~M~

So, i was reading the bible today (a slow week) while i was feeding my coffee addiction and came across luke 7:28.
my point of interest is not the contrast of john and the rest but rather the reference to the "least" or in other vesions the most "insignificant" in kingdom of god. this seems to imply, however not necessarily, that there is some sort of social status of some sort in heaven, no?

if so, i find that odd. Don't you?

Chili

John was from the netherworld or subconscius mind which is not "this generation" and thus not part of "the living" where God is at.

Ray Moscow

I think it's a way for this group of early Christians (Luke for his audience) to say that their religion was better than that of the JTB groups -- by having Jesus say this.

Apsu

I grew up in the baptist church; it's been so long that I can't remember church doctrine on the subject, but I know that my family believed in a social status in the afterlife. It went sorta like this:

One is not saved by works, one is saved by faith alone -- thus the worst people in the world could go to heaven, as long as they accepted Jesus as their personal savior at some point in life. However, there must be some reward for living a moral, Christian life right? Well, the social hierarchy in the afterlife rewarded those who lived according to biblical doctrine eternally, and while evil people could accept Jesus in order to save themselves -- they would be low on the social ladder in the afterlife.

Makes me think of another point which has bothered me for some time -- a friend told me a few years back that according to Christians, and this philosophy -- Ted Bundy is spending eternity in paradise (because he accepted Jesus at some point), while Ghandi is rotting in eternal damnation (because he didn't accept Jesus). I'd like to hear a bit about that from the Christians ....

Solo

I think it specifically relates to the "power" of JTB's baptism with compared with Jesus' (Lk 3:16). The story of Simon Magus (in Acts 8) is especially instructive as it separates a simple baptism by Philip (presumably of the JtB type) from the "laying of hands" by the senior apostles (Peter, John) - a procedure by which the inductees received the Holy Spirit.

Jiri

DramaQ

I don't know how this looks in the original Greek, but I'd be curious if/how "born of women" is related to Paul's "born of a woman" line and what it tells us about the meaning/conotation of those words to people at the time.

dq

OripahsTrebor

I do not know about the states of their souls as I most certainly do not believe in souls. However, I think Catholics believe that Ted Bundy would probably have to experience a rather long sojourn in purgatory. I do not know if enough people would be praying for his soul to mitgate the experience there though. He might be in hell where there is no hope.

Apsu

True, purgatory definitely throws another angle into the idea of the salvation of people who commit acts of "evil" on earth. I can't speak from a Catholic point of view on the general subject of a social hierarchy in heaven -- this was the angle of my baptist parents, and I assume some other protestant denominations hold similar views. I guess if one were saved by faith alone (without a concept of purgatory and the option to buy your way in [that was the point of purgatory right? A person's family could make donations to the church in order to seal the deal on a loved one's transcendence from purgatory to heaven.]), they had to come up with some motivation to live decently rather than simply accept Jesus and then do whatever the hell you want. Thus, a social hierarchy -- starting with one of the apostles (iirc) sitting at the right hand of Jesus on his throne in heaven.

Doug Shaver

The fundamentalist sect to which I belonged taught that there would be degrees of reward in heaven. Everyone would be perfectly happy, but some apparently would be more perfectly happy than others.

The specifics were never elaborated on. In particular, nobody ever talked about whether the gradations of reward would involve anything resembling social stratification. I suspect, though, that if you were to ask them, they would strongly deny that there could be anything like that in heaven.

Timetospend

I would doubt that the "kingdom of God" refers to actual heaven in this case. Certainly Jesus seems to claim that some aspect of this kingdom is available to the Jews while still living, per:
Luke 17:20-21
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21 nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you."
NRSV

I think that the comparison is important. Basically, Jesus gives John a great compliment as can be seen by the reaction of those who had been baptized by Jesus. He makes a comparison pointing out that John is better than the Pharisees and lawyers despite their complaints of John. As contrast, Jesus also points out the superiorit of those who have an aspect of the kingdom of God in them.

Thanks,