We thank you Father that you have given us life.
I'm not sure why this comes 4th in the list, above Jesus Christ in terms of our belief, but here goes. It is probably the natural follow on to looking at our humanity, just as we looked at the Bible before we looked at God.
Death, like life, is part of our physical make up. We are born, we live, we die. The desire to have something live on forms the basis (and attraction) of many religions.
But, continuing from last week, is this true? God says simply “the soul that sins will die” and all have sinned. Again marketing based on worldly appeal tends to push the opposite idea; that people go to some happy hunting ground or place of feasting and enjoyment after they die. The Vikings believed in Valhalla. What could a medieval Christian priest have to offer the congregation to encourage them to pay some sort of contribution to the church? The argument was simple – firstly invent some place of torment and explain that if they didn't come to church and pay their dues then they would go there, and secondly do a complete re-branding on the Valhalla theme, and call it Heaven.
'Hell' is not really a biblical term, at least not in the sense that people think if it today. The idea is a culmination of a few mis-concepts added with a pinch of pagan mythology. (Most of it, like heaven, is a re-branding of Greek and Norse mythology).
The simplest translation is 'grave'. The Bible records Jesus spending three days and nights in 'hell'. Would God really send him to a place of torment and punishment, especially as he did nothing worthy of death?
Another misconception is that of burning fires and brimstone. Jonah, like Jesus, also spend three days and nights in hell. In this case it was the belly of a fish, and there's nothing further than the concept of fire than there!
So where did the idea of eternal fires come from? Partly from other mythologies (as already mentioned) but Jerusalem did have a place where that description would fit aptly and it's this word 'Gehenna' that often gets translated 'hell'. Gehenna was the communal rubbish dump for Jerusalem. In hot countries and in days prior to bulldozers and clay capping, rubbish was simply burned to stop the smell and spread of infection. It also became the place where the bodies of convicts and other criminals where thrown to avoid the hassle of having to bury them.
So now that we've covered the doom and gloom, you might be thinking – what is the point of being a Christian? The answer is very simple:
… and we'll come back to it towards the end of this syllabus ;)