Meet the boy who says he visited heaven and saw Jesus

MSNBC ^ | March 25, 2011 | Michael Inbar

[americanophile]

After a burst appendix nearly cost 4-year-old Colton Burpo his life in 2003, his parents were thankful just to have him alive and well. But when he opened up about his brush with death a few months later, they were shocked when he described a very vivid trip to heaven, and spoke of matters about which he had no apparent way of knowing.

During an automobile trip, when Sonja Burpo asked him about his memories of being in the hospital, little Colton replied: “Yes, Mommy, I remember — that’s where the angels sang to me.” A sweet answer, to be sure — but then Colton made his parents’ jaws drop when he told them about sitting in Jesus’ lap, watching his parents while he lay seemingly near death, and meeting his great-grandfather.

But most poignantly, Colton described meeting a sibling in heaven — even though he had no way of knowing that his mother had miscarried two years before he was born, since his parents had never told him.

[Boogieman]

Luke 9 describes Moses and Elijah as “two men” twice, which I think weighs against a strange appearance for them. The passage can easily be confused, though, to think that Moses and Elijah, “appeared in glory”, but a careful reading shows that the glorified one is Christ, not Moses and Elijah.

[Delta 21]

We have to be careful not to give ourselves too much credit being on this side. Your friends priorities may have changed a bit since passing over, now knowing things that we dont.

Its a mystery, Im tellin’ ya!

[Dr. Sheldon Cooper]

My now dead friends promised to contact me (and I promised to contact them) should they croak first. No one has contacted me yet. Something’s fishy about this heaven thing. Is it a totalitarian dictatorship, from which there is no escape and no contact with other realities?

You want them to come in from the endless beach party to make a long distance call to you?

Face it pal, they're having a better time than they would have talking to you. You've been ditched.

Catch up to them later and get even.

[ScubieNuc]

Could be, or it could be that God just didn’t want certain people, who He knew would not be faithful to the end, to get mixed up in the beginning of His church. Enough of them would creep in soon enough, but that might have been too destructive if it happened then.

That I don't believe because it's contrary to scripture.

John 3:16 For God so loved The World, that he gave his only begotten son, that WHOSOEVER believes on Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

The only reason they didn't believe is because they choose not to.

[steve86]

First of all, what kind of parents name their kid Colton?????????

What's wrong with that? It was good enough for the mother of Colton Harris-Moore, the barefoot burglar and regional folk legend here in the NW.

[Boogieman]

“The only reason they didn’t believe is because they choose not to.”

Well, like I said, I can only speculate, but the verses I posted show God had some involvement in making some people blind to the truth of Jesus. Perhaps the “hardening” of their hearts was only temporary, so that the task of Jesus would be accomplished according to God’s will, kind of like Pharoah’s heart was hardened temporarily during the Exodus.

But, there are examples of people who recognized the miracles, and joined with the Christians, but didn’t truly believe after all. Just look at Simon Magus. God certainly would know in advance that people like Simon might have some semblance of faith but not truly believe.