TikTok Theology Series - Week 2 - “How Constantine Destroyed the Roman Empire - Debunked”

  Christianity is personal relationship with the God who created everything. Because of that, it isn’t just a belief system trying to make sense of the world around us. It’s historical events in human history where God moved in such ways as to interact with his creation, both on the macro and micro levels. He does great spectacular ocean moving events, and soft whispers on mountain tops. This is all said to be done, not in the minds, or the spiritual feelings of people, but in dates and times of history.

Out of all the religions and belief systems of the world, Christianity is one of the few that relies on historical moments as its bases for belief. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are all points in history, that if false, breaks the very bases for faith in the biblical account, as Paul stated in 1st Corinthians 15. That’s why history and the truth of what happened in the past, should be so important to the Christian, and why we should defend the very moments of history that solidify our faith.

This brings us back to our series on TikTok Theology, where we are are looking at short form videos that try to communicate deep theological or historical ideas, but end up twisting the truth. We talked last week about how deep ideas, take a long time to unpack and understand, and a minute or less video cannot do these ideas justice. 

So we began looking at one individual’s video that addressed the idea that the Bible didn’t speak about eternal conscious torment and hell. Yet when we start at a place that the person themselves started at, we saw that their claims were not true and in fact the idea of eternal conscious torment is there and that the English word hell is actually a very good translation of the idea of a place of punishment for the wicked. 

We walked away from last week with the understanding that, God calls us to breakdown arguments as to give a defense for the reason we believe in Jesus.

Today, we’re going to move away from Scriptural study, something we’ll return to next week, and look at a video that has some historical claims about Christianity. Because, not only are people attacking the Scriptures, they are attacking the very history of the Church. So like we did last week, we are going to watch the video, which is about a minute long, and then address the claims of it. 

The video is a snippet of a larger interview from a podcast by Julian Dorey and features a man by the name of Matthew LeCroix. On his website, LeCroix refers to himself as a writer and ancient history researcher. He has written three books on lost ancient civilizations and discovering the secret origins of humanity. He states he is also credited with discovering the lost Ararat Civilization in Lake Van, Turkey. While researching that claim, I couldn’t find any corroborating evidence or mention of LeCroix’s name by any published documents of discovery pertaining to this Ararat Civilization. I have listened to a few interviews of LeCroix, and and it seems he believes along the lines that humanity’s ancient civilizations were influenced by a greater civilization that was more advanced and possibly alien in origin. That’s where we get these mega structures like the pyramids at Giza. In other words, LaCroix believes that there is hidden history that points us to a consciousness that we have lost in time, and he intends to rediscover this hidden history. When it comes to Christianity, he believes that there is hidden history there as well.

Let’s watch the video : https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PgIVw0juDJY?feature=share

In this snippet of video that was released by the podcaster himself, LaCroix makes four claims about the history of Christianity. In fact, his claims have been around long before he entered the scene, and today, it is a topic that can be found throughout the internet, that Constantine created or at the very least, reworked the Christian religion to control the masses (https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/10e2rxw/its_highly_probable_that_christianity_was_created/?rdt=46814). 

But since LeCroix has made historical claims, we can check them against the historical record. So let’s go through these one by one. On a side note, if you are listening to this, I make my references available on my blog, in my manuscript for this sermon.

Claim #1, LeCroix states that, “People don’t know is that the Roman Empire used to be a non-monotheistic civilization. Meaning they didn’t believe in a single god. Romans used to believe the planets being gods.”

There’s truth and and there’s falsity in this first claim. It is true that the Roman Empire was non-monotheistic, and in fact it was polytheistic, meaning, they believed in multiple gods and those gods had dominion over certain aspects of life. And some of those gods were also associated with the planets. Sol was represented by the sun and was the protector of emperors. Mercury was the god of travel and commerce. Venus the goddess of love, fertility, and victory. Jupiter is the head and father of the gods and has dominion over sky and thunder. And so on. But the Romans didn’t believe that the planets were gods, but rather gave the names of their gods to the planets. Mercury being the fastest rotation, received the name of a god who was the fastest. Mars appearing blood red received the name of the god who had dominion over war. Jupiter being the biggest received the name of the head of the gods (https://www.history.com/news/who-named-the-planets). Now there was stories of people becoming stars and constellations, but the reason behind the naming of the plants was not the same as these.

In fact, out of the top twelve gods that the Romans worshiped only four were given planetary names. So the connection of planetary naming and worshiping that LoCroix seems to be trying to connect isn’t even there. 

And for him to say that people don’t know that Roman worship was polytheistic, it would’t be from a lack of education, because from a sixth grade U.S. text book I found this, quote, “The Romans borrowed many of their gods from the Greeks. For instance, the Roman god Jupiter, father of the gods, had many of the characteristics of the Greek god Zeus. Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry, became a key Roman god of the same name. The chart below lists some of the gods that Rome borrowed from Greece (Student Edition, pg. 455) (https://nsms6thgradesocialstudies.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/2/4/37241339/chapter_13_-_the_rise_of_rome.pdf)." Two pages in McDougal Little’s World History: Ancient Civilizations text book for six graders, is given to the teaching of the Romans polytheistic religion. 

So claim one, is overall false, with a hint of truth sprinkled in.

Claim #2 - LaCroix stated that, “When the Roman Empire was collapsing, there was a man named Constantine and Constantine ended up having this brilliant idea where they would restructure the Roman Empire in where? Istanbul, Turkey.  That’s why it was called Constantinople.”

The Fall of Rome is seen as starting with the emperor Diocletian at the end of the 200s and beginning of the 300s AD. Because the empire was so massive, and due to internal civil wars and external attacks, the Roman empire was collapsing under it’s own weight. Diocletian, who was a great administrator and politician, decided that the best approach was to divide the empire into two halves, east and west (https://www.history.com/news/8-reasons-why-rome-fell). 

In dividing the empire, Diocletian set out to address all the issues facing Rome. First to govern the vast empire easier, he made it so there were now two Augustus’ the main rulers or emperors, equal in status to each other and not looking to gain the whole thing for themselves. Under those Augustus’ there were two Caesars, these would be Augustus in training. Because infighting and civil wars followed an emperor’s death, Diocletian set out to fix the transition of power. So when he eventually stepped down as Augustus in the east, so did his counter part step down in the west. However this separation led to an imbalance in resources and the eastern empire began to flourish, while the western side declined. 

Secondly, Diocletian believed that the reason why Rome was losing so many eternal battles, was because the gods were unhappy that the their civil worship was being challenged by the new Christian religion. See everyone was supposed to sacrifice as a public worship to the gods, but at this point the Christians were the only group that would flat out deny that worship. In addition to that, the Christians wouldn’t recognize the emperor’s status as Lord or a god on earth. So to strengthen Rome once again, Diocletian believed they must purge themselves of those that would insult the gods. This led to the Diocletian persecution of Christians in the easter empire. This is referred to as one of the most horrific persecutions of the Church, not seen until the modern era. It’s a time when a lot of our earliest manuscripts were lost to Roman destruction. 

Constantine comes into the story around this time, when his father, who was the Caesar in the west, is promoted to Augusts and Constantine is passed over to replace him. Well as history goes, while helping his father in a campaign, the father dies and his army proclaims Constantine emperor in the west. This leads to a little infighting, but the emperor in the east, eventually recognizes Constantine as an Augustus. However because of politics, Constantine would then eventually take by force both parts of the empire rejoining them as one Rome. Now the story goes that as Constantine marched against the other Augustus, he had a vision of a cross and chose to follow the God of the Christians because of it.

But because Constantine was both a great solider and administrator, he realized that Diocletian was correct in repositioning the seat of power for the empire and structuring it the way he did. So Constantine built a New Rome, or what would be called Constantinople. What’s interesting about it however is that is was only a few miles away from Nicomedia on the Anatolia peninsula or Asia Minor, which is where Diocletian ruled from. So Constantine’s move wasn’t an out of left field political maneuver. There was already a precedent established by his predecessor.

However, one of the things we must remember is that, though Constantine now said he was a Christian, the Roman army at the time was still steeped in polytheism. In fact out of all the social classes and institutions, it was the army that was the most dedicated to the pantheon of gods that we talked about earlier. We need to understand this because of what LeCroix makes in this third claim.

Claim #3 - LeCoix states, “Constantine was brilliant. He was like, 'How do we control everything? If we rewrite history, we can write the future too.’ Because who controls the past controls the future too. They also, we can’t really have people, like reaching higher states of conciseness through spirituality and these teachings so let’s also take over religion. They then turned into a monotheistic religion.”

A myth that surrounds Constantine is that he made Christianity the Roman religion. On the contrary, what Constantine did was in 313 AD he sent out the Edict of Milan. This edict simply made Christianity a legal religion. Meaning a religion that was allowed to be practiced within the Roman Empire without reprisal or persecution from the state. Here’s the opening to that edict, “When I, Constantine Augustus 1, as well as I Licinius Augustus fortunately met near [Milan], and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred; whence any Divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who are placed under our rule. And thus by this wholesome counsel and most upright provision we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion (https://stmaryhillsboroughnj.org/files/Adult Ed Tab/EdictOfMilan2016.pdf).”

In fact, Constantine’s nephew, Julian, who became Caesar in the west and eventually took his uncle’s throne, rejected Christianity and tried to erase his uncle’s work of allowing Christians to freely practice their beliefs. He is considered the last of the pagan rulers of Rome, with his successor being the one who is credited with making Christianity “official” with his Edict of Thessalonica in AD 380.

However if the goal was to use Christianity as a tool to fix Rome and control the masses, Constantine failed. With historians saying things like this, “One of the many factors that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire was the rise of a new religion, Christianity. The Christian religion, which was monotheistic ran counter to the traditional Roman religion, which was polytheistic (many gods). At different times, the Romans persecuted the Christians because of their beliefs, which were popular among the poor… By approving Christianity, the Roman state directly undermined its religious traditions. Finally, by this time, Romans considered their emperor a god. But the Christian belief in one god — who was not the emperor — weakened the authority and credibility of the emperor (https://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp#:~:text=In 476 C.E. Romulus, the,1000 years was no more.).”

Or this, “The decline of Rome dovetailed with the spread of Christianity, and some have argued that the rise of a new faith helped contribute to the empire’s fall. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in 313, and it later became the state religion in 380. These decrees ended centuries of persecution, but they may have also eroded the traditional Roman values system. Christianity displaced the polytheistic Roman religion, which viewed the emperor as having a divine status, and also shifted focus away from the glory of the state and onto a sole deity. (https://www.history.com/news/8-reasons-why-rome-fell)."

Christianity led the Roman Empire away from almost 700 years of pagan worship, and in doing so, upended the entire foundation it was built on. 

One last thought on this from a population angle. Estimates put the total population of the Roman Empire at about 60 million people, with Christians at Constantine’s time at about 3 million people. That means that 5% of the population was Christian. Now the majority of Christians at this time were anti-military service, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that 5% of Constantine’s army, was Christian. It is believed that when Constantine is marching to fight his battle for the empire he has about 40,000 men (via britannica.com), to his opponent’s 100,000. That would mean 2,000 men would have been Christians. Now ask yourself, would Constantine risk the ire of the other 38,000 men for the allegiance of the 2,000? Would those 2,000 men, who already signed up under a pagan general really be important enough for Constantine to alienate the other 38,000 pagan soldiers? In a broader since, would it be better for Constantine to control the 57 million pagans by completely unending their belief system for the 3 million Christians? That doesn’t make any sense numerally, let alone historically.

If Constantine set out to use a monotheistic religion to control, what it led to was the fractioning of one of the most influential empires in history.

Claim #4 - Finally LeCroix states, “Then they started persecuting anyone that wasn’t a Christian. Then they burned the Library of Alexandria. And then what they did, was they went around the world, and systematically destroyed all the ancient groups that were pre-christian. That’s the entire reason why the Dogon end up in Mali."

So let’s put history in it’s proper place. First, Constantine officially takes over as emperor of Rome in 324 AD, eleven years after making Christianity a legal religion. In relation to this, when is the library at Alexandria burned? Well the account of it’s destruction comes from two sources. One which is by Ammianus Marcellinus (Mar-sel-a-nus) writing around 352 AD, which is twenty years after Constantine,  so it could be that he is in on the conspiracy. But wait, he wasn’t a Christian, he was a pagan and he was writing under that pagan Emperor Julian, Constantine’s nephew, that was mentioned earlier (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ammianus-Marcellinus). So why would they be in on the conspiracy? But Marcellinus is actually writing off the first hand account of the philosopher and historian Starbo, who conducted an investigation into the matter, about a decade after the event. And when do you think that event took place. The way that LeCroix puts forth, it must have happened some time in the 300s, after Constantine took power, right? No, it happened in 48 BC. Three-hundred and sixty one years before the Edict of Milan. And it wasn’t Constantine, it was Julias Caesar, who’s campaign against the Egyptians, led to the burning of boats, which lead to the burning of the library’s contents. In fact the library was rebuilt and destroyed a few more times before Constantine was even born.

But one last remark LeCroix makes about the Dogon tribe in Mali who he connects with the persecution that comes from Constantine and the Christians. Here’ a quote from an African art historian, “The Dogon people of Mali are believed to have originated in ancient Egypt, though they have stories of traveling from the Mande kingdom.  What is known for sure is that they settled along the sandstone cliffs by the Bandiagara Escarpment probably during the 15th or 16th century.  It is thought that they ended up here while trying to escape Islamization. With bluffs reaching over 1600 feet high and 90 miles long, and the cliffs littered with hundreds of caves, it would have been the perfect place to hide from enemies (https://discoverafricanart.com/tribes/dogon-people/#:~:text=The Dogon people of Mali,th or 16th century.).” So it wasn’t the Christians that persecuted the Dogo that they might flee to the Mali, another misrepresentation of history.

Time and time again LeCroix misrepresents history to create a conspiracy about how Christianity came to be a world religion. And people take statements by people like LaCroix and use them as ammunition against Christianity. Yet, as we take our time, and look into history, we can see that not only is LeCroix overall wrong, he cannot even get simple dates correct. 

Yet, his beliefs will be reiterated time and time again, and we need to have the patience and willingness to walk people through the evidence to debunk people like LaCroix. 

So m challenge this week is this to do one of two things. Either pick up a copy of Max Pointer’s article on a brief overview of the history of the early Church out on the information table in the foyer (https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ch-144-early-church-part-1

https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ch-144-early-church-part-2) that way you can get a good handle on the first 500 years of Church history, or look up Ryan Reeves who is a seminarian historian that has a Youtube channel, which has a playlist of about 54 videos covering the ancient Greek world all the way up to the Reformation, which is bout 2,000 years of history. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzStS_NSs-s&list=PLRgREWf4NFWZEd86aVEpQ7B3YxXPhUEf-). Each of his videos are about 30 minutes long and give you a better understanding of what is happening, especially during the time of Constantine.

In addition, be praying for people like LaCroix who has traded the God of creation, for a belief that we are the product of ancient aliens. Pray also for the people that hear his false claims and regurgitate them. Also pray for the ability to speak to such people, that they might hear the Gospel and come to know Jesus as the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of all things.

Let us be defenders of, not only the Scriptures, but the God who works in history for his glory. Amen.

TikTok Theology Series - Week 1 - “Debunking Xtian Hell - Debunked”

  On statista.com's top ten social media platforms, five of the top ten help the user creator short videos to share with others. Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, and Snapchat reach roughly 9.4 million active users every month (https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/). The short videos usually last from 30 seconds to a minute and can be a video unto itself, or a clip from a larger video.

Platforms that are designed to have long videos such as YouTube have been pushing these shorter videos, because they trigger that part of the brain that gives good sensations, by letting a person receive satisfaction one quick video at a time. This keeps people on their platforms longer as they are chasing down videos without even realizing how much time they’ve spent.

I’ve seen my share of these and have chased a few rabbits by watching many of these videos myself. But what I’ve noticed time and time again is, alongside the video’s of the funny dogs and cats, people are sharing their theological thoughts. And as I’ve had conversations with people in the last several years, it’s dawned on me that, for the most part, the extent of most people’s knowledge on God, the Bible, history of religion and the world, are regulated to these short form videos. 

And so when we as Christians share the Gospel, we’re most likely not sharing it with someone who has thought through the very issues they come up with, but rather who have a drop of a thought filtered through a minute or less video. They have what I like to call, a TikTok Theological degree. Now these video creators speak in such a way that it seems like they have insight and can speak authoritatively on the subjects they are broaching, but even just a quick Google search of the topic, usually defeats their arguments.

So, as we do every fall, we conduct an apologetics series because one of the main jobs of a pastor is the equipping of the saints to do the work of ministry. In this apologetics series  we are going to walk through a series of arguments that are out there on a plethora of topics. I am going to show you how to deconstruct an argument, give you resources that you can use for your own research, so that when you come across someone with a TikTok Theological degree, you can stand for the Gospel of Christ.

In this first week we are going to be looking at a man, who goes by a character he created by the name of, JeGaysus, or the gay Jesus. He’s a Tiktoker out of California that grew up in an evangelical church, who believes he received trauma from that experience, and who has a following of almost 400 thousands people over three social media platforms. He is a part of a movement that seeks to deconstruct their faith, something we talked about a few years back, where people analyze what they believe is Christianity and leave orthodox beliefs for their own interpretations. He is a gay man who identifies as non-binary, which means they identify with a gender identity outside of male and female. He goes by JeGaysus, because he believes he looks like DaVinci’s Jesus. (https://aninjusticemag.com/an-interview-with-jegaysus-98e2536085; https://religionnews.com/2021/07/27/not-everyone-loves-me/). Now the point of this teaching isn’t to make fun of him or to denigrate him, or any of the other people we’ll be looking at, but to show what is out on the internet and to see how we may approach speaking to people who might be influenced by individuals such as this person.

Here is his video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yNssEia9C2M?feature=share

Let’s walk through this 59 second video.

The issue being addressed in this, is that of eternal punishment that is conscious torment. Now this is actually a debated topic within Christian theology. There are those that believe there is eternal conscious torment or punishment, which states that all entities will be judged one day and those that follow God will go to eternal life and bliss with him, and that all others will go to an eternal punishment away from God. Another belief is annihilation, where at the judgment, those who do not believe will be snuffed out, no longer existing in anyway. Another view, that is gaining ground in theological circles, combines the two; unbelievers will have a short experience of punishment, but in the end they’ll either be snuffed out, given another opportunity to receive the Gospel.

With us understanding that there is a debate, and having that in mind, we turn to what the video addresses. This person makes a series of statements like, “There is no where in the Bible that says ‘eternal conscious torment’ is a thing…it’s not a concept in the Bible… Closest thing you can get to anything sounding like eternal conscious torment would be, the devil getting thrown into the lake of fire, chained for a 1,000 years, tortured…that’s not humans….No mention of human souls being tortured endlessly, nor of the devil being the one to oversee it.”

Let’s deconstruct this. Is he right? He said we can’t use verse like John 3:16 where Jesus states, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The reason he states we cannot use this verse, is because the word perish is an annihilation word. And within the translation of the Greek word, apollumi (ap-ol’-loo-mee), annihilation is one way to interpret it, but it’s not the only interpretation. Another way to interpret perish is, lost, and still another one is, ruined. Which would then read, that “whoever believes in him should not be lost or ruined.” But let’s say we don’t use that verse, how about the other verse he brings up, that he says we can’t use, Matthew 10:28? When we read that verse, we see that Jesus states, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” What’s interesting is that the same root word in John 3:16, apollumi (ap-ol’-loo-mee), appears here in Matthew 10:28. Perish and destroy. You know where this word is also used? In Matthew 10:39, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” And Matthew 15:24 “He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’” And in Matthew 16:25, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This is a reiteration of what Jesus said earlier. In these verses, and more, the same word for perish or destroy is the word that gets used a lot to talk about losing someone or something (https://biblehub.com/greek/622.htm). So perish and destruction to God might mean something different than our concept of annihilation. To God it seems like to perish or to be destroyed is more akin to being lost, than it is of simple obliteration.

But there is a passage that’s very interesting if we were to continue in the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 25:41-46, Jesus is completing a teaching on the end times. In the final verses of chapter 25 he talks about two groups, those that go on to eternal life and those that he says this to in verse 41, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” And verse 46 which ends the chapter, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” And there’s that eternal punishment language. So perishing and destruction doesn’t necessarily mean annihilation, but might be closer linked to being lost. And where are those that do not follow Jesus lost to? Eternal punishment. So does the Bible have at the very least a concept of eternal punishment? Yes it doesn’t.

But what about the conscious part? An eternal punishment could be that we are eternally snuffed out. To answer this there is only one clear glimpse we get into the eternal punishment, and it comes from a story Jesus tells about Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. This story follows the parables of the Lost sheep, coin, and sons, interesting that we have been talking about lostness in the verses before and the clearest picture of eternal punishment follows parables that speak about being lost?

Well in the story that Jesus tells, and I make that distinction between the parables Jesus tells and the stories he tells, because Jesus’ parables contain general character archetypes, whereas this story contains named individuals; in fact scholars lean to this story being a real tale, rather than a made up fable, because of the naming that occurs. In the story, a rich man dies and is tormented with an understanding of both his current situation and the physical world that is going on at the same time. In the story Jesus states that Abraham tells the rich man in the 25th verse, “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.” This story, whether real or a parable, relays the idea that there is consciousness in the anguish, in the punishment, in the life to come. Two of his points addressed and countered. 

No all this was mostly done with a simple search of the verses and words we were given through the video by looking them up on both biblegateway.com and biblehub.com. Two sites that you can utilize as you share the Gospel.

But what about his claim that eternal conscious punishment comes from Dante’s Divine Comedy? Dante wrote in the 1300s A.D., so let’s look at early Christian writings from before that to see if Christians were writing about eternal conscious punishment before the Divine Comedy was published.

Clement of Rome, around 100 AD, wrote, “But when they see how those who have sinned and who have denied Jesus by their words or by their deeds are punished with terrible torture in unquenchable fire, the righteous, who have done good, and who have endured tortures and have hated the luxuries of life, will give glory to their God saying, ‘There shall be hope for him that has served God with all his heart!’ (Second Clement 17:7)”

Ignatius of Antioch, around 110 AD, wrote, “A man become so foul will depart into unquenchable fire: and so will anyone who listens to him (Letter to the Ephesians 16:2).”

One more, this one from Polycarp a mentee of John the Apostle, around 155 A.D., “Fixing their minds on the grace of Christ, [the martyrs] despised worldly tortures and purchased eternal life with but a single hour. To them, the fire of their cruel torturers was cold. They kept before their eyes their escape from the eternal and unquenchable fire (Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:3).”

These men are writing in the second century A.D. while Dante is writing about eleven hundred years later. So is JeGaysus right? Again, he isn’t. The Bible speaks of eternal conscious punishment and the early Church interpreted that way as well, hundreds of years before Dante put pen to paper (https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/what-did-early-christians-believe-about-hell/).

Finally what about hell? I know that the very verse of Matthew 10:28 brought up hell, but is this person correct on what they say? That, “Hell is not a concept in the Bible.” And that hell is “Incorrectly translated from 1 of 4 words, Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, Tartarus”?

First, yes, the words that are used to translate hell in places like Matthew 10:28 are words like Gehenna. Words like Hades and Sheol were used to talk about the unseen place were souls went. Sheol was the Hebrew word, while Hades was the Greek word. There was no distinction in the words themselves between good and bad people, but as we saw in Jesus’ teaching on Lazarus, there is a distinction in eternity. Now the word Gehenna is interesting because it carried with it, not just the idea of an unseen place for souls, but a distinct place of punishment for evil. To the Jews, the valley of Gehenna was seen as a place of punishment for the ungodly and so became a reference to the unseen world of the souls who were being punished by God. We again see this in Jesus’ story about Lazarus and the rich man. 

So though the word isn’t hell, and instead is Gehenna, the idea of eternal conscious  punishment is there. So where does the world hell come from? The study of words is called etymology and hell’s etymology begins with the helle (Old Frisian), hellia (Old Saxon),hel (old Norse), Hölle (German), and haljia (Gothic). In Old English hel with one “L”was used to talk about the abode of the dead and the torment of the wicked; while in Proto-Germanic it was halijo which was a term for the underworld. The word itself means to cover or conceal, and was used to speak about the nether world or a place to torment the wicked or dead. So when the Hebrew words Sheol and Gehenna, and the Greek word Hades was translated into English, the word for the same idea was used, that’s hell (https://www.etymonline.com/word/hell). This is what typically happens in translations, a word is used that means the same or similar to the word that is being used when going from one language to another.

So no, hell is not incorrectly translated and it’s concept is squarely found in the Bible.

Now it took me roughly twenty minutes to go through a 59 second video. But most people won’t watch this, because a lie said in 59 seconds is easier to consume than a truth told in 20 minutes. Yet, as believers this is what we must do. We must take the time to research, to analyze, and to confront false teachings, and the TikTok theologians that we encounter. As Paul states in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” And we do so as Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…”

The purpose of standing against false teachings is to point others to Jesus. Jesus told us that false teachers would arise (Matthew 24:5). Paul told Timothy that there would be teachers that would tickle the ears in the last days (2 Timothy 4:3). We need to take the time, studying God’s word, and prepare ourselves for those times, when God brings into our lives people that need to hear the Gospel, but all they’ve heard are these short videos that are easily debunked, we will be ready.

We do so not to win arguments, but to point others to Jesus, that they may not endure hell, being separated from God for eternity. And all it took of me was two good biblical sources and two Google searches. Any of us can do that, you don’t need a college or seminary degree, because you have the work of the Holy Spirit and God’s word. 

My challenge to you this week is, first, if you have access to the internet, take one of the two websites I used today, biblegateway.com or biblehub.com, and familiarize yourself with at least one of them. Use it as a tool to help you stand against the TikTok theologians that are out there. 

Secondly, something we all can do, is pray for those who base their thoughts on God on the short videos of social media. Pray that they would dive deeper and seek the Living God, because he desires to be sought. Pray that the Holy Spirit would move and there would be such a wave of souls coming to the Lord that it would change the trends and algorithms of social media. 

Let us be those who stand firm on God’s word ready and willing to be used to speak out against the TikTok theologians of our day. Amen.

Judges Series - Week 20 - “Ruth’s Path, Jesus’ Path”

  There are countless seemingly inconsequential moments throughout history that, had it happen just a little different, the world would be a much different place. 

Take Field Castor. The story goes that he wanted to play professional baseball, so he tried out for an American baseball team. The team said he wasn’t cut out for the game, so he went into politics. 

Or Archduke Ferdinand, who an assassin was supposed to kill, but missed his opportunity, only for the Archduke’s driver to make a wrong turn, which brought the Archduke back to the assassin.

Then there’s the story of the last minute crew master replacement on the Titanic. The crew master forgot to turn over a key to the binocular’s locker to his replacement, so no one saw the iceberg coming.

A big one comes from the life of Adolf Hitler, who, as the story goes, at the age of six experienced horrible nightmares. A doctor recommended that he be placed in a mental institution, but his parents decided against it, because they didn’t want anyone to find out that he was being abused by his father.

How about one more that doesn’t end badly. Supposedly there was a butler in the country of Turkey who was serving the British Ambassador. The butler found out about the Allies’ plans for D-Day and presented them to the Germans only for the Germans to believe he was unreliable. 

Small moments throughout history can cause monumental waves. 

It’s one of these seemingly small moments that brings us to our final week in our summer Judges series, where we are going to be looking at the whole of the book of Ruth.

And as we open up to the book of Ruth, we need to understand where the book of Judges leaves off. As a whole the book of Judges shows us about a 400 year window of the nation of Israel. We see the denigration of the society to the point where sinfulness is active in all areas of life. Where God is sought for help at the beginning, but by the last sentence in the book, only man’s own desire is looked to. Because of this, Judges ends with a gut punch, where there is no hope to be found; Israel seems lost.

Yet, hope is not lost. We’ve talked about it before, when we read a verse, we must read that verse in the context of the other, at least, thirty verses that surround it. Ten verses around, ten verses before, and ten verses after. And our mantra when doing this is, “context is king.” Meaning that to understand a verse we must understand it’s context first. But it doesn’t stop with the thirty verses, we must understand the chapters that surround those verses, and the book that the verses are found in. But there’s an even bigger step to understand one verse, and that’s the placement of the book within Scripture. Ruth is one of those books.

Ruth is a book that really makes no sense, when you think about the flow of the Scriptures. The first seven books of the Bible tell the story from the creation of the universe to the creation of Israel, and it’s eventual establishment as a nation in the land of Canaan. Many different stories are told over a period of several thousand years. Skipping Ruth, the next eight biblical books continue the story of Israel; it’s movement from a theocracy to a monarchy, it’s split into two nations, it’s downfall, exile and eventual return to the land. Ruth sits as an anomaly of a story about an individual that could have easily been tacked onto Judges, or tacked onto the first book of Samuel. Yet it is purposefully left as a stand alone. Why? Well let’s walk through the book. Starting in chapter 1, verse 1.

“1 In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech (i-lem-a-leck) and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon (ma-lon) and Chilion (keel-le-on). They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”

The book of Ruth takes place sometime during the time period of the book of Judges. And like the book of judges, the beginning of Ruth follows the last two stories about the Levites. Like the Levites, Elimelech, who’s name means “my God is king,” leaves the national boundaries that God had given him. And like the people in judges, his sons marry foreign women, who are not Israelites.

Following this, both Elimelech and his sons die, which would seem like divine judgment because he is in living in opposition to what God has commanded. The same opposition that we have become accustomed to throughout the book of Judges. But it’s at the death of the three male members of this household that things changed. Naomi, the wife, decides to go home and releases her daughter-in-laws to return to their people. Where one eventually leaves, Ruth decides to stay, saying this in verses 16-17 of chapter 1, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 

This is a monumental statement because Ruth isn’t just deciding to stay with Naomi, but rather, she is rejecting her whole culture and religion to embrace the nation of Israel and their God Yahweh. It’s also an oath, which usually doesn’t go over well in the book of Judges, yet with Ruth it’s not a sinful oath, but an oath of loyalty.

From here to the 18th verse of chapter 3, we get a love story. Ruth is sent out to the fields to gather the droppings from the harvest, a practice which allowed the poor in the community to survive by working for their food. And it just so happens that the man’s field she is working in is also related to her deceased husband. Boaz is his name and he is an older man. He is referred to as a worthy man, which is the same language spoken about Gideon by the Angel of the Lord in the book of Judges. 

Boaz is obviously attracted to Ruth and so treats her really well, protecting her from any assaults by younger men and giving her extra provisions, though knowing full well she’s out of his league. But Naomi recognizes what’s going on and she instructs Ruth to pursue Boaz for marriage in a traditional way that would not taint their relationship with sin. This is why the same words that describe Boaz as worthy are used for Ruth as well (3:11).The whole thing is perfect, because Boaz is a relative, he is in a position called a kinsmen redeemer. This was a custom and law placed down by God to protect women and to continue family lines. A kinsmen redeemer would be the closest relative to the deceased man, who would then take on the widow to provide both a child for the linage of the deceased and financial stability.

Though Boaz is delighted at the proposition to marry Ruth, there is another closer relative that would be entitled. So from the beginning of chapter 4, Boaz seeks to have the other kinsmen release his position, so that Boaz may take it. And it happens. Boaz and Ruth are able to marry. And by verse 17 of chapter 4, not only are they married, but they bear a son named Obed, who’s name means, “servant of God.”

And so the last six verses end with connecting Obed to King David, ending the era of Judges, not on a sour note, but a hope for the dynasty of God’s chosen king. And in turn, looking back from this side of the cross, we see that servant of God, isn’t just pointing to David, but the eventual Messiah Jesus.

This is why the anomaly book of Ruth is placed where it is. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit who shapes the Scriptures to show us, that in the midst of the judges’ corruption, God is still working. That there are still people seeking God, and he uses them to bring about his good plans. Ruth is the furthest thing from a hero that the Israelite people would have thought they needed as Elimelech left Bethlehem. She was a foreigner and unworthy of covenant of God. Yet God used her, because she had forsaken the pagan ways of her culture. She sought to live under the covenant of Yahweh. She lived God’s righteousness, by honoring her mother-in-law. She lived purity in how she dealt with Boaz. And through it, God redeemed her, her family, and the whole world through the sacrifice of Jesus.

The book of Ruth stands in the middle of two eras of Israelite history, and at the center of her story, is that redemption of Israel and the world. Mary and Jospeh both come from the lineage of Ruth, the Moabite, non-Israelite woman, who made a commitment to Naomi and her God. 

Because of that righteous act, we can stand today in the forgiveness and grace given through Jesus. We’ve talked a lot about how one sinful act can effect generations to come, well one righteous act, can break those curses. 

God is calling his people to the path that Ruth took. The path of his righteousness, that leads through the cross of grace to the eternal life in Jesus. It’s the path that all must go to if they are to receive eternal life. And once on that that path every Christian must point others to it as well. 

My challenge for you this week is this, whatever you’re going through, seek the path of Ruth, the path that leads through the cross and to Jesus into eternity. In your bulletins there is a small picture with a path and cross to which it leads. Place it somewhere where you will see it as times of trouble come. Maybe on a TV or computer, when you see the horrors of the world, seek God’s peace. Or maybe on your door frame as you go out, to remind you to seek Jesus’ path of righteousness as you interact with the world.

God is calling all people to the path that Ruth walked; a path that leads to the Savior, a path that leads to eternal life. Let us all be found on that path. Amen.