The Gospel News
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spiritual environment in which we have to grow and fruit next to thorns. ?Thorns? were defined by the Lord as people - those who do not bring forth good fruit, even though they may claim to be true believers (Mt. 7:16). Heb. 6:8 likewise speaks of ?thorns? as people ("He that bears thorns... is
rejected"). The later interpretation in v22 is
that the thorns are the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of "this world" - and yet these abstract things operate upon the believer through persons, through people devoted to them. For we all ?are? the principles which we live by; and our example and influence upon others is more significant than we realize.
~ Bro Duncan Heaster
Does God Torture People in Hell?
Bro. Alan Hayward (UK)
"Hell" is an English word which has been greatly misused, and is consequently much misunderstood. At the risk of oversimplifying a rather complicated subject, the main facts about hell can be summarised like this:
In the Old Testament, the word "hell"
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always means "the grave". To be more precise, it is a translation of the Hebrew word Sheol, which is a poetical word meaning "the dwelling-place of the dead", or, more simply, "the grave".
Modern translators of the Bible often avoid using the word "hell" in the Old Testament, and instead leave the Hebrew word Sheol untranslated. For example, take Proverbs 23:13,14. The ancient King James Version (1611) translates it in these words:
"Withhold not correction from the child: For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.Thou shalt beat him with the rod, And thou shalt deliver his soul from hell".
The modern Revised Standard Version (1952) replaces the last line with "you will save his
life from Sheol".
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Yet there are some passages where the Hebrew word Sheol so obviously means "the grave" that both the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version translate it that way. For instance, "Jealousy is cruel as
the grave." (Song of Solomon 8:6).
There is nothing in the Old Testament to suggest that the souls of wicked people are tormented in a fiery hell.
In the New Testament there are two quite
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different Greek words translated "hell". One of these, Hades, is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol, and consequently this also means "the grave".
A good example of the New Testament use of this word is in Acts 2, where Peter quotes Psalm 16 and says it is a prophecy of the resurrection of Christ. The prophet David, the author of this Psalm, wrote: "Thou dost
not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit". When Peter quoted this in
a speech, he declared: "For David says
concerning him (Jesus), ?For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, Nor let thy Holy One see corruption ...? he (David) foresaw
and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. Clearly, what David and Peter are both telling us is that Christ rose from the dead: his body did not remain in his tomb, that is, in "Sheol", or "Hades", and so it did not "see corruption".
It is so obvious that the Greek word Hades does not mean "hell" that modern translations usually leave it untranslated. The RSV does this in most places, but in Matthew 16:18 it translates it as "death".
The Greek word Gehenna is altogether
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different. Modern translations do translate this word as "hell", and at first glance it seems as if they have good reasons for doing so. To begin with, the word always refers to a place of punishment. It occurs twelve times in the New Testament, all but one of them in the sayings of Jesus, and in several of these places it is associated with fire. It