The ritual and cost of a burial with all the fancy trappings are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. These are paganistic rituals based on making sure the body does not degrade. The services now look more like paganistic ancestor worship with all the pictures of their life while people actually speak to the dead person as though they can really hear.
Its a sort of lack of faith to think that God told us we will return to dust but do everything we can to prevent that from happening as though God cannot put us back together. It might even be denying that we will have a new body, why else would we need to preserve the old one.
1 Corinthians 13:3 "And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."
It is also a lack of understanding that once a person dies they can no longer hear you or see you. They are gone, for the born again believer we celebrate that death because we know they were born again and really are in a better place than here and that we will see them again.
I do not attend the funerals of those who were not born again. God said; "let the dead bury the dead." I cannot bring myself to say: "he is in a better place" to relatives when the life of their loved one demonstrated clearly that they rejected Christ.
Luke 9:59-61
"…59 Then He said to another man, “Follow Me.” The man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 But Jesus told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead. You, however, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61Still another said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first let me bid farewell to my family.”…:
In this passage the man mentioned had a living father, he wanted to wait for his father to die before following Christ. Christ clearly instructed him to leave his father to follow him and allow the unsaved in the family to bury his father.
If we look into the Word of God searcing for truth we find that so very much of what we do as believers in Christ have no basis in the Word of God. Follow the traditions of men if you must, but don't say everyone must do what you do if it is not clearly described in the Word.
Some people say Christ was buried, so our culture puts people in the ground with dirt over them. But this is not how Christ was buried. If we are going to use Him as an example of how to bury someone then we would need to find caves in mountains in which to place the bodies.
God never gave us clear mandates as to how to bury our dead. He left this matter up to personal choice. The sad thing is that many people are offended if we don't do it the way our ancestors have been doing it for hundreds of years as though that fact is proof it is the way it "should" be done.
Born again believers have many choices that are not spelled out in the Word, we have no obligation to be buried the way everyone else says to do it, we can choose for ourselves as led by the Holy Spirit.
It is amazing how simple and stress-free the born again life is when we scrape away all the man-made meaningless traditions that are a burden to us.
I rejoice in the simplicity of the Christian walk. No longer bowing to traditions of men I am at peace with God.
Its a sort of lack of faith to think that God told us we will return to dust but do everything we can to prevent that from happening as though God cannot put us back together. It might even be denying that we will have a new body, why else would we need to preserve the old one.
1 Corinthians 13:3 "And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."
It is also a lack of understanding that once a person dies they can no longer hear you or see you. They are gone, for the born again believer we celebrate that death because we know they were born again and really are in a better place than here and that we will see them again.
I do not attend the funerals of those who were not born again. God said; "let the dead bury the dead." I cannot bring myself to say: "he is in a better place" to relatives when the life of their loved one demonstrated clearly that they rejected Christ.
Luke 9:59-61
"…59 Then He said to another man, “Follow Me.” The man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 But Jesus told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead. You, however, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61Still another said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first let me bid farewell to my family.”…:
In this passage the man mentioned had a living father, he wanted to wait for his father to die before following Christ. Christ clearly instructed him to leave his father to follow him and allow the unsaved in the family to bury his father.
If we look into the Word of God searcing for truth we find that so very much of what we do as believers in Christ have no basis in the Word of God. Follow the traditions of men if you must, but don't say everyone must do what you do if it is not clearly described in the Word.
Some people say Christ was buried, so our culture puts people in the ground with dirt over them. But this is not how Christ was buried. If we are going to use Him as an example of how to bury someone then we would need to find caves in mountains in which to place the bodies.
God never gave us clear mandates as to how to bury our dead. He left this matter up to personal choice. The sad thing is that many people are offended if we don't do it the way our ancestors have been doing it for hundreds of years as though that fact is proof it is the way it "should" be done.
Born again believers have many choices that are not spelled out in the Word, we have no obligation to be buried the way everyone else says to do it, we can choose for ourselves as led by the Holy Spirit.
It is amazing how simple and stress-free the born again life is when we scrape away all the man-made meaningless traditions that are a burden to us.
I rejoice in the simplicity of the Christian walk. No longer bowing to traditions of men I am at peace with God.
No casket, no cost: Tennesseans go back to 'natural' burial
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