1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.
Deuteronomy 34:8 The people of Isra’el mourned Moshe on the plains of Mo’av for thirty days; after this, the days of crying and mourning for Moshe ended.
I believe Moses will be resurrected to eternal life according to the New Testament. So how are the People of God supposed to mourn when a fellow believer has physically died? Our society is so permeated by secular concepts that I can't help but feel we've begun to learn these ways. When we talk about the death of a believer we use the word "death" or "loss" when they have neither really died nor are they forever lost to us. We find this sort of heightened fear of death portrayed in plays, shows and movies, and we find this sort of language used on TV, at funerals in real life, through gossip, legends, books, stories, etc. Do you think that this secular feeling of loss and death has become ingrained in us and affects our faith in a negative way or has an influence on how we think of the Gospel or resurrection?
How are we to mourn the "death" of a believer? How would we mourn them if they simply took an extended leave of absence for a few years but after a few years we would see them again? Would we go on weeping or would we feel a little sad for a month or two and then look forward to meeting them again?
Deuteronomy 34:8 The people of Isra’el mourned Moshe on the plains of Mo’av for thirty days; after this, the days of crying and mourning for Moshe ended.
I believe Moses will be resurrected to eternal life according to the New Testament. So how are the People of God supposed to mourn when a fellow believer has physically died? Our society is so permeated by secular concepts that I can't help but feel we've begun to learn these ways. When we talk about the death of a believer we use the word "death" or "loss" when they have neither really died nor are they forever lost to us. We find this sort of heightened fear of death portrayed in plays, shows and movies, and we find this sort of language used on TV, at funerals in real life, through gossip, legends, books, stories, etc. Do you think that this secular feeling of loss and death has become ingrained in us and affects our faith in a negative way or has an influence on how we think of the Gospel or resurrection?
How are we to mourn the "death" of a believer? How would we mourn them if they simply took an extended leave of absence for a few years but after a few years we would see them again? Would we go on weeping or would we feel a little sad for a month or two and then look forward to meeting them again?