The Pastor Who Didn't Believe In Hell

“Brian Jones lost his faith in God and belief in hell while he was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. His faith recovered, but his belief in hell didn’t. For four years he led a church, keeping his belief on hell a secret, even from his wife.” Pastor on Past Dirty Little Secret: I Didn’t Believe In Hell
But during a moment of sincerity and vulnerability, God revealed what the Bible truly says about the existence of hell. Jones, now the senior pastor at Christ’s Church of the Valley in the suburbs of Philadelphia, shares why he believes that hell exists and why people, including evangelicals, don’t believe it. Jones says “…The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there…That always struck me when it comes to this issue of hell. Not a unique way of looking at a particular biblical passage or approaching hermeneutics. The book isn’t even per se about hell as it is about what happens when we embrace it as a reality and how that changes our lifestyle and interaction with people who are far from God.”

Discussion

As I read that article I thought about how often we (I) hold to the orthodox view of the reality of hell and yet my ministry is not impacted by that great and awful truth! May the Lord help us live and minister always focused on the rescue opportunities around us.

I’m glad his doctrine has come around. I was struck more by the standard of ethics revealed in the pastorate.

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?