Question from a reader:
I have searched at least 7 articles about Hell from the www.ptm.org search button. There is absolutely no mention of Mark 9:42-50 in any of the articles. There are many scriptures that are addressed about Hell but not this particular one. I know it not to be true but it almost seems that it is intentionally ignored. I so look forward to your response.
Brad's response:
I can't remember if I've included a discussion on Mark 9 in my books 'Her Gates Will Never Be Shut' or 'A More Christlike God,' but it's certainly not a passage I would shy away from intentionally, since it is quite an amazing anomaly in the NT and well worthy of meditation. In fact, I did so for about a year before coming to the conclusions below:
Here is the text in blue, along with my own notes in black as I go. I will use the NASB since it is the most literal translation we have of the Greek and tends not to delete words that other translations though we unnecessary (but are critical to our understanding).
42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell,
hell here is a translation of the Greek word, gehenna, (or from Hebrew, Valley of Hinnom) which was literally the valley south of Jerusalem that a long history of destructive fire: (a.) the prophets of Molech burned children there - 2 Chron 28:3, 33:6 (something God never even thought to do - Jer. 7:31); (b.) Josiah, whose name means 'fire of God' burned up all the altars and priests of Molech in that valley; (c.) when Jerusalem would be destroyed by both Babylon and later, Rome, the bodies would be dumped and burned in that fire because there were too many to bury; (d.) the valley would be a burning garbage dump as a memorial to Jerusalem's destruction; (e.) gehenna would ultimately be restored into a garden holy to the Lord (Jer. 31:40).
