His_kt

Dear th1bill, Please forgive me for the excess of information. We may easily subtract the NT numbers from the whole. Nevertheless, the ratio remains similar. I must point out that you explicitly said, "In the 4 Gospels, Jesus/God taught more on the truth and fact of Hell than He did on Heaven." The question you posed was, in essence, why should we listen to a created being rather than the Creator, in reference to Rob Bell as the created. We are all His created, and study the same Word. It comes down to the extent and breadth of study, and interpretation. Since neither of us has read Bell's books, we cannot presume to know his position, nor dare to accuse him of deception. It is much too easy sliding down that slippery slope. Proverbs 10: 18 warns against slander. "Whoever hides hatred has lying lips, And whoever spreads slander is a fool." Would you agree we've all fallen in that trap at one time or another? We hear something and repeat it, without really knowing the facts? A bad habit I'm certain the adversary delights in. Let us be diligent in seeking the truth of a matter. Btw, libraries still carry the materials we do not wish to purchase. God bless!

Dear th1bill, I've not read Bell's work, although I would like to hear what he has to say, so I will. We hear certain things in Christendom, that unfortunately are not true. Case in point: Jesus spoke more of hell than heaven. If you reference Strong's Concordance, you will see that hell is spoken of 23x in the NT. Old and New combined is 54x. Of the 23 NT references, there are 3 different words- gehenna, 12x ; hades, 10x ; tartaroo, 1x. All are defined as the place or state of departed souls. Gehenna, as an everlasting punishment, and tataroo alone, as the deepest abyss of eternal torment. It's found in 2Peter 2: 4, and refers to the fallen angels. By contrast : heaven, heavenly, and heavens are used far too many times to count, OT and NT combined. There are 2 full pages plus part of a column. This is nearly 6 1/2 columns with approximately 114 or 115 uses in each column. As you can see, heaven is spoken of many,many times more than gehenna or hades. It is my understanding that in Judaism, there was no teaching of hell as it has come to us from the middle ages. So, my dear sir, there is always more to learn, and information can be verified or dismissed as false. May the Lord who is Truth, guide us into all truth.

For those who don't know, :u , is a thumbs-up emoticon.

Amen! :u

Truth! Wisdom! Yes! Thank God.