STORY OF THE WEEK: Beyond Fire and Brimstone: Rethinking Salvation
“Being Saved” Does Not Mean What You Think It Does
Growing up in an evangelical church, I was exposed to endless speculation about who was “saved” and who was not “saved.”
By salvation, I mean coming to a point in your life where you agreed with the core tenets of evangelical Christianity on an intellectual level and were willing to “ask Jesus into your heart” so you would be saved from eternal separation from God.
Hell, in other words.
So you can understand why, in the church’s eyes, “getting saved” was pretty darn important. Certainly, the majority of the church’s time and resources were put into trying to “get people saved.”
I remember an occasion where a young man known in our community but not part of the church tragically died after coming off his motorbike. The pastor of my church got up and shared the news with the congregation and saw fit to add these words: “Unfortunately, this young man was not saved. We can only hope in the split-second before his head hit the concrete that he accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior.”
Yes, salvation mattered so much that such grotesquely insensitive comments were met with nods of approval by the average pew-dweller.
But the thing is, the Greek word commonly translated as “salvation” or “saved” in the New Testament doesn’t mean what most Christians think it does. In fact, when we take a look at what the Bible really says about “salvation,” it puts an entirely different spin on things. And, in fact, it presents a much more hopeful and life-giving message than the usual, “You’re going to Hell unless you get saved.”
Buckle up for a brief lesson in Biblical interpretation that might just challenge your perspective, especially if you’ve been tethered to a system where salvation is synonymous with escaping the threat of Hell.
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