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Life After Death
It’s a general consensus in Christianity that Christ was indeed “raised from the dead.” This is referred to as The Resurrection, of course, and is certainly the turning point of history on which lay the entire foundation of the Christian Church.
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty.
1 Corinthians 15:14 NET Remarkably, there are many who believe in the resurrection, and of everlasting life in Jesus, yet struggle with the idea of or reported claims of near-death experiences (NDE). How do these things relate? Well, when we talk of “life after death,” we’re typically asking about one’s ideas or beliefs regarding the afterlife or, more specifically, Heaven and hell.
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And What Shall Remain?
Remove the dross from the silver, and material for the silversmith will emerge.
Proverbs 25:4 NLT Dross refers to the impurities within a metal that can be separated from the pure element by extreme heat. The oldest method of gold purification requires the metal to be made molten, at which point all other non-gold metals and materials float to the surface and can be easily removed.
Whenever we attempt to “purify” something, we have to put it through some type of process to make it pure for some purpose. And while our definition of “pure” may vary depending on the usage, we typically mean something that comprises 100% (or pretty darn close) of a particular component. In the above example, pure gold is 24 karat, with anything less than that being a mixture of gold and other materials.
In the gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist says of Jesus,
“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Matthew 3:12 NIV
