Final Destination

I was reading something the other day; a guy claims to have found evidence that the early church believed that, although devout Christians would go to Heaven when they die, everyone else would go to a kind of a waiting place, and be allowed to repent, and work their way into Heaven later. According to this guy, the Roman Catholic Church suppressed this knowledge, for the sake of keeping better control over its members (do what we say, if you want to go to Heaven).
I have to say that my skepticism kicked in right away. This "waiting place" sounds an awful lot like purgatory to me. Now you want me to believe that the early church believed in purgatory, but the Catholics killed that idea? That sounds exactly backwards to me. Granted, purgatory is a little different; most Catholics believe that you have to be Catholic just to get into purgatory. Still, if this idea really did exist in the early church, it would seem to be the basis for the idea of purgatory, at least. Why would the Catholic Church suppress this? Is it because they would have had to add some heavy nuance to the idea to make it fit what they wanted purgatory to be? Sorry, I just have a hard time believing that.
Upon further reading, this person quotes someone named Gregory (probably Gregory of Nazianzus) as preaching this doctrine in the late fourth century. Fourth century? I thought we were talking about the early church here. I'm sorry, but to me, the early church would be the first century, maybe early second century. If you read about the Council of Nicea in the early fourth century, it quickly becomes clear that a lot of confusion had crept into the beliefs of many of those who called themselves Christians.
Unfortunately, this guy wants me to buy his book to learn more of his conspiracy theory, and, of course, I will not. I suspect that he will probably sell a lot of books to people who really just want to argue with him, and he may sell a few to people who will actually believe him. I have a feeling that the more I learn of what he is selling, the less believable it will become...
It is true that there are two different Greek words translated as Hell in the New Testament: Hades and Gehenna. Hades was where the Greeks believed evil people would be sent after death for eternal punishment, and Gehenna, derived from the Hebrew term, "Ge Hinnom" which means, the valley of Hinnom. The valley of Hinnom was just outside of Jerusalem, and it is a place that was used to burn garbage. Quite frankly, it is an apt metaphor for Hell, because the fire in Ge Hinnom was never allowed to go out, and whatever went into it never came out again.
Some people believe that the term Gehenna was intended to refer to a place of purification, or refinement, as in a purifying fire, or a refiner's fire. That might make more sense if it were not for the fact that the literal Ge Hinnom had never been used for such. It was used to get rid of undesirable things, such as garbage. The Bible does say, where a tree falls, there shall it lie. On the surface, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense; dead trees get moved all the time, just never of their own accord. If you stop to think in terms of can one be reconciled to God after death (since a tree that falls is generally dead), then it would seem that, no, just as a dead tree has no control over its final resting place, so too, we cannot influence judgment after our own passing. Furthermore, even if Gehenna is purgatory, or something like it, then why is Hades mentioned at all? Doesn't that indicate that, at the very least, some people are going to Hell?
Of course, the argument would be that if Hades and Gehenna were the same place, why did Jesus use two different terms to describe it? Why not use one or the other all the time? I would have to suggest that Jesus knew His audience. Some of the people that He preached to would not have been familiar with Gehenna (for example people that didn’t live in Jerusalem might not have been familiar with it), while others might not have been familiar with the Greek idea of Hades, so Jesus would have used the terms that made the most sense to the people that He was addressing at the time.
By the way, some people also gripe that the word Hell actually comes from the Hebrew word Sheol (not true, by the way), which simply means, grave, but, the word Hell in the New Testament, as I mentioned earlier, is translated from the Greek word, Hades, meaning place of eternal torment. Just for the record, the dictionary says that the word Hell comes from the Norse (or Viking) term, Hel, which was a place of torment for evildoers and those not fortunate enough to die in battle. Unlike Hell, though, Hel was reputed to be very cold...

McJob

Most of you have probably heard this already, but the term ‘McJob’ has been added to the dictionary. Not the dictionary on this computer, of course, spell check is telling me that’s not a word. The McDonald’s Corporation got pretty upset about the term. To be honest, I can see their point; at the same time, I understand why people associate McDonald’s with what used to be called a dead-end job. It’s really not fair to McDonald’s. There are opportunities at Mickey D’s, it’s just that a lot of the people who gravitate to fast-food type jobs are exactly the type of people who don’t make the most of their opportunities. A couple of guys that I knew in high school got jobs at McDonald’s working after school and on weekends, and looked for opportunities to advance within the organization. When they graduated high school, they were offered assistant manager positions, which they accepted. It didn’t take too long for them to become managers. Of course, if everybody who ever worked at McDonald’s took advantage of the opportunities available to them, there would be no one to flip burgers. And even if you aren’t interested in making fast food a career, working at McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell or whatever will give you actual work experience. Think about it for a minute, if you were in a position to hire someone to do a job (any job outside of the food service industry), and it came down to two applicants, both have high school diplomas, but one of them worked at a fast food joint after school and on weekends and had a good reference from the manager, while the other one has no work experience at all; which one would you hire? Obviously you’d want to hire the person with the good work reference, even if that work experience has nothing to do with what they would be doing working for you. It’s equally obvious that someone who worked fast food but didn’t have a good reference isn’t going to get the job, either. If you can’t handle a ‘McJob,’ why should I believe that you can handle a real job? That may seem unfair, wait, I’m getting discriminated against because I treated my McJob like a McJob? Well, yes, to be blunt, if your only work experience is a McJob, and that’s all I have to go by to judge what kind of work I can expect from you, then, yes, if you treat your McJob like a McJob, then I’m not going to trust you with a real job.Jesus said that “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). I think that a lot of times we get ourselves into trouble because we treat little things as though they were not important. I have even heard some people say that there are two rules in life: 1) Don’t sweat the petty stuff 2) It’s all petty stuff. What, nothing matters? I will admit that a lot of the stuff that we get caught up in really doesn’t matter at all in the long run. You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker that says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” There’s also another one that doesn’t seem to be nearly as popular that says, “He who dies with the most toys still dies.” It’s not about what you have in your hot little hands when you go to the grave, it’s about what you have waiting for you on the other side. Jesus also said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth…” (Matthew 6:18). True riches stem from the rewards given by God for the things that we have allowed Him to do through us here on earth. Can you imagine getting to Heaven and finding that there are countless people that made it in because of something that you did? Maybe these aren’t even people that you personally shared the gospel with, maybe someone that you encouraged when they were discouraged, gave a ride to when they needed it, asked a thought-provoking question that led to them thinking about where they would spend eternity. Those are the little things that are really important.

It's Funny

It is funny that everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die. On the other hand, if one is too willing to die, then one's death might be considered suicide, and you don't get to Heaven by killing oneself. Although some believers in Islam would disagree on that. Personally, I think it's funny (funny odd, more than funny ha-ha) that they think that if they kill themselves 'for the cause' then they get 72 virgins in Heaven (is that actually in the Koran somewhere? I doubt it, but I don't know). So if a woman keeps herself pure for Allah, she gets to spend eternity sharing a suicide bomber with 71 other women who kept themselves pure--that's her reward?

Mark Twain once pointed out that everybody believes that we are going to be playing harps in Heaven, but most of us don't take harp lessons here on earth. Of course, he suggested that we are all going to end up in Heaven not knowing how to play the standard-issue harp, but plucking away at it anyway, for the glory of God. I don't remember anything in the Bible about playing the harp in Heaven, but I do know that the Bible says that in Heaven we will know much more than we do here on earth (1 Corinthians 13:12). Just between us, I don't think we're going to be playing harps in Heaven, but, if we do, we'll know exactly how to play them.

It's funny that we tend to think of St. Peter as the gatekeeper for Heaven. Where did that come from? I know Jesus gave him the keys to the kingdom, but I really don't think that means that Peter is going to spend eternity at the gate, comparing names to a list, letting people in, or turning them away. Matthew 25 certainly doesn't describe judgment that way. Isn't there a difference between a gatekeeper and a keymaster, anyway?

I also think it's funny that so many people got so upset over 'The DaVinci Code.' If some of the concepts in that book (or movie) caused you to question your faith, then maybe your faith needed to be questioned, but, it was a work of fiction. Even if there really is a group of people that believes that they are protecting the last descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (and there is not), that doesn't prove by any stretch of the imagination that there actually ever was a descendant of Jesus and Mary... (Just a side note, Dan Brown asserts in the beginning of his book that the Priory of Sion is a real organization. It was--maybe it still is, but I believe it has been dissolved. However, the Priory never claimed to have any knowledge of the descendants of Jesus. Their stated purpose was to protect the descendants of the former kings of France.) Keep in mind that, book or movie, "The DaVinci Code" is a work of fiction. Of course, it is a work of fiction that works best in the mind of the reader if certain ideas are presented as being factual. Remember 'The Blair Witch Project?' The movie did very well as long as people believed that it actually was spliced together from film recovered after three film students disappeared in the woods, researching the Blair Witch. Once word got out the film was completely fictional, most people lost interest.