Dr Paul Allen

Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." ( Matthew 5:29 )   People do not like to think about hell--especially those who are headed there! But that doesn't mean it isn't real.   We need to know that the Lord Jesus Himself often warned about the reality of hell. Today's verse is in His Sermon on the Mount , a message often quoted because of its wonderful promises. Hell is also mentioned in the same sermon in Matthew 5:22 and 5:30. Jesus also stressed in that sermon that "broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat" ( Matthew 7:13 ). He later warned that we should "fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" ( Matthew 10:28 ).   The religiou

Did Jesus claim to be God?  (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew 10:40–42   A convincing piece of evidence of Jesus ’ divinity is his self-perception, revealed in statements like Matthew 10:40 , in which he claims that he and God are one in the same. The Gospels record many statements made by Jesus that confirm he knew of his divinity; however, some interpreters claim that Jesus never intended to make such shocking statements. Do Jesus’ words really confirm that he thought he was God? On many occasions, Jesus made claims with unprecedented authority . Although God communicated his message through many prophets in the Old Testament , they all knew that their teachings were not their own; they were merely messengers (see Isaiah 44:24–26 ; Haggai 1:13 ). Jesus, however, knew he was more than God’s messenger. Ten times in Matthew, Jesus corrected misunderstandings of the law or overruled Jewish custom by his own authority, saying, “But I tell you” (see, for example, Matthew 5:22 , 28