Question 11
Didn’t the Rich Man and Lazarus parable in Luke 16:19-31 teach eternally burning hellfire?
Bible
Luke 16:23-24

Answer
No, the rich man and Lazarus story doesn't teach that lost sinners go to a place of torment when they die. This is a parable, or a story, used to illustrate a point. Jesus was using the well know imagery of His day to make a point about how the choices we make in this life matter for our eternal destination. You can see that it's a parable by the imagery He used; "Being in torment in Hades" refered to the well know Greek mythological place where the wicked dead were in conscious torment in a vast underworld. "Abraham's bosom" is obviously symbolic and not actually refering to Abraham's chest where all righteous saints go. "The tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue" is figurative because a drip of water would have no effect on relieving a person on fire. The point of the parable was to teach that those who are rich and have received multiplied blessings in this life, such as the Jews who were entrusted to share the light of God's word with the world, are to impart those blessings with others. Just because they were God's people by birth, didn't mean they were automatically heaven bound. They were given the responsibility to be a blessing to the world! Jesus was seeking to lead His hearers to understand that only faithfulness to God’s Word would prepare them to enter into eternal life. He told them, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead”. This was a well made point because after Jesus actually did raise a man named Lazarus from the dead in John 11, instead of believing in Jesus, the Jewish leaders decided to kill not only Jesus, but Lazarus too.