Heaven

[remade]

In my personal devotional time, I've been reading and studying through the Lord's prayer, and I got stuck on the second "chunk" of studying.

Our father (1)

who art in heaven (2) <- Place I'm stuck.

It caused me to really note a few things.

1 - As with the Bible, so is in contemporary literature: there is a whole lot more out there about heaven that is serious studying, then there is about hell with it's fanciful tales of "I've been to heaven and back." We see Stephen and Paul talk about similar encounters, but Paul especially not want to mention anymore of it because he saw it as unnecessary (2 Cor. 12:3-7).

2 - But for the purposes of the Lord's prayer, Jesus could and probably is referring to heaven as the throne of God (cf. Psalm 2:4; 11:4; 103:19; I Thess. 1:10; 4:16; 2 Thess. 1:7).

It caused me to wonder, what are your thoughts about heaven? Why do you think more people are concerned with hell than heaven? Why do you think the tales of heaven are usually completely fanciful and false? Clouds, harps, people in diapers and such?

Thoughts?

[morbo3000]

In my personal devotional time, I've been reading and studying through the Lord's prayer, and I got stuck on the second "chunk" of studying.

Our father (1)

who art in heaven (2) <- Place I'm stuck.

It caused me to really note a few things.

1 - As with the Bible, so is in contemporary literature: there is a whole lot more out there about heaven that is serious studying, then there is about hell with it's fanciful tales of "I've been to heaven and back." We see Stephen and Paul talk about similar encounters, but Paul especially not want to mention anymore of it because he saw it as unnecessary (2 Cor. 12:3-7).

2 - But for the purposes of the Lord's prayer, Jesus could and probably is referring to heaven as the throne of God (cf. Psalm 2:4; 11:4; 103:19; I Thess. 1:10; 4:16; 2 Thess. 1:7).

It caused me to wonder, what are your thoughts about heaven? Why do you think the tales of heaven are usually completely fanciful and false? Clouds, harps, people in diapers and such?

Thoughts?

Hi. Great questions!

Jesus could and probably is referring to heaven as the throne of God

What are your thoughts about heaven?

Heaven meant something different to them than it does to us. The expanse of their understanding of the cosmos was limited to earth, and sky. Heaven literally means sky. So, God lived in the sky/heavens. The Israelites were originally henotheists, which means they believed there were many gods in the heavens, but that YHWH was the head god and the only one who should be worshiped. We have an example of that in Job chapters 1 and 2 with the divine council. So, YWHW lived in the sky/heavens, along with the other gods. Eventually, monotheism took over, emptying the sky/heavens of the other gods, and now only occupied by YHWH, or the trinity, however you look at it.

The Copernican revolution changed that, expanding the cosmos beyond the "sky" to include planets, stars, galaxies, the universe, and eventually to the the moment of creation. The limits of our understanding are beyond that moment of creation. So, if we imitate the cosmology of the ancients, placing God outside of the real, I think we would say that heaven is on the other side of that moment of creation. Or perhaps in a different part of the multi-verse. God keeps getting pushed farther and farther out of the known universe.

Why do you think more people are concerned with hell than heaven?

I think people are more concerned about hell than heaven out of self-preservation and love. Personally, we fear whatever is on the other side of death, so we believe whatever gives us confidence we are in a good place after we die. For others, we are likely motivated out of love. My dad is not a Christian. A believer in heaven and hell with loved ones who are not in the faith, would be motivated primarily to get your loved one out of harms way. At the time of the reformation, anabaptists were accused of child abuse because they refused to baptize their children. How could a loving parent, the argument went, damn their children to hell? Jesus expanded that love to include everyone. If I would evangelize my family out of love, maybe I would my neighbor as well. Jesus then answers the question "who is my neighbor," with a parable to illustrate that everyone should be loved enough to be saved from hell.

You might find this useful.
https://books.google.com/books?id=E25y ... ns&f=false