I thought I'd throw in my thoughts a la your request at 19:40ish. I've had massive depression and anxiety for almost half my life now. I almost died from it twice in my earlier years. If anyone thinks that the idea of being saved from a distorted worldview and poor theology is a bit lackluster, I'm here to tell you straight up: you could not be more wrong. I've become more familiar with the state of hell than I ever wanted to be, and it came from exactly that. The only options I saw that wasn't just lying to myself was a cruel, cold, nihilistic worldview or one with a God that terrified me to my core. Even to the point where I was worried that I was so emotionally mangled that I was past a psychological event horizon of being able to make it back to a life that felt worth living. When I was bold enough to be honest with myself before, I knew that I didn't love God, I was deathly afraid of him. I wanted to love God, but that was more to avoid Hell. I could create an elegant apologetic argument for how God was justified in condemning people to Hell, but if I was honest with myself, I was doing my best to rationalize that worldview because I was terrified of being wrong, so I went with what was the default in hopes of "playing it safe". Also, being around so much infighting about who has the right view of Christian soteriology and who was damned to an existence of irreversible, unending agony . Some Catholics were very comfortable in saying that there are no Protestants in heaven, and vice versa. And of course, even within the Protestant branch, all kinds of deadly beliefs were creeping around every corner, and the "narrow path to life" varied from pastor to pastor. There's also a gross kind of irony in being terrified to the core of Hell, and just wanting to placate God even though you're too afraid of him to be able to love him, and then being unable to do even that because you can't even tell whose brand of fearful obedience the true one and whose is the decoy that's there to entrap you. And finally, the feeling even more distanced from God because there's a worship team singing "Sing with me, how great, how great is our God?" as if it's obvious that he is. So long story short, after decades of burning myself out repeatedly, trying to make it work, this view is the first one that not only is starting to actually starting to help me heal, but with it, the Bible just seems to work on it's own. All the pieces fall into place. The idea of sharing Good News is plausible now. As is God having a loving nature. So at the risk of reaching TL;DR territory, yes, this approach to Christian soteriology is having an impact, and even if there has to be some refining and reworking of the details, it has done a thousand times more in bringing me closer to God than the traditional view has.

"I don't want to live with fear and insecurity, but not because I know that I'm going to Heaven; I don't want to live with fear and insecurity because I know that's not who God is." This was a cannon shot.

Thank you for sharing!

This is such a needed correction for my mind to wrestle with and put into proper perspective. Thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to teach us these lessons. I’m grateful for my time listening to BEMA and trying to deconstruct how I hear God’s voice through the scriptures, and reconstruct based on who God is and not just on what I’ve been taught theologically. Maybe you’ll get to this in the next video, but something that has helped me through the podcast is re-reading those scriptures that I was taught to think a certain way about, and learning how to read them more accurately through how they would have been heard to their first hearers and in their original context. Are there resources you’d recommend in trying to go back through the verses we tend to cherry pick to give someone a “blueprint of how to be saved” and put them in their proper context?

Thank you Marty. Our son passed away in 2019 and I can understand that conversation that you had. While listening to you I thought of the hym “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand”.

“My hope is not in salvation, my hope is in the God that is so good he will win.” 😮‍💨🔥

Thank you so much for sharing this! May the Lord bless you richly for your faithful service

@3:11 - YES, this question matters. My dear neighbor, a young Christian, walked away from the whole thing when her father died without trust in Jesus. She couldn't bring herself to explain wherever her kids' grandfather went, and found it more comforting to abandon a construct of ongoing, eternal punishment of loved ones and embrace agnosticism. My heart breaks that she felt that was her obligation. Personally, I find hope in Jesus' description of Jairus' daughter's state in the face of those who insisted she was dead: "She is only sleeping." With God, all things are possible.

1000 to 3 ... 🎉 whoo, hoo! My hope is in You Lord, the Lord of mercy ❤

PRAISE God FOR YOUR boldness in speaking out honestly! Thank you for this amazing video.

Thank you!! I agree with this 100%. Everything I have been studying lately has pointed to this concept. So freeing

LOVE THIS!!!! Wonderful! Right on, man!

This was one of your best lessons! thank you Marty 🎉❤

So good Marty, a lot to think about and very challenging!

I think this is a tough question to deal with. I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts regarding it.

My heart wants to lean on ultimate Love, but my understanding won't let me discount our Christ suffering. And, the ultimate importance of It.

15:50 the system… could you almost frame it as “empire”? Our hope being in this “empire” of Christianity rather than a hope in God/Jesus?

I totally agree that our hope is in God and that we don't have to have it all figured out systematically. But I also totally know that the hope that I have is that I am part of the kingdom, that warning is given because there are those that are not part of the Kingdom, and that universal salvation appears to be a very foreign concept in the NT and not embraced within historical christianity and that while God is loving and merciful and gracious, he is also completely holy, just and righteous and ultimately, my hope is in Him to do what is consistent with his character and trusting in that even when it comes to those who have chosen to not follow him. But I will teach the full message which is clearly filled with examples of his love and warnings of his judgement for those who do not enter into His grace, even as I hope and trust that He alone has the full say in it and I look forward to being surprised by what we will find. Once again, Marty asks us to think and to question. I think it's dangerous, but also delightful and God desires us to wrestle with these things because they matter.

@SheepDog1974

4 ай бұрын

Is your hope in God, or in Jesus Christ?

@user-ze2xo8dg9u

4 ай бұрын

@@SheepDog1974 Both. :) 1 John 3:1-3 sums it up pretty nicely. Blessings.

@SheepDog1974

4 ай бұрын

@@user-ze2xo8dg9u John 3 is beautiful passage of scripture. Though, do you think that Jesus was attempting to show Nicodemus that life outside of knowing Jesus is life without God. Isn't Jesus our only hope? Isn't the entire gospel purposed in the knowledge of Jesus Christ - afterall the Jews thought they had eternal life in God. They were God's elect people. But the point I'm trying to make is that scripture is very clear, our ONLY Hope is in Jesus Christ. Without Him, we cannot know the father. Jesus is God incarnate. Otherwise what makes Christianity any different from other religions? 1 Tim 1:1 Titus 2:13

@user-ze2xo8dg9u

4 ай бұрын

@@SheepDog1974 That's what I was referencing when I said that I "have to teach the "full message" which includes Jesus as the one through which we enter into God's family. So you and I are on the same page regarding Jesus. However, I do think that our entrance into the Kingdom through Jesus is much more than simply being saved. It's not that reductionistic and this is what Marty's words speak to (as I listen). When Jesus says that he is the way, I believe we reduce it down to "the way to heaven" when in fact we look at how he lived and interacted in this world and follow "his way" and do the same. Blessings.

@SheepDog1974

4 ай бұрын

@@user-ze2xo8dg9u I understand you better. I do agree. Jesus is much more than fire insurance, He is Life.

Am I missing the numbering of the episodes? I can't tell which is episode 2, episode 3, etc. I'd like to follow the thinking from beginning to end, but I might be watching out of order.

@coveredinhisdust

Ай бұрын

There is a playlist that has them in order on my main YT page. Otherwise the date of the video would be how you could tell.

@coveredinhisdust

Ай бұрын

There should be 5 videos in total

Apokatastasis baby!

The foundation of hope is Christ. Soteriology derives from Christology

@SheepDog1974

4 ай бұрын

I'm glad to hear, I'm not the only one saying this. It's in Jesus Christ that our Hope is in