7/31/12 Jose, 48
Today, just as we
planned in church on Sunday, I met with Anand to walk around the neighborhood
and engage people in Gospel conversations. One man we talked with was Jose, a faithful
church attendee but an unfaithful Bible reader. Without referring to the truth of the Bible,
Jose has no way to verify if the different church traditions he encounters are
true to God's word or are just the false teachings of man. One of his beliefs was in purgatory, a
Catholic teaching that seems logical but isn't found in scripture. Jose believes that since he isn't good enough to
go to heaven or bad enough to go to hell, he will go to a place of punishment
until he has adequately paid for the consequences of his sins. Only then he will be allowed to go to
heaven. I had built up some rapport with
Jose, so I said "Now I want to challenge you to think about this when it
comes to purgatory. First, it isn't
biblical. It isn't found anywhere in the
Bible. Second, it just doesn't make
sense because God's justice requires a just punishment for your sins. When you
sin, you sin against an infinitely holy and worthy God. If a just punishment is to fit the crime, your
punishment would be equally infinite. Suppose
you have to spend 100 years suffering in purgatory to pay for your sins. Why
not 101? Is God not worth that much? Is there a limit on God's worth?" Later,
after I had explained to Jose about Jesus' sacrificial death in place of the
punishment he deserved, I asked "Since He is the Son of God, He also has infinite
worth. Do you think there is anything you
can add to what Jesus did on the cross?"
Jose agreed that there could not and that this all made a lot of
sense. In fact, I think eveything we explained
made sense to him. But as Anand and I agreed
while continuing our walk, we can't trust in even the best and most logical
Gospel explanations; our trust must be in the power of the Holy Spirit to
change the heart of man. Please pray for
Jose to make the next step of faith. I
believe he is so close to, yet so far from, the Kingdom of Heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment