Adultery of the heart is a very serious issue in Jesus’ view. But in teaching about it did he actually mean that eternal punishment in a fiery hell would be the consequence of not getting the issue sorted? In using the word Gehenna in Matthew 5:29-30 is this the picture of hell he had in mind?

First things first, Jesus takes ethical living in the here and now very seriously. There is no escaping this, not just on the issue...

Biblical studies and theology can be either as dry as dust or explosive. For explosive think Rob Bell on eternity or Karl Barth on Romans; for dry as dust try … No – I won’t fall into that one. But I am in the middle of one book on a subject that has the potential of being a bomb thrown into the middle of our church life. In The New Perspective on Paul Kent L. Yinger (great name!) gives a broad overview of a school of...

Japan’s tragedy keeps on unfolding before our eyes. By now it is the threat of nuclear contamination that fills us with fear and the original earthquake and tsunami have had to take a back seat. But in a fascinating film on BBC 2 last night a geologist explained a little about how earthquakes happen and how devastating they can be.

Possibly the most remarkable fact was that Japan suffers about a third of the world’s qu...

We’re off down south for the weekend. There we’ll meet up with our friends from Antioch Church in Llanelli – who must be among the closest connections we have. There’s nothing like being accepted for who you are – so this will one relaxed weekend.

It was the US president so beloved by the Christian Right who labelled Gaddaffi ‘mad dog’ as he sent in American planes to bomb Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986. Ronald Regan decided to strike because of Gaddaffi’s support of terrorist organisations like the IRA.

Just a couple of short thoughts today about this label:

• Whenever we choose to refer to another human being in a de-humanising way we are making it far easi...

A train-crash was how many have described Martin Bashir’s interview with Rob Bell, suggesting that Bell came out quite badly. I’ve watched it twice now and have to disagree. Bashir is a professional TV journalist with some heavyweight interviews under his belt (Princess Di and ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson being the most famous) and in my view Bell came out really well.

When Bashir went in hard (which, let’s be h...

I’m probably going to be pretty lonely in my stance, but I’m against the military intervention currently ongoing in Libya. Here are a few reasons why:

• Innocent people will be killed. The usual mantra about weapons with pin-point accuracy is once again being repeated but experience tells us that catastrophic mistakes are made.
• In the days leading to the passing of the UN resolution all talk was of a no-fly zone....

‘Tenbatsu’ is apparently a Japanese word for ‘divine judgement’ and earlier this week the governor of the region worst hit by the earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan has apologised for suggesting that the disaster was God’s judgement upon an egotistical nation.

I know nothing about Japan’s religion – though I gather that it contains a syncretistic mix of various religions – and cannot say whether this ...

In the previous post I sketched out some detail about the word ‘Gehenna’ – and suggested that its use in referring to hell was developing in the period between the two testaments. It is probably fair to suggest, therefore, that in Jesus’ time the word conjured up different pictures for different people and it may be that even Jesus himself did not have one consistent thought in mind when using the word. After all, met...

Two quotes today – both of which I found through the social media input of two friends.

First: Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner – Lao Tzu, via Derek Bond on Facebook.

Second: When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure – Rudolph Bahro, via Martin Scott on his blog.

It’s not difficult to get people’s approval ...

A jumble of thoughts this morning. Sorry.

Yesterday Helen was due to continue her teaching series on spiritual disciplines (prayer, Bible reading etc.) and her theme for the morning was going to be ‘simplicity’. It didn’t happen. We had also invited Rosey to share about the work she is involved in (actually, for ‘involved in’ read ‘set up’) in Bangladesh – giving an education to some of the poorest street c...

The ‘maverick’ Church of England lost some 600 members yesterday – leading one wit to comment that they had given up church for Lent. They left for many reasons but it would appear that the Anglicans’ decision to ordain women as bishops was the final straw for them.

Whether they are right or wrong is not for me to say but under proposals drawn up by Pope Benedict, they will join a brand new branch of the Roman Cat...

‘An atheist with a huge respect for religion’ has been employed by the BBC to present a new series on the Bible. Those of you with high blood pressure may want to stop reading this post now, lie down for a bit, and come back to it later. The series’ title is The Bible’s Buried Secrets and it’s obvious from the write-up in yesterday’s Telegraph that it will contain much to stir up screaming headlines in the conserv...

The Gospel authors have Jesus using the word Gehenna eleven times and it is a word that is invariably translated as ‘hell’. So it is a word that we have to take seriously. In subsequent posts I will look in more detail as to how Jesus used the word and in what context, though it is worth noting that in not one of these verses is there a clear indication that Jesus had eternal punishment in mind.

But more of that later....

Brian Cox has to be the coolest physics professor in the UK. I watched the first part of his new series on the BBC last night and found what he had to say fascinating. He has such an engaging style and is able to make some very difficult concepts far easier to grasp (or, for a non-science person like me, a little easier to understand – but that’s not his fault, I should have paid more attention at school).

One quote that str...

There is no doubting that Jesus talked about hell – a lot. The problem we have, of course, is that when we read our English (or Welsh, French, German etc.) Bible and we see the word ‘hell’ being used, without doing some digging we can’t see what the original Greek was that the English is translating. I’m no Biblical language scholar but there are enough books and computer programmes available that makes the job a li...

Paul’s journey on the margins continues on Cyprus (Acts 13). Having dispatched the magician Elymas with what sounds like a rather scary stare (‘filled with the Holy Spirit, Paul fixed his gaze on him’) Paul finds himself with a new convert on his hands in the shape of the island’s proconsul, Sergius Paulus. (Why is it that political leaders often like to have a priest-like figure by their side? Think Nixon and Billy...