what did St Paul say to to the person who said what happens when we die?

Answer 1

There is no clear dogmatic teaching of our Orthodox Church on death and what happens when we die. There is a lot of interest about death as reflected by the amount of books written about after death experiences, salvation and damnation. Furthermore, there are questions about the soul after death and the intermediate state (i.e. the period between when we die and the world's end). Christ is coming in glory and because the millennium is coming up, which by the way is the year 2001 with 2000 being the last year of the second millennium, has stirred interest in the 'end time', the 'coming of Christ', and 'the judgement of God on the world' are the interpretations of the time.

There is a lot is discussion going on right now on death, how we understand dying and what we are to say about those who are biologically dead already. There are related questions like praying for people who have departed this life. We Orthodox people just love to have memorial services. We have the Divine Liturgy and nobody is there, but when we have a Memorial Service the church is packed.

I will now make some very simple points, which I think are clearly the teaching of our Orthodox Church, although this may be debateable. I am not giving just my opinion; I am giving my opinion about what I believe the Church is teaching us.

Let us take the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Church Fathers, Saints and Services of the Church together and ask certain questions, such as:

* What is death?
* How do we understand death?
* What do we think happens?
* How are we to relate to it?
* What kind of answers would we get from the Holy Scripture?

The Holy Scripture is our basic authority of faith and is the witness of what the Christian faith is, and our tradition is an interpretation and understanding of Scripture. Our tradition is a way of understanding the Scripture and has a sense of which even the Scripture itself is a testimony to the tradition of faith or the kanonaspisteos (the rule of faith) that even antedated the writing of Scripture. Because, certainly there was the Christian faith before the writing of the New Testament Scriptures, which are basically interpretations of the Old Testament Scriptures. By the way, when the New Testament says "the Scriptures" it means what we call the " Old Testament", which includes the Law, Psalms, and the Prophets.

Answer 2

Pass

Answer 3

Who the hell is St. Paul to know what happens after we die???? HAHHAHAHHA!!!

Answer 4

He said "you'll get wings and you'll be an angel"

Answer 5

pull my finger