Life After Death And The Future Of The Kingdom Of God

Over half of Americans believe in a literal heaven, in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. Ehrman shows that eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament, and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. He recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. Ehrman shows that competing views were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. -- adapted from jacket

Heaven may not be what you think it is. We often think of heaven in two extremes: It’s either a dreamy existence where we float around on clouds with nothing much to do, or it’s something far off in the future that we don’t want to happen until we accomplish all that we want to in this life. Both of these are flat wrong, and Tony Evans looks to Scripture to set the record straight. Simple and straight-forward, Eternity is a short book on what eternity with God will really be like. “God hasn’t told us everything [about heaven],” writes Evans, “but Scripture gives us enough glimpses and enough promises about heaven for us to know we don’t want to miss this place of eternal joy.” Walk through Scripture with Evans as he plainly explains what heaven is like, who will be there, and what they’ll be doing. With engaging illustrations and practical insights, you’ll know what awaits believers forever and how that matters for life today.

Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.

Life After Death takes an in-depth look at the important issues surrounding death. Does it matter what we believe? Why do we avoid talking about it? Can we confidently assume there is life after death? This book presents the Christian view of death and what lies beyond. It doesn't avoid the difficult questions of judgment and the possibility of missing out on all that God has planned for his people. However, for those who are searching for a real relationship with the living God, Life After Death presents a glorious message of hope and certainty. You don't have to go through life with any doubt about the future. On the contrary, if you are willing to accept all that God offers, on his terms, you will be able to look forward to an endless future in which you will experience all that God, in his infinite love and wisdom, has planned for you. You will also find a hope that will transform your goals, values, and understanding of every part of this present life.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

The soul is so closely connected to life that one cannot think that it could ever be separated from life and, consequently, be mortal. Therefore, it can only be immortal. This argument from Plato's Phaedo for the immortality of the soul exhibits both a great strength and a great weakness. Its strength is that it is dif ficult for anyone to think that the soul could ever exist without life. Its weakness is, first, that not all religions accept a soul that remains the same as the center of the person - thus one speaks, for instance, in Buddhism of a "soulless theory of the human being" - and, second, that what is true does not depend on what we can think, but on what we recognize in experience and thought. The religions believe in the existence of a power that can work contrary to our experience that the soul in death is not separated from life. How the reli gions believe they can establish this continued life after death and how faith in this life is related in the religions to the interpretation of history, its progress, its apocalyptic end, and its eschatological completion and transfiguration is the theme of this book. In the culture of the West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, faith in the secular progress of the technological control of nature and the economic or ganization of society was the enemy of faith in the immortality of the soul.

Is death the end of human existence and consciousness, or do we continue in some other place or state of being? Do we go to a place of everlasting reward or eternal torment? Are we destined to be reincarnated, coming to life again in a different body in a seemingly endless cycle of living and dying? Will we ever see deceased loved ones again? Is there somewhere you can go to find the answers to these questions? The Bible tells us exactly what happens after death. It tells us what happens to those who have done right (will they go to heaven?) and wrong (or be tormented in an ever-burning hell?) and reveals the fate of the billions of people who have never known God and His way of life. Most churches claim to teach what the Bible says—but what does it really reveal? You need to discover the answers yourself inside this Bible Study aid, What Happens After Death?. You'll be shocked when you find out what the Bible really teaches! Chapters in this ebook: -- What Happens After Death? -- The Wondrous Gift of Life -- The Mystery of Death -- Do Some Bible Verses Teach That We Have an Immortal Soul? -- The History of the Immortal-Soul Teaching -- What About Reported Life-After-Death Experiences? -- God's Plan of Redemption -- The Promise of Life After Death -- Ancient Pagan Belief in Heaven -- Words of Encouragement -- Are There Saved Human Beings in Heaven -- Did Paul Expect to Be Conscious in Heaven Right After Dying? -- How Eternal Life Will Ultimately Be Offered to All -- The Biblical View of 'Hell' -- Will the Torment of the Wicked Last Forever? -- Are the Wicked Punished in an Ever-Burning Hell? -- Are Some Tortured Forever in a Lake of Fire? -- Lazarus and the Rich Man: Proof of Heaven and Hell? -- Steps in Dealing With Grief -- How Can We Help Those Who Are Grieving? -- Everlasting Life Conquers Death Inside this Bible Study Aid ebook: "...those who have died are unconscious, as if they are sleeping a dreamless sleep, awaiting their time to be called out of the grave and resurrected to a new life." "Many people, however, believe in a perpetual, ever-burning hellfire or a condition of spiritual torment in which evil people are tortured throughout eternity. But the Bible’s simple teaching conveys nothing like this." "Understanding the meaning of life, death and what follows this physical life can give priceless comfort and hope in the face of death. It should also have a great impact on the kind of person you are, motivating you to live carefully and make wise choices."