[tag]Joe121589[/tag]
EVERYONE who can behave courteously is welcome here. STP is here to honestly learn what we believe and why we believe it. I get it that talk of ECT can be traumatic for some of us and I fully sympathize. It’s probably best for you to just not read STP’s posts if they cause you anxiety. He has to be able to speak his mind if he’s to be honest, but you’re definitely not duty-bound or in any other way obligated to read things that cause you anguish. If you find it impossible to pass over his posts, you could “foe” him–not because you necessarily see him as a “foe,” but just to save yourself the temptation to read things that you know will torment you.
[tag]smalltownpastor[/tag]
It is true that God’s thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways. If you read this in context, you’ll realize that God was saying to Israel, in essence, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; I will have mercy on anyone I please.” The context here is that God is MORE, not LESS merciful than Israel, and that they’d better come to grips with that, because He frankly didn’t give a damn whether they thought He ought to have mercy on their enemies. He was going to do it anyway. 
I always used to use this passage too, to explain why these things that seemed so unmerciful to me were in fact acceptable and did not contradict mercy in God’s eyes. I was thinking of situations. You know the sort of thing–is Anne Frank in hell? If Hitler repented at the last moment, then does that mean that Hitler is in heaven and Anne Frank is burning in never-ending torment in the fires of Gehenna? That didn’t seem right somehow. I figured I must be missing something, so I said that–God’s ways are higher than mine–it didn’t convince me, though. I know from His word what higher means. He is love. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; GREAT is His faithfulness." If His faithfulness to faithless Israel is so very great, then how could it not be so for the rest of His creation? I didn’t allow myself to ask myself these questions, but there they were–carefully NOT being asked. For like, fifty years? That’s a lot of not asking.
I think the point of the ‘hell’ thing was not so much that Greek/Hebrew words were translated ‘hell,’ but that they were wrongly translated ‘hell.’ Maybe they WEREN’T so very wrongly translated ‘hell,’ since I’ve heard that in Old English, a ‘hel’ was a hidden place. Such as a root cellar. It was once possible to send your child to hel to fetch up some potatoes for dinner. Thus the idea of sheol (grave or hidden) COULD have, at one time, more accurately have been rendered “hell.” In the Old Testament, everyone went to “hell.” The only reason it was sometimes translated “hell” and other times translated “the grave” was that the translators knew full well who was good and who was bad and translated accordingly. I kind of think that’s an instance of reading your theology into the scriptures. I’ve done a pretty careful study of the OT mentions of sheol. For one thing, wherever or whatever it is, God is there. David is also there, as is his baby who died in infancy. So is everyone who died in the OT, good, bad, ugly, beautiful. They’ve all gone to hell (sheol).
So I think the point here is not that words were translated into English, but rather that the English word they were translated TO was perhaps not a correct choice–or at least is not a correct choice for today’s meaning of the word. It’s tempting to go on, but I don’t want to shanghai the post’s original intent. I agree with you that most of the ECTers I know would love for UR to be true–at least for people they consider worthy (usually that includes Anne and excludes Adolph). Many of them suffer great anguish thinking of the relatively innocent unsaved languishing in hell for never-ending years with never-ending hopelessness. They (if they’re honest with themselves) have a hard time seeing the God who is perfectly represented by Jesus Christ (If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father) even considering doing such a thing–at least, to Anne and her ilk. They WISH, WISH, WISH UR was true. In my opinion, they wish this because the Father is in process of conforming them to the image of His Son. They wish what God wishes.
I’ve been accosted by my share of people who are absolutely LIVID that I would suggest God could (or would even want to, in the case of some Calvinists) save all people. Absolutely livid. I find this mystifying in the extreme. Mostly these folks seem full of fear. For them, if there’s no eternal hell, there can be no everlasting life. I disagree, but I see how this could terrify them if they feel that way. For the most part, though, the folks I’ve met have been like you. Good, loving people who wish it could be true, but can’t see their way, scripturally, to justifying it.
Blessings, Cindy
So I’ll be merciful 