The Narrow Path Ministries

Hi Steve,

I'm preparing for teaching 2 Corinthians at GCS in T-bay, and I'm more than curious about your views on what the judgment will be like for Christians, based on this text (and others).

I do not think that the bema judgment is something separate from the general judgment, but I'm not sure how the judgment will work for Christians...

Would you agree with the following?

We’ve all sinned (Rom 3:23), there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (8:1), as God made a new way for people to be justified in his sight through Jesus blood (Rom 3:21-26). Therefore, the judgment here refers to the rewarding of faithful ministers and the ‘suffering of the loss of reward’ by unfaithful ministers (1 Cor 3:10-15, 4:1-5), so bottom line appears to be that Christians are judged by how faithful we are to what God requires of us (i.e. Parable of the Talents, Mt 25:14-30). While some Christians focus solely on the positive side of rewards for Christians (Eph 6:8), John says that some will be ashamed at His coming (1 John 2:28), the author of Hebrews may be associating degrees of suffering with obtaining a ‘better resurrection’ (Heb 11:35).

Or??

Thanks!

In Him,
Les
PS Do you have a teaching or any posts here on your view of rewards, crowns, etc...

Hi Les,
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner (you may already be teaching the material you were asking about). I can't think of much to add to your summary. You seem to have covered all the bases. I don't think that I have any topical lectures on crowns and rewards, per se, but the "Eternal Judgment" lecture in the "Foundations" series might have something helpful in it for you. God bless.

how can I listen to the foundation series?

SoaringEagle

Go to http://www.thenarrowpath.com/

Click on "Tape Download Page" on the left

Scroll 2/3 of the way down

Find the series entitled "Foundations of the Christians Faith"

It's in the right-side column