifestations of power.  One is like electric rain that can get so intense you lose consciousness.

Now that electric rain.........so intense you lose consciusness.......now that is something similar to an experience I had last year.........like to hear more about that and what it is meant to accomplish..........never been the same since then......


I share UR with those who come across my path and ask me a question.......I am a rather shy person until you get to know me except about the things of God.........I could go on hours and hours, I would give up sleep, wake up early and start all over again......forget the time and anything else I wanted to do........

My children are all married and in churches across the city....they are all involved in singing ministries and constantly invite me to one thing or another.........I never seem to share with that set of people.......but with my children and older grandchildren........whew, we really get into it.   More and more I share different aspects of the error I have swallowed all my life......This weekend I was sharing with the whole family over dinner......that the words Jesus spoke on the cross were not the traditional ones we were taught........because God was in Christ on the cross, and never said Father, why have you forsaken me..........man we went off on that for an hour......in the airport my 19 year old granddaughter had questions about God being sovereign, as she has been introduced to Calvanism........that went on for an hour before she said....Grandma, I love how you know God...........my daughter came upstairs while I was on your blog  James.  I read your testimony outloud to them and showed them which Icon was yours, Jack's and Bernie's so they could go read some of the finest writings around.........I even read your hell thread  to them Jack....they get amazed at how the rest of the church really thinks...........I also share with several of my kids friends as they seek me out, I share with 5-6 at work and have handed out cards to the Sonshine blog to old friends......they now go on there and of course I share on mychurch.........as it seems to be a hungry group.........I once told Jack he was akin to a battering ram over there......The next phone call he left a message on my answering machine saying..........if he was a battering ram.......I must be a battleaxe.......LOL

Well I haven't heard battleaxe since my brothers used the term for old women that wouldn't pay their bills to the paperboy......(which my brothers were....lol)  

Anyway I have been called every thing one can be called by my son and others including a rebellious witch by church people, because I advised my children to get away from their churches and hear God for themselves.....but being called a battleaxe rises to the top of things I've been called....LOL Yep sure does...........

I like what the Lord calls me...........he calls me honey, and it flows down over me and brings peace and healing......and seems to loosen the the nippy little snake bites........

So I love you all, hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving as I gave thanks for your lives and for being alive in HIM.
Joian

[eternal sanctum]

I have tried and a few have been interested. I think one may have actually converted. However, the majority are extremely hateful, prideful, arrogant and rude. It is only driving me that much further away from Christianity entirely. After this holiday season I will be ending all debates with so called "believers" for a while. My focus will be on unbelievers and a certain few who actually ask sincere questions.

[Freebird]

and DUE TO the members HERE that go THERE, the board I was on....I am HERE NOW.

I found myself drawn to their posts....and very intrigued.

That is sooo beautiful!! :HeartThrob:

Welcome Home, Freebird :grin:

Thank you!!

[Freebird]

I have tried and a few have been interested. I think one may have actually converted. However, the majority are extremely hateful, prideful, arrogant and rude. It is only driving me that much further away from Christianity entirely. After this holiday season I will be ending all debates with so called "believers" for a while. My focus will be on unbelievers and a certain few who actually ask sincere questions.

Well, some of the mean kinds of christian personalities took part in driving me away from christianity the first time around prior to me becoming an athiest for awhile. Please don't let yourself be driven away....I am back finally and am very interested in UR.