[Genoa]

That’s a parable, a story, intended to make a point. The incidental details are clearly not meant to be taken as literal teaching about conditions in heaven and hell. Do you really want to base your doctrine on a parable?

[Semper Mark]

"That’s a parable, a story, intended to make a point."

Do you suggest that Christ would speak of things that didn't actually happen, just to make a point?

[alexander_busek]

That’s a parable, a story, intended to make a point. The incidental details are clearly not meant to be taken as literal teaching about conditions in heaven and hell. Do you really want to base your doctrine on a parable?

Matthew 16:28

I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

I suppose that that, too, was merely a parable?

Put yourself in the place of one of those persons standing there at that moment. Would you have thought "Well, that isn't meant literally! Christ isn't really saying that He will 'come in his kingdom' before the elapse of a normal human lifetime of, say, 60-80 years."

Or would you have been OVERJOYED to hear that your Lord was promising that His literal coming, and the end of the world as you knew it, would transpire NOT at some undefined point in time thousands of years, but rather in the foreseeable future?

He was giving them CONCRETE hope by defining an approx. waiting time.

Regards,