Picking Your Facts

It amazes me how Christians seem to pick and choose what they think are facts in the bible to suit their comfort zone.  For instance when Jesus says anything about gehenna or fires of judgment, such as weeds being thrown into a "fiery furnace" the take this as fact to prove that there is a hell and it is fire.  But when Jesus says, "Love thy neighbor" or "Turn the other cheek" or "Forgive as you are forgiven," these same people will say Jesus didn't mean that literally or in all cases.  Many of us want to love those who look like us and are user friendly to our agenda, but have really problems with anyone else of color, language or economic status.  But we want to avoid the fire.  So we cherry pick the fruit that fits our comfort zone.  My sister Maureen said that I was going to burn.  I hope she was just having bad days when she said that.  She had a lot of bad days when I was underfoot.