Johnny Skeptic

Matthew 24:14 says "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." How do Christians interpret this verse?

Since hundreds of millions of people have died without ever having heard the Gospel message, even including some people today, why is it important that anyone has heard the Gospel message?

Kosh

They turn Jesus' eyes into some sort of time/space folder warp drive (he did have blue eyes just like in "Dune", right?) and have him "looking" at some future generation as he says that...

ISVfan

Why does everyone interpet everything Jesus said as being literal? Jesus could speak fuguratively. And there is a presence of the Gospel in every Continent.

Read the verse it doesn't say everyone that has ever lived will hear the Gospel it just says every nation. For it to mean what you imply would be impossible because the Gospel wasn't even around when King David was alive so a lot of people would have never heard the Gospel message. BTW I'm just me not all Christians.

ISVfan

I believe even you guys know the Bible clearly teaches Christ was Jewish. Those who claim Christ was white or latino or even black do not represent the Bible, or Christians in general.

Terrible Heresy

From what he said, I think you guys are all misunderstanding what Johnny is trying to say(though I may be wrong)

I think his question is, if so many have died without hearing the Gospel, why is it so important to hear the Gospel?

And by extension, if it is so important to hear the Gospel, why were these millions not taught the Gospel?

Besides the fact that the literal/figuative is a blatant tool in the apologists bag of tricks?

I would say the best reason for treating everything literally until given a damn good reason not to is that there simply is no good formula for deciding what is literal, and what is figurative. And given a chance, apologists abuse this. So until proven otherwise it's better to side on literal. If not just for the obvious apologist bias, then the fact that until proven otherwise it's best to take what someone said as what they meant!

Kosh

I think you missed my point of sarcasm.

ISVfan

I apologize! Just making sure. Just get tired of white supremist wacko's They bug me.

ISVfan

I don't understand the reasoning here. It's important because it's the only way to eternal life. Using this arguement I could ask why eat steak because millions haven't. Why do I eat the steak because it's benficial to me. So it the Gospel. And as I stated in my other post their are million of Christians worldwide. And more are add everyday. It saddens me to think about those who never got the chance to hear it but worldwide missions is trying to solve this dilema.

We have tried. Look at the Missions movements in England. The church in India is growing at an amazing rate. In a town of 750,000 in China nearly 2,000 were saved last year. So the church today is trying to reach more.

Kosh

Well if you put it that way....

I read somewhere on this site (in the library) following hilarious but rather valid argument:

Christians believe that those who have NEVER heard the Gospel, either get into Heaven, or get to "hear it" at the pearly gates.

The failure rate of missionary/witnessing attempts in around 90%.

therefore, Xians would do better if they just kept their mouths shut, and let you make the decision when you've got concrete evidence in front of you!

Terrible Heresy

ISVFan: You are totally missing the point. It's not about human ability whatsover. It's about God. God could chosen to reveal the Gospel in a way which everyone would hear it. But he didn't.

So if it he chose not to, why did he? If the Gospel is so important?

It's like a doctor in a room with 20 kids saying that flu vaccinations are very, very important. Having plenty of vaccine. And then choosing to only vaccinate 10 of them. It makes no sense.

And no, the free will argument does not apply here. That would be severely undermining the ability of God. It was obviously his design for the Gospel to not be able to spread to all walks of life. He could have introduced this doctrine when there were far less people on the earth so Jesus's teachings could have spread faster to all of civilization(the far east civilizations are a big mystery as to why God ignored them so completely, yes?). There are a thousand other possibilities as to how God could have made the Gospel more well spread without infringing on free will anymore then he has in any number of ways.

So again, if the Gospel is so vital to every human being, why has God designed it so that millions have not heard it?