Every Christian Should Be a Theologian

When they hear the word ‘theology’, the reactions of Christians tend to vary enormously.

For some, this word suggests something positive, an attempt to deeply understand God and His purposes, which will benefit the person who succeeds in gaining insight.

For others, this word suggests something negative, wasting time on discussing things that have little value or connection to everyday life.

And, of course, others will take a view that is somewhere between these other views.

I am firmly in the first camp on this issue. When I hear the words ‘theology’, ‘theological’ and ‘theologian’, I hear something positive.

What is theology all about?

In essence, theology is the study of God, things that are true about Him. And a large part of this has to do with true things about Jesus Christ, including how His death and resurrection bring forgiveness to guilty human beings.

Of course, it is important to understand that as Christians we don’t just know true things about God. We actually know God Himself (e.g., John 17:3; Phil 3:10). We are in relationship with Him.

Nevertheless, it is certainly right to say that the more true things about Him we know, the more we will know Him. It makes no sense to think that learning more about what God is like and what He has done won’t affect our relationship with Him.

The same is true of human to human relationships. The better we know what someone is like and what they have done, the more we will know that person and the more closely we will be able to relate to him or her.

So theology is really a positive thing. It is a form of study that should lead to us knowing God better.

How it all fits together

There is a vast number of things that are true about God and His actions. However, it isn’t the case that these are just separate items on a long list. In reality they all fit together to make one big tapestry. And some parts of Scripture do a great job of joining the dots.

For example, take the book of Romans. In this book Paul doesn’t just say, ‘Jesus died for you, and you will be saved if you believe in Him’. Instead he goes into detail explaining how the nature of God fits with His plan to save human beings from their sins.

Or take the book of Hebrews. Here the author shows at length how the Old Covenant sacrificial system foreshadowed what Christ accomplished on the cross. In other words, he explains how much of what God did in Old Testament times fits together with what He did in the first century.

To some extent, then, theology has to do with figuring out how parts of the tapestry fit together. And the more we can join things up in our minds, the more anchored our faith should become.

Difficult to understand

I think one reason why so many Christians dislike theology is because they find it difficult to understand.

Of course, Christians have different levels of ability to engage in academic-style learning. Some are more academically inclined than others.

But here’s the thing. We all find theology difficult to understand. No matter where we are on the spectrum of ability to understand this subject matter, there will be things that we struggle with and that, in some cases, are too difficult for us.

We even find the apostle Peter, in 2 Peter 3:15-16, saying explicitly that his fellow-apostle Paul’s letters contain things that are hard to understand!

It simply isn’t the case that any Christian just sits down and reads the Bible and everything falls easily into place. We have to fight to understand, and we will have some successes and some failures as we do this.

But we have to try. It’s not OK for Christians just to skip parts of the Bible because they think these parts are too difficult for them. There are sections of Scripture that are too difficult for each of us at our present level of understanding. But if we fight, we can expect to make progress.

If we want to grow in our knowledge of God, then, we each need to be a theologian, striving to grow in our understanding of what He is like and what He has done. This is for every Christian.

Not the most important thing, but still important

I am not saying that growing in theological understanding is the most important thing in the Christian life. Nor am I saying that the best theologians are always the strongest Christians.

In my years as a Christian I have met many believers who are fairly weak theologically but who are full of love. And if there was a choice to be made between strong theological understanding and strong love, I would choose love every time.

But this isn’t a real choice. Obviously, it is possible to be full of love and strong in theology.

How to grow in theological understanding

So how do we go about growing in theological understanding?

Well, the most important thing is to spend lots of quality time reading the Bible. And it is often helpful to read at a very slow pace. If we read something we don’t understand, it is usually worth pausing to think deeply about the point in question to see if we can resolve things.

Something else that will be a great help is to read commentaries by Christians on parts of the Bible. There are many of these to choose from. Some are very detailed books that will be not be suitable for beginners, but others are much easier to follow.

There are even English translations of the Bible that come with helpful explanatory notes on the same page as the text itself. For an absolute beginner, this may be the place to start.

When all is said and done, I am sure that many Christians will continue to dislike the word ‘theology’ and similar words, but that is really a minor point. Regardless of whether we use this word or not, we must all strive to grow in our understanding of what God is like and what He has done. This is not optional for a follower of Jesus Christ.

 

See also:

Using the Bible as a Filter

Charismatic Churches and Their Attitude to the Mind

The Radical Nature of the Normal Christian Life

The Justice and Mercy of God

Could the First Christians Have Been Lying When They Said Jesus Rose from the Dead?

As everyone will be well aware, there are many opponents of the Christian faith today, who deny that Jesus rose from the dead. 

Some of these people argue that the first Christians genuinely believed that Jesus’ resurrection happened but were mistaken. Others argue that the story of Jesus’ resurrection began as a lie. 

In what follows, I want to say something about this second idea, that the resurrection story began as a lie. As we will see, this idea is extremely implausible and should be ruled out. It just doesn’t make sense. 

Many early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus 

The first thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. 

They include the early Christian leader called Paul, who wrote quite a lot of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul stated: 

‘3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 And last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he appeared also to me.’ 

So Paul is claiming here that Jesus appeared to him and to many others of the first Christians after he rose from the dead. And it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this. 

There is no good reason for doubting that Paul would have been quite well informed about which other Christians claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. 

We know that Paul knew a number of the others he refers to in his list in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. 

In verses 5 and 7, he says that the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas (i.e., Peter) and James (i.e., James the brother of Jesus, as scholars widely agree). In Galatians 1:18 – and scholars agree that Paul wrote Galatians – he says that he went to Jerusalem three years after he became a Christian and spent two weeks with Cephas. Then in the next verse he remarks that at that time he saw James the brother of Jesus. In Galatians 2:9 he also refers to meeting with John, one of the apostles. 

There is plenty of other evidence too which makes it highly likely that Paul knew others among the apostles he refers to in v. 7. 

To cut a long story short, scholars agree that Paul knew at least several of the people he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and that he probably knew many of them. 

There are good reasons for thinking, then, that in this passage Paul is accurately giving a list of early Christians who claimed they had seen the risen Jesus. 

Unsurprisingly, there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins that many of the first Christians claimed they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. 

The suffering of early Christians who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus 

The next thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians, and that this certainly included some of those who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. 

Paul himself was one of these people. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 he lists the sufferings he experienced because he was a Christian: 

‘23 . . . [I have been] in far more labours, in far more imprisonments, beaten countless times, often in danger of death. 24 Five times from the Jews I have received the thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, I have spent a night and a day in the sea. 26 I have been on many journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from bandits, dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers, 27 in toil and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and nakedness. 28 Apart from such external things, I have daily troubling concerns about all the churches.’ 

Again, it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this and that he is being honest about what he experienced. 

There is wide agreement also that Peter, James and the other apostles, who are on Paul’s list of people who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. And there is also wide agreement that some non-apostles who made this claim suffered in this way too. 

People don’t go on suffering for something they invented as a lie 

So we have seen that many early Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. And we have also seen that some of those who made this claim suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. 

The crucial point here is that people simply don’t spend years suffering badly for something they have invented as a lie. It just wouldn’t be worth it. 

If someone claimed that they saw Jesus risen from the dead, when in fact they knew that they hadn’t, one beating or one spell in prison would be enough for them to abandon this claim. Either they would admit they had invented it, or they would just keep quiet and go and do something else with their life. They wouldn’t keep saying that Jesus rose, bringing more and more suffering on themself. So the fact that they did keep saying this must have been because they believed it. 

The idea that Jesus’ disciples stole his body from the tomb and invented the resurrection appearances is therefore not a reasonable  one. Instead, we should have no hesitation in saying that the early Christians genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead. 

The resurrection story did not begin as a deception by Jesus 

Occasionally people suggest that Jesus might actually have survived his crucifixion, and that this could explain the origin of the story of his resurrection. Under this theory, it would be Jesus himself who plotted a big deception. 

This idea should be totally rejected, however. 

First, it is extremely unlikely that someone sentenced to death by the Romans would have survived. 

Second, even if, for the sake of argument, we were to suppose that Jesus survived crucifixion, we would have to assume that in his badly injured condition he then hatched a plot to deceive his followers by pretending to rise from the dead, a plot he succeeded in implementing! This is impossibly implausible. 

Summing up 

In short, although there are many who claim that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is based on a lie, this simply doesn’t make sense of the evidence. 

The idea that so many of the first Christians suffered so much for something they knew was a lie should be ruled out. And the idea that Jesus survived his crucifixion and then managed to trick his followers into believing that he had risen from the dead is just as implausible.  

 

See also: 

A Very Strong Piece of Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus 

The Resurrection of Jesus and Probability 

Two Things about Atheism That Everyone Should Consider 

Are the Old Testament and New Testament Portraits of God Contradictory?

Did an Actual Snake Speak to Eve to Get Her to Sin?

In the third chapter of Genesis we read the account of how a snake persuades Eve to sin by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I am convinced that this account is not supposed to be interpreted literally. In other words, I believe that historically there was no actual snake or snake-like figure that plotted against Eve or spoke to her. Instead, what we have here is a fictional story that symbolises how human sin began when Satan tempted Adam and Eve.

There are many Christians, however, who insist that this story is supposed to be taken literally, and who claim that an actual snake, or Satan in the form of a snake, or Satan speaking through an actual snake, persuaded Eve to sin. In what follows I will explain why I disagree with these interpretations of the passage.

The passage

Let’s start by setting out the text of Genesis 3:1-6. It reads as follows:

1 Now the snake was more crafty than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. And it said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You are not to eat from any tree of the garden”?’

2 The woman said to the snake, ‘We are allowed to eat fruit from the trees of the garden. 3 But God has said, “You are not to eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you are not to touch it, or you will die.”’

4 The snake said to the woman, ‘You certainly will not die. 5 For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Satan making himself look like a snake

Some of those who interpret this passage literally claim that it refers to Satan manifesting himself as a snake to Eve and speaking to her. Under this interpretation, there was no actual snake involved. Rather, Satan just made himself look like a snake, and spoke to Eve in this way.

This interpretation is on the wrong track, however.

To begin with, we must note that the first sentence of v. 1 tells us that the snake was more crafty than any animal of the field. The way that the snake is set alongside other animals and compared to them surely shows that we should understand the snake in the same way that we understand the other animals. These other animals in the storyline are surely real animals. So in the first sentence of v. 1 the snake should be understood as a real animal too.

In the second sentence of v. 1 we read, ‘And it said to the woman’. The subject of this clause is the snake that has been referred to in the first sentence. Because the snake in the first sentence is a real snake, this means that in the storyline it is a real snake that speaks to Eve.

However, if this passage were simply about Satan manifesting himself as a snake, there would be no real snake involved. It would just be some sort of snake-like appearance. Therefore, the fact that the storyline refers to a real snake seems to rule out the idea that this passage is about Satan making himself look like a snake to Eve.

Satan speaking through an actual snake

There are other Christians who attempt to interpret this account literally by drawing a parallel between the account and the story of Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22:28-30. Those who take this view rightly accept that the account portrays a real snake speaking to Eve, not just a snake-like appearance of Satan. But they claim that Satan spoke through the snake in a way similar to the way God spoke through Balaam’s donkey.

This interpretation should also be rejected.

To start with, in the story of Balaam’s donkey there are two actors, God and the donkey, and God miraculously speaks through the donkey. By contrast, in the Genesis account there is only one actor, the snake. There is not the slightest hint in the text that a second actor is involved who speaks through the snake.

Furthermore, when the passage says in the first sentence of v. 1 that the snake was the most crafty of the animals, this clearly implies that each animal has a certain amount of craftiness in itself. And this obviously includes the snake. Each animal is somewhere on the implied scale of craftiness, with the snake at the top.

Therefore, when in the rest of the passage we are told that the snake uses craftiness to tempt Eve, it must be its own craftiness that it uses. The whole point of referring to the snake’s craftiness in the first sentence is to prepare the reader for the snake using craftiness in the rest of the passage. After reading the first sentence, the reader understands that the snake has craftiness, so the snake’s use of craftiness in the rest of the passage now makes sense.

However, if Satan simply spoke through the snake in the way that God spoke through Balaam’s donkey, it would be Satan’s craftiness that was involved, not that of the snake. So, because it is clearly the snake’s own craftiness that is used, it cannot be about Satan speaking through the snake.

Just a snake miraculously plotting against Eve

The two interpretations I have mentioned, then, both fail. We should have no hesitation in saying that in the storyline of this passage there is a real snake that uses its own craftiness to tempt Eve.

But is it possible that this storyline should be interpreted historically? In other words, is it possible that this literally happened?

There are some Christians who would answer yes to these questions, and who claim that an actual snake was miraculously enabled to plot against Eve and tempt her to sin.

This is also a mistake. Snakes, like all other animals, are not moral creatures. By God’s design, animals are unable to know right from wrong or plot against people to get them to sin.

I would suggest that the idea of an animal being miraculously enabled to know right from wrong is a contradiction in terms. 2 Peter 2:12 and Jude 1:10 refer to ‘irrational animals’, and these verses show that animals exist on a vastly lower level than human beings. By God’s design, the ability to reason in the way that humans do or to know right from wrong is something that is impossible for an animal. An animal can no more know right from wrong than a rock can know right from wrong.

I think it would be correct to say that God could miraculously transform a snake into a creature with knowledge of right and wrong. But importantly, it would then cease to be a snake. It would cease to be an animal. But in Genesis 3:1-6 the snake clearly remains a snake. It remains an animal. And there is also not the slightest hint in this passage anyway of any miracle taking place.

The idea, then, that an actual snake was miraculously enabled to plot against Eve makes no sense.

A symbolic story

All attempts to interpret this passage literally and historically therefore fail. Instead, we should see the passage as a fictional and symbolic story.

The snake in this passage certainly symbolises Satan. The passage is teaching us that Satan was instrumental in leading Adam and Eve to fall into sin.

But on the level of the story, it is the snake as an animal that plots against Eve and tempts her to sin. And this cannot reasonably be taken literally and historically. To interpret this passage literally is to seriously misunderstand the type of literature that is present here.

We should also note carefully that in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 Satan is described as ‘the ancient snake’, which surely refers back to this passage in Genesis. These verses in Revelation fit perfectly with seeing the snake as symbolising Satan in Genesis 3.

 

See also:

Beware of Taking Genesis 1-3 Too Literally

The Problems with Claiming to Interpret the Bible Literally

Beware of Interpreting Bible Prophecies Too Literally

Were the Gospels Designed to be Works of Pure History?

Abuses of the Christian Faith Are Not Jesus’ Fault

It is sadly all too common to find people who reject Jesus and the salvation that He gives, because of a bad experience they have had of something connected to the Christian faith. This is a real tragedy and it happens all the time.

Examples of people being put off the faith

For example, over the years I have heard a number of people lamenting how they were raised to be Christians by parents who were strong on discipline and enforcing strict rules, but who were weak on love and affection. As they got older, these people rightly saw that the way they had been raised wasn’t good. But they wrongly assumed that the Christian faith was itself something that was weak on love and affection, and so they rejected the faith as a result.

I myself had a different sort of bad experience when I was a boy. I wasn’t raised Christian, but for a year or two when I was about seven or eight years old, I was sent off to Sunday School once a week in a local church. This church was pretty dead, and the way they did things left a bad impression that led me to lose interest and think that the Christian faith was boring and irrelevant.

A common and much more serious example is the sexual abuse of children. We have all surely seen news reports of some so-called Christian leader who has been convicted of child sex abuse. This seems to happen with alarming frequency. Of course, anyone who does this is not a real Christian, but even so, there are many people who want nothing to do with the Christian faith as a result.

Another well-known example concerns Jewish people. At various points in history, people calling themselves Christians have taken it on themselves to start killing Jews in the name of Christ. Of course, none of this was remotely the right thing to do, and the perpetrators were distorting the Christian faith in a particularly evil way. But the result is that today many Jews, as well as some non-Jews, want nothing to do with our faith.

Rejecting the Christian faith for reasons like these doesn’t make sense

In all the examples I have given, people have seen an abuse of the Christian faith and have drawn negative conclusions about the faith itself. Everyone who reasons in this way, however, is making a big mistake. The way they are thinking makes no sense.

It should be obvious that just because something is abused, that does not at all have to mean that there is anything wrong with the thing itself. And in each of the cases I listed above, there was a distortion of how the Christian faith should actually be. In reality, our faith is not weak on love and affection, it is not boring and irrelevant, it is horrified by child sex abuse and even more horrified by murdering people.

Anyone can choose to call themself a Christian, but this doesn’t mean that they actually are. And anyone can neglect important parts of biblical teaching, but this doesn’t mean that they should.

So when people choose to reject the Christian faith for any of these and other similar reasons, they are not basing their decision on reality. Instead of making a rational choice, they are being influenced by a caricature of our faith.

It’s all about Jesus

The Christian faith, however, is more than just a set of principles, although it certainly includes these. Our faith is focused on the Person who is Jesus Christ.

This Person is utterly good, loving and wonderful. This Person volunteered to be tortured and executed on our behalf to rescue us from the punishment we deserve for what we do wrong.

And the irony is that this Person really hates abuses of the Christian faith. So when someone rejects our faith and the Jesus at the centre of that faith because of abuses, they are actually rejecting the Person who agrees wholeheartedly that the abuses are awful! 

To put it simply, abuses of the Christian faith are in no way Jesus’ fault. Whoever exactly is to blame for what goes wrong, it certainly isn’t Him.

A plea

If anyone reading this has had a bad experience of something connected to the Christian faith, please don’t let that cause you to conclude that the faith itself is to blame. The undistorted, true version of our faith is beautiful. It’s great. Even more importantly, the undistorted, true version of Jesus is beautiful and great.

And please don’t use abuses of the Christian faith as an excuse not to spend time considering whether our faith might actually be true and Jesus might actually be the way to God that He claimed to be. You might end up getting to know the One who hates abuses of the faith more than anyone.

 

See also:

What Is the Christian Faith Really All About?

Is It Arrogant for Christians to Claim There Is Only One True Faith?

The Justice and Mercy of God

A Very Strong Piece of Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus

Grading Christian Truths on a Scale of Importance

It should be seen as a fact that some truths of the Christian faith are vastly more important than others. Each individual truth is somewhere on a scale, from the relatively insignificant through to the essential.

I am not for a moment suggesting that any biblical truth is so unimportant that it has no value at all. But we should all understand clearly that some things are far more important than others.

Passages which imply that something is very important

It is not always easy to tell what is relatively important or unimportant. But the Bible gives us some pointers. 

Sometimes a passage strongly implies that something is close to the most important end of the scale. 

For example, what Paul says in Galatians makes it clear that the people he is writing against were teaching some seriously wrong ideas. 

In Galatians 1:7-8 he says: 

‘. . . there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.’ 

(Scripture readings in this article are from the English Standard Version.) 

And in Galatians 2:4 he writes: 

‘Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—’ 

Paul’s opponents were insisting that Gentile Christian converts must be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses. The way that he wishes a curse on these teachers and describes them as false brothers shows how serious this error is. 

Similarly, in 2 John 10 the apostle John, referring to professing Christians who reject the humanity of Jesus, says: 

‘If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching [that Jesus is human], do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting,’ 

Surely John would only tell his readers not even to greet people if their error was near the most important end of the scale. 

Again, in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Paul says to the Christians in Corinth: 

‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.’ 

Paul is explicit here that those who commit the sins he mentions will not inherit the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God in this verse refers to final, eternal salvation. In other words, Paul is saying that those who unrepentantly commit these sins are on track for hell. 

Paul’s words in these verses should make it clear that the sins on this list are all intolerable. 

Similar teaching can be found in Revelation 21:8, where God says: 

‘But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.’ 

This verse is very clear that people who unrepentantly commit these sins are on track for hell. So there is no doubt that acting in these ways is intolerable. 

Sometimes, then, the Bible itself strongly implies that a certain belief or practice is at or near the most important end of the scale. 

But we must also take note of where Scripture doesn’t give an implication of this sort. 

For example, Scripture teaches that God wants men, and not women, to be church leaders (although sometimes there is no choice but to have women leaders, such as in churches where there are no men and no other Christians for hundreds of miles). And it is true that if a woman becomes a leader outside the will of God, she is making a big mistake. 

However, nowhere in the Bible does it say that a female church leader should be accursed or that her portion will be in the lake of fire. This error is surely not nearly as serious as, for example, denying the humanity or deity of Christ or failing to condemn homosexual practice. 

Similarly, Scripture teaches that we should expect God to work miracles throughout the Christian era. Again, this is very important, and those who deny that God still does this are making a big mistake. 

However, nowhere does the Bible say that professing Christians who deny this are false brothers or that they will not inherit the kingdom of God.   

Frequency of references 

Another way in which we can sometimes grade how important things are is by seeing how often they are mentioned in Scripture. 

For example, there is a huge volume of biblical teaching on the cross of Christ, and this helps to show how fundamental His death is to the Christian faith. 

Or take the subject of love. The Bible is full of instructions for Christians love people, and there is no doubt that this is an extremely important issue. 

By contrast, some topics are mentioned very rarely. For instance, teaching on head coverings in public worship appears only in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. And only in 1 Corinthians 11:14 are we told that it is wrong for a man to have long hair. 

We should be in no doubt that if a Christian man has a weak understanding of what Jesus’ death was all about, that is far more serious than if he has long hair. 

Similarly, if a Christian woman has little love, that is vastly more problematic than if she fails to get things right on head coverings. 

Satan’s deceiving work 

Many Christians today are poor at grading biblical truths in terms of importance. And it is important to understand that Satan is very active in trying to deceive us in this area. 

To begin with, he loves it when he can make a believer think that something essential is not that important. When this happens, heresy is often tolerated and grave sins are overlooked. 

Although Satan’s bigger victories come when he persuades Christians that important things are relatively unimportant, I would suggest that he is almost as happy when the deception is the other way round. Church history is littered with examples of splits in churches over things that should never have been important enough to cause divisions. Many Christians have been deceived into thinking that they have done God’s will by refusing to back down on something, when actually in their particular case backing down would have been a ‘lesser evil’ than allowing a church to split. 

Subtlety and discernment 

We all need subtlety and discernment regarding how much importance we attach to various truths. It’s not enough for us just to know what is true. We also need to have an idea about where each truth is on the scale of importance. 

On the one hand, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of taking a casual attitude to any great moral or doctrinal principle of the Christian faith. 

On the other hand, it is wrong to become hostile to other Christians simply because we are sure that they believe something false. There are times when it is better to put up with the mistakes of others than to allow churches to divide or to create bad feeling. 

 

See also: 

Christians Need to Put Everything to the Test 

Christians Need to Be Careful Who They Have Fellowship With 

Denominations and Christian Self-Identity

There Is No Such Thing as a Christian Half-Brother or Half-Sister

Will Most People Go to Hell?

You will sometimes hear even quite conservative Christians saying they believe that only a minority of people will end up in hell. 

Many seem to assume that the great love of God will find a way for most to gain eternal salvation. They think that the vast majority of people who say they are Christians will be saved. And they think too that large numbers who don’t even profess Christian faith will also finally be saved. 

A clarification 

Before going any further, I need to make a point of clarification. 

In this article I will be considering what proportion of morally accountable people will go to hell. I will not be thinking about the eternal destiny of people, including the unborn, who have died before they are old enough to be morally accountable. Nor will I be thinking about people who are never able to be morally accountable because of severe mental disability. 

Instead, I will be thinking about people who know right from wrong and are old enough to be held morally accountable. And in what follows, when I refer to ‘people’, I will be thinking only of morally accountable people. 

Most people will go to hell 

Although it is horrible even to think about it, there are strong reasons for believing that most people, probably a large majority, will go to hell. 

The following are some key points. 

Matthew 7 

The most important passage for our topic is Matthew 7:13-14, where Jesus states: 

‘13 Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.’ 

(Scripture readings in this article are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise stated.) 

The ‘destruction’ that Jesus refers to here is punishment after death, i.e., hell. And because ‘destruction’ is contrasted with ‘life’, the life He is talking about must be the eternal life involved in receiving final salvation. 

So Jesus is teaching that many are on the road to hell and few are on the road to final salvation. 

Although Jesus uses present tense verbs here – ‘are many’, ‘are few’ – it would be a big mistake to limit what He says in this passage to the situation in His own day. There is no reason whatsoever to think that a time would come later on when there would be few on the road to destruction and many on the road to life. 

Therefore, this passage strongly implies that most people will go to hell.  

Another important passage, also in this chapter, is Matthew 7:21-23, where Jesus says: 

‘21 Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” 23 And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”’ 

Here, Jesus must be referring to people who claim to be Christians but are not really saved. And note how he says in v. 22 that there are ‘many’ of them. 

This passage is clear that there are many false believers in the world. And it therefore counts strongly against the idea that the vast majority of people who claim to be Christians will receive final salvation. 

Those who have never heard the gospel 

Next we need to consider people who have never heard the gospel of salvation in Christ. 

There are many Christians today who claim that large numbers of people who have never heard the gospel will nevertheless be saved for eternity. They say that there are many who are sincerely seeking God and who would believe the gospel if they just had an opportunity to hear it. And they think that God will surely take account of that by granting them eternal salvation. 

In actual fact, the Bible strongly implies that in all or at least almost all cases, anyone living in the Christian era who does not have a specific faith in Christ will not be saved. 

In Romans 10:13-15 Paul writes: 

‘13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”’ 

Paul’s words in this passage strongly imply that we can typically expect people who have not heard the gospel to remain unsaved. Other passages that point in the same direction are Acts 10:1-11:18; Acts 4:12 and John 14:6. 

For a much fuller discussion of this issue, see my article: Can Anyone Who Has Not Heard the Gospel Be Saved? 

Hated by everyone 

Mark 13:13 and Luke 21:17 are also relevant verses for our topic, where Jesus warns His followers: 

‘You will be hated by everyone because of my name…’ (Christian Standard Bible) 

Although what the Lord says in these verses was intended to refer in the first place to Christians living in the first century, there is no reason at all to think that we should expect anything different for Christians of later centuries. These words imply that Christians of every century will be hated by everyone because of Jesus’ name. 

When Jesus says in these verses that Christians will be hated by ‘everyone’, clearly this doesn’t mean literally every human being, because the Christians themselves aren’t included in those who hate Christians. Nor is there any need to assume that literally every single non-Christian will hate Christians. 

On the other hand, however, ‘everyone’ in these verses surely implies at least a majority of people, probably quite a large majority. If ‘everyone’ didn’t imply this, this word would be very misleading, and we can be confident that Jesus’ words are not misleading. 

So these verses are teaching that most people hate Christians. And if they hate us, they are against God and surely on track for hell. 

Summing up 

The combined weight of the points I have made provides very strong support for thinking that most people, probably a large majority of the world’s population, will end up in hell. This is obviously a very sobering and in some ways horrible conclusion to reach, but it does fit with what the Bible has to say.

Downplaying God’s justness 

I am sure that one of the main reasons why so many Christians think most people will avoid hell is because they have a faulty understanding of God’s nature. 

Biblical revelation contains many paradoxes, and one big paradox is between how God justly punishes people on the one hand and how He forgives people on the other. The Bible is full of examples of where God does punish people for their sins, and also full of examples of where He doesn’t punish people for their sins. 

It is essential that we don’t downplay either side of this paradox. God is not just a loving God of mercy, but also an angry God who justly punishes. His mercy towards people will reach fullest expression when He admits those who are saved to final salvation. And His punishing of people will reach fullest expression when He sends those who are unsaved to hell. 

Many Christians in Western society today underemphasise God’s will to punish, and so conclude that He wouldn’t send many people to hell. But this stems from a skewed picture of who He really is. 

Why is this important? 

So why is it important for us to know that most people will end up in hell? 

Well, first, it can help us to avoid taking a casual approach to the evangelism of groups of people who have not yet been reached with the gospel. 

Second, it can make us more alert to the importance of taking opportunities to share the gospel with people we meet who have no connection to Christian things. 

And third, it can make us more alert to share the gospel with people within a church context who seem not to have a proper understanding of the way of salvation. 

How to avoid hell 

Although most people will end up in hell, the way to avoid going there is quite simple. We just need to accept by faith Jesus Christ and the salvation that is in Him. When He died on the cross, He paid the price for our sins, and we need to believe this and take hold of it for ourselves. 

When we turn to Christ, we will receive the Holy Spirit and our lives will change. Then we will be ready to live out the rest of our time on earth for God. 

 

See also: 

Christian Teachers and Evangelists Should Speak Often about Hell 

The Justice and Mercy of God 

Can Anyone Who Has Not Heard the Gospel Be Saved?

What Is the Christian Faith Really All About?