My studies on heaven and hell led me to think about the interpretation of Revelation. While there are many possible interpretations of Revelation, it seems that they boil down to two basic sides: is Revelation literal (actually events that either happened in the past, are a outline of history, or will happen in the future), or figurative (encouragement aimed at first century believers who were facing times of persecution which can be applied across time). I learned the literal futurist view in college, but have found the figurative view to have some interesting strengths. This podcast explains the two views plus their strengths and weaknesses.

In this episode I take a closer look at what Jesus said about heaven and hell in the Gospels. It turns out, he talks a lot less about heaven and hell as places where we go when we die, and much more about the Kingdom of Heaven, which is here and now on earth.

In order to research this podcast, I wrote down every verse in the Gospels that mentions heaven and hell, or things like heaven and hell, such as "the outer darkness" or "resurrection". I will post this list as a blog on my home website: www.BridgetoGodsWord.org/blog

Photo by Alabaster Co. on Unsplash - Alabaster sells books of Scripture accompanied by beautiful photography! 

In this podcast, I give an overview of the views of heaven and hell that arose through Greek philosophy and then were integrated into the New Testament. The worldview of the New Testament shifts as a result between the Gospels and the following Letters. In Revelation, the Old Testament worldview comes to culmination. The book takes place in heaven, but has an ultimate goal of a New Earth where God and humans dwell together. This raises the question of how we respond - what should we believe about heaven and hell, and how does that affect the way we share the Gospel? While this podcast can't answer all the questions, it attempts to summarize these views and our response!

We return to the Key Terms in Translation series with the terms "heaven" and "hell". These terms are much more complicated than the meanings of the words. They reflect the worldview of the people in the Bible. This podcast explores the worldview of the Ancient Near-Eastern people of the Old Testament, and how that affected their view of God's space, the place of the dead, and their eternal destiny. 

The cover picture is a painting by William Blake of "Jacob's Ladder" - a place of access between "God's space" and "human space".

Adapting to culture is a huge part of missionary life. There are many ways to define culture, and many overlapping cultural features. One aspect of culture that I find particularly interesting is how people respond when they have done something wrong. Three basic responses are guilt, shame, or fear. Missiologists have used these three responses to identify three cultural types that determine what is correct behavior and how to obtain resources. These are guilt/innocence, shame/honor, and fear/power. This podcast gives an overview of these three cultural types and how they are found in the Gospel.

"Abomination of Desolation" is a term that often leaves Bible readers scratching their heads. These words themselves aren't often used, and together they are even less clear! This podcast looks at the meanings of each word, the meaning of the phrase together, and how it is fulfilled in history (because it is used in prophecy!). It also looks at how we translate terms like this that are confusing without some explanation.

My translation team has had some difficulty with the word "preach". What exactly does it mean to "preach"? Is it the same as an "announcement"? Listen to find out the Hebrew and Greek words, the etymology of our English words, and how we have chosen a word for our translation.

Another key term in translation! This podcast looks at the key term "In Christ". This term is one that my team has considered and actually changed in our translation. "In Christ" seems like a phrase that is easy to understand, but the implications are a bit more complicated. How do we understand and then translate the deeper meaning of "in Christ"?

As we approach Easter, I wanted to look at another key term - the term "Passover". I wanted to look at this from a slightly different perspective. What do we do when we come upon a new interpretation of a well-known word? I read an article with a possible new interpretation of the word Passover. Listen to find out the new interpretation and what we do with that as translators.

Atonement has been a hard word to translate for our team in West Africa. Part of the reason is that the meaning of atonement now is quite different than the meaning of the original Hebrew word. How did that happen? This podcast talks about both the linguistic and meaning paths that "atonement" took from Hebrew to English, and what that means for translation.