Many of us worry about someone we love who does not believe. A parent. A friend. A child. We were told they were in danger, and the worry sits heavy.
This is a big question, and good Christians answer it differently. We are not going to settle it in one page. But there is one story that shows how Jesus reacted when his own followers wanted outsiders punished.
The village that said no
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He sent some of his followers ahead to a village in Samaria, a region whose people did not get along with his own, to find a place to stay.
The village would not take them in.
Two of his followers were brothers named James and John, fishermen Jesus had called to follow him. They were angry. They remembered an old story about a prophet named Elijah, a man who spoke for God long before, who called fire down from the sky on soldiers sent to arrest him.
So they asked Jesus if they should do the same thing to this village.
Jesus turned around
The Gospel of Luke, one of the four accounts of Jesus's life, tells us what happened.
But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
Luke 9:55 · King James VersionThe original Greek
στραφεὶς δὲ ἐπετίμησεν αὐτοῖς.
Found in Papyrus 75 (about AD 200), Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325), Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 350).
The oldest copies end here, at "he turned and rebuked them." The words "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of" appear only in later copies.
The oldest copies of Luke we have are a little shorter than this. They stop at "he turned, and rebuked them." The words about "what manner of spirit" were added in later copies. Either way, the story says the same thing. Jesus did not agree with them. He did not say the village deserved it. He scolded his own friends, and then they all walked on to another village.
What we can say
We cannot tell you everything about what happens after death. But we can tell you what Jesus did when people who were not his own turned him away. He would not let anyone call down fire on them.
That same region was where he later made a Samaritan, one of those outsiders, the hero of his most famous story about loving your neighbor.
If you are scared for someone you love, you can bring that fear to God. The Jesus of this story was not looking for a reason to punish people outside the group. He scolded the ones who wanted to.