This world is like an anteroom before the world to come. Prepare yourself in the anteroom so that you may enter the banquet hall. Rabbi Ya’akov, Pirke Avot 4:21 Prepare – “The nature of the afterlife has never been clear in Judaism.”[1] In contrast to the highly developed ideas of the afterlife in Christian literature…
“For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.” Isaiah 64:4 Nor has eye seen – “Every prophet only prophesied for the days of the Messiah; but as for the World…
John Adam, mathematician and reader of Today’s Word, has contributed some interesting and powerful material in the past. Here is his latest. I think you will enjoy John’s insights. Heavenly Acoustics The array below represents, in a sense, two dimensions of time. The speaker utters sounds in time moving downwards. The hearer hears the sounds…
“No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.” John 3:13 NASB No one – Apparently Yeshua was mistaken. Everyone knows that good people go to heaven when they die. Everyone knows that Moses and David and Peter and all the saints of the Church are in heaven…
Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priest of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. Revelation 20:6 ESV Reign – In Mesillat Yesharim, Moses Luzzatto suggests that we enter the…
For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Psalm 57:10 ESV Heavens/ Clouds – shamayim and shehaqim describe David’s new perspective. But considering the circumstances, this is quite a shock. David is sitting in a cave! Is he viewing the clouds, enjoying the sun, gazing at the heavens? No. …
And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43 J. Green translation Today – When do we get to heaven? While the question certainly isn’t on the top shelf from a biblical point of view, evangelical Christianity seems to suggest that the answer to…
“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:46 NASB Eternal life – There is no doubt that Christianity embraces a robust doctrine of the afterlife. In fact, I suspect that if you asked the common believer or non-believer about the most important teaching of the Church, it…
Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? Ecclesiastes 3:21 NASB Ascends upward – “Ecclesiastes, alone in the Bible, is aware of the belief that at death the soul goes upward to the heavens, rather than down to Sheol. This idea is not…
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8 NASB Require – “OK, God, OK! What do you want from me?” When we finally understand that life isn’t ours to do…
