Theology in the Raw - #642 - Pre-marriage Intimacy, Nonviolence and Israel, and Afterlife in the Old Testament

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

How intimate can a non-married couple be? Nonviolence and Israel's conquest, is that a thing? Where do Old Testament believers and unbelievers go after they die?

Greetings, Theology in the Raw listeners. Thank you so much for joining me on this show. I have a few pieces of new information to give you before we jump in. I've got a long list of wonderful questions that my Patreon supporters have voted on. I'm excited to jump into those. But first, I want to talk to you about some new things going on with the podcast. First of all, I'm introducing a new level of support. Right now you can support the podcast for any dollar amount, but the minimum support to receive some sort of

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provocative. He has a wonderful heart and an incredibly sharp mind. Excited to have Jonathan on the shows and along with several other people that I'm going to be interviewing. If you are a Patreon supporter and you want to make a suggestion of who you think I should get, some other people you think I should interview, then please go to the Patreon page and you can ping me and let me know, hey, I should, you know, you should try to get this guy or that guy. Keep it in mind that if they're a really high profile person and I don't have a good personal relationship with them, it's sometimes if they're high profile, they're very hard to get. But go ahead and suggest different names and people and authors and speakers and friends of yours that you think I should interview. Okay, should we jump into it? Let's get started. How intimate can a non-married couple be?

Non-violence and Israel's conquest, is that a thing? Where do Old Testament believers and unbelievers go after they die? I'm Preston Sprinkle, and you are listening to Theology of the Rock. Okay, let's jump into our first question. It goes like this. Was Noah alive during the time of Abram? I was reading the genealogy of Genesis 11, and if I did my math right, the questioner says that Noah lived until Abraham was about 58 years old. I tried looking this up, but most of the remote articles I could find were obscure Jewish writings that I wasn't sure if I could trust. Do you know anything about this or do you have any thoughts? If Noah was alive until Abraham or Abram, does that have any significance

to how we view Abraham? My first quick answer to that last question is no, I don't think there's any significance if they did overlap. There's nothing in the Bible that talks about Noah and Abraham hanging out. And even if it did, I don't think it would have any significance on the theological message of the Bible. But let me back up and try to get our arms around this question. And let me introduce several problems that we have to address before we even answer this question. Number one, there's the problem of chronology. The further back you go in biblical chronology, the more sketchy it gets. So, for instance, if we go back to, say, the time of David,

So, for instance, if we go back to, say, the time of David, we're pretty secure. We can come up with pretty definite dates and times and people, and the chronology is much easier to figure out. Even there, there's some problems, and people debate the chronology of David and Solomon. But going back to David and Solomon, we're on pretty good, pretty secure ground. We have archaeological correspondence, for instance, of the reigns of David and Solomon. Not a lot, not a lot, but we do have archaeological evidence of the existence of David and Solomon. We have archaeological evidence of certain buildings that Solomon constructed around the time of his reign. And so we can kind of cross-check things with archaeology. Once you go back from David and Solomon, it gets more and more sketchy. A lot of biblical chronology is dependent upon the chronology of other kingdoms like

Egypt, especially because they recorded details about their different pharaohs and kings. But the further back you get, the sketchier it gets. I think we can get back to Abraham fairly confidently. Abraham lived right around the year, well, 2000 BC. But once you go earlier than Abraham, it gets really, really tough. And so, the question that you raise has to do with the time of Noah, which is long before, well, let's just say before Abraham, cause we're not, you know, let's just hold with an open hand, you know, this, this, whether or not they overlapped. But once you go earlier in Abraham, it gets really, the chronology gets really tough. Okay. Another problem that we have to address is the problem

of genre. The genre of Genesis 1 to 11 is slightly different than the genre of Genesis 12 and following. Now, we do hear about Abraham at the tail end of Genesis 11, and then, you know, the main story begins in Genesis 12. And so, the story of Abraham in Genesis 12 to 25, roughly, is a different genre. It's much more straightforward, literal, narrative, historical, but Genesis 1 to 11 is a bit more tricky. And I don't want to go much deeper than that, but just to acknowledge that the literalness with which we interpret Genesis 12 and following might not be the same for Genesis 1 to 11. And I really mean might not. Personally, I would lean much more closer to a literal historical reading of Genesis 1 to 11,

but it is a bit tougher when you look at the genre. There are a lot more poetic elements, and I would even say mythological themes that the biblical writers are drawn on. I'm not saying it is a myth. I'm saying there are mythological themes and difficulties that would, well, difficulties that would present us if we're taking a straightforward literal historical reading. Okay. So again, I'm saying that, and I lean towards a historical literal reading of Genesis 1 to 11, but it is something you have to kind of work through. A third problem you have to address is the problem of genealogical gaps. If you compare the genealogies of say Genesis 5 with

Luke 3, we see certain people being mentioned in Luke 3 that don't occur in Genesis 5. And so, and this raises a question of, well, how many other people might have existed between the sort of, within the genealogies of Genesis that aren't mentioned. And are the genealogies when it says so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so or so-and-so was a son of so-and-so, that could just denote a relationship, not a direct descendant. And so, again, I'm not going to say it's one way or another. I'm not going to say there are gaps or there aren't gaps. Well, we know that at least there are some gaps. I'm just going to, all I want to do at this point is just raise the question we have to work through the problem of genealogical gaps in order to determine if there's any overlap between Abraham

and Noah. Lastly, there is the problem of genealogical purpose. When we get to a genealogy, we need to ask, what is the function? What is the purpose of the biblical genealogy? And when we do that, we see it's not, the purpose of biblical genealogies are not primarily to focus on time, but to trace origin and lay claim to a particular theological theme. For instance, the largest genealogy in the Bible is 2 Chronicles 1-9, nine full chapters of genealogy. And the purpose there is not to have us dissect the genealogy and reconstruct the chronology and time period of everything. It is to connect the post-exilic generation, which we read about in 2 Chronicles 9, with its Davidic and even priestly

roots. You have twin themes of temple and kingdom that are driving the genealogy in 2 Chronicles 1 to 9. So, I think we moderns, we focus on time and chronology and getting the facts straight, whereas I think biblical genealogies had a different function. They were more laying claim to theological themes that they're trying to emphasize. So, once we work through all those problems, then, you know, depending on how you answer those four problems, the problem of chronology, genre, gaps, and purpose, then we can, we're in a better place to address your question. So, if, let's just say this, if we assume no gaps, a straightforward literal reading, um, then Noah was born, uh, 1,056 years after creation and he dies 2006 years after creation. Again, assuming a literal reading, no gaps, um, then Abraham would have been born 1,948 years

after creation and he lives for 175 years, which would, yeah, you got the math right. There would be an overlap of 58 years. However, they did, as far as we can tell, live in different places. I mean, Abraham comes from Ur in Mesopotamia and Noah settled in what would be modern day Armenia, kind of the Eastern edge of Turkey. And so they're living in different places and there's no, it doesn't seem like they would have interacted unless maybe when Abram went up to Haran, if Noah was still alive then. In fact, yeah, actually, I think by the time Abraham went to Haran, Noah would have died. I would need to double check that. But Haran would have been much closer to where Noah lived. But

there's no evidence that they hung out, that they talked to each other or even knew of each other. Next question, nonviolence in Israel's conquest of Canaan. I recently read your book fight and I've been convinced a Christian, a convinced Christian pacifist for several years now. So needless to say, I found the book to be a great tool for examining scriptural witness to peace. However, I also just finished John Walton's, the lost world of the Israelite conquest in which he makes the case that Yahweh, Yahweh's fighting for Israel, her testimony that peoples inhabiting the promised land were too great and numerous for them to conquer,

that Yahweh alone put them to the sword, that all of this is an ancient Near East literary trope whose theological purpose is to highlight Yahweh's ownership of the land, not Israel's pacifism. Israel would have been completely, or would have been understood to have fully participated in the conquest. This complicates the nonviolent reading of the Old Testament. I was curious if you had encountered this book or similar arguments in your research, and if you had any thoughts about it. I still love the overall

prophetic vision of the Old Testament is one of peace, of shalom. It's just not clear to me that the text of the Old Testament recommend getting to that point by peaceful means. And again, you say, I agree with that the New Testament is very clear about Christian nonviolence, but what do we do with the Old Testament? So, yeah, real quickly, John Walton's book came out in 2017. Mine came out in 2013. So, I didn't read it, obviously, as part of my research for Fight, and I still haven't read it. I haven't read John Walton's book. So, I can't really comment on his approach. I would say, based on your description, that does sound very similar to other works that I read in preparation for Fight. I mean, I'm going back six years now in my research,

but that does sound very similar to what I found too, that you have certain literary, you call them tropes, I like that, in conquest narratives, both in the Bible and outside the Bible that are trying to do something different than again, just to inform us on all the historical details. There's theological, uh, theological purpose in the way that military conquests are being relayed. I think I did talk about this a little bit in, in fight. I remember, you know, I'm, I'm, I tried not to be too scholarly in fight. So I, I didn't go too deep, but, um, I think I did mention that in a couple of places for, uh, I'm sure I did in at least a footnote or two about the genre of retelling military conquest. So this does sound familiar.

I'm not, well, let me clarify too. I don't think that the Old Testament itself or the conquest is teaching, you know, pacifism or nonviolence. I think that, I think there's, I think that the conquest, the retelling of the conquest is part of the overarching unfolding nature of the Old Testament vision for peace, but in the conquest itself, no, I don't think Israel was, was, you know, they were the pacifists and God alone was conquering people with the sword. I don't, you said Yahweh alone put the people to the sword. I just, I do see an emphasis on Yahweh's action. And I think the phrase that I use is, Yahweh is the main warrior and Israel is sort of mopping up the mess.

It's kind of a crude example, but Israel is participating. There's clear evidence of that. In fact, they are rebuked in the book of Judges for not finishing the conquest. So if Yahweh was the only one responsible for the conquest without any human agency, then how do you make sense of that? I mean, God's like rebuking himself for not finishing the conquest. So, if Yahweh was the only one responsible for the conquest without any human agency, then how do you make sense of that? I mean, God's like rebuking himself for not finishing the conquest. So, Israel is rebuked for not, you know, it's almost like Yahweh broke the back of the

Canaanites and Israel played a role, but they didn't finish the job and they get rebuked for that. So, I do want to recommend to you a wonderful conversation, intriguing conversation I just listened to between Greg Boyd and Paul Copan, a two-part discussion on the Unbelievable Podcast. And that's not, that's the name of the podcast. That's not my adjective. That's the noun. The name of the podcast called Unbelievable, the January 19th and January 26 episodes, great debate between Paul Copan and Greg Boyd because Greg Boyd says God did not actually command the conquest, whereas Copan says he did. And in my book, I followed Copan pretty closely there.

I didn't interact with Boyd because his book wasn't out yet. And I didn't even really know his perspective on the conquest. But I think Copan, I think he got it right. Now Copan is more of a just war theory guy. So he's going to maintain that kind of perspective, even in the new Testament. Whereas it sounds like you and I would side with when it gets, when it comes to the new Testament, we side with Boyd. But yeah, I would, in terms of the conquest, I don't think we can say that, you know, God didn't command the conquest.

Let me read to you a verse in Deuteronomy 20, verse 16. It says, this is God speaking, in the cities of these people that the Lord your God has given to you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you should devote them to complete destruction. The Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, um, sounds like a bunch of diseases, but as the Lord, your God has commanded that they might, that they may not teach you according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods. And so you sin against the Lord, your God. I don't, that's in the words of Yahweh, that he is commanding this and not just commanding a general taking of the land,

but a slaughtering of the people. Now, here's the thing that I briefly explored in fight. And I'm not a hundred percent sure what to do with this, but it's interesting. And it could not sure what to do with this, but it's interesting and it could, it could lend credence to kind of what you were saying that, um, well, maybe there's, it's not as violent or not as pervasive as we had originally imagined the conquest. If you go to Joshua chapter 10, verse 40, Joshua chapter 10, verse 40, it says, so Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negev and the low land and the slopes and all their Kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction, all that breathe just as the Lord God of Israel commanded that the very word in there. I mean, seems to me to be a clear reference to Deuteronomy 20, 16, the verse I just read.

Okay. He talks about leaving none remaining, devoting to destruction, all that breed, just as the Lord God commanded. When did he command it? Well, Deuteronomy 20, verse 16. Now here's what we know to be true about Joshua 10, 40 is it is hyperbole. In other words, he's overstating the case because even though it says hyperbole. He, in other words, he's overstating the case because even though it says he struck the whole land, devote all the destruction, all that breed and the whole entire land, we know that didn't happen. I mean, read the rest of Joshua. Like, it's not even like, Oh, there's another verse in Amos or something that contradicts us. No.

Like the rest of Joshua says they didn didn't kill everybody. Read, I mean, yeah, you just read Joshua chapter 12 verses, chapter 12, verse 7 through 24. You can read Joshua 16, verse 10 and throughout chapter 18, verses 2 and following chapter 17 verses 12 and 13, there's several passages throughout Joshua that say they actually didn't kill everybody. And in explicitly in Judges one and two, that's the whole point of Judges is you didn't kill everybody. So now you're under their yoke and submitting to their idols and everything. So all that to say, if you go back, compare Deuteronomy 20 verse 16 with Joshua 10 40. Joshua 10 40 in a hyperbolic way says they slaughtered everybody in fulfillment of the command. So, since Joshua 10 40 is hyperbolic, is hyperbole, then perhaps the command itself in chapter 20 verse 16 is also hyperbole. That's my suggestion. I wouldn't take a bullet for that necessarily. No pun intended. Take a sword for that. But there is something there. There's

something, there's clear hyperbole going on in Joshua 10, 40. There's clear allusion to the command, to the command in Deuteronomy 20. So, perhaps the command itself is hyperbole. So, that's as far as I want to go. I want to say that God did command conquest. God did command violence in the Old Testament at that time. Israel did participate in the conquest, although Yahweh was the primary warrior. He was the one going forth and doing most of the fighting. We see this in Joshua 10, for instance,

earlier when there's hailstones, God rains down hailstones from heaven. And it says that more people were killed by the hailstones than by the Israelites. So there, it doesn't say all the people were killed by the hailstones and none by the Israelites, but it says God was sort of leading the charge. And I do want to say that perhaps, perhaps Israel was never commanded to kill every single man, woman, and child in the conquest. And again, I'm basing that specifically on textual, clear textual elements. Because whenever I go there and say, maybe it's hyperbole, maybe he didn't command the whole thing. People accuse me of not

reading the Bible. Honestly, I'm saying it's because I'm reading the Bible honestly and wrestling with it, that perhaps there is hyperbole going on in the very command of the conquest. Otherwise you have a contradiction. You don't have any other option. Either the Joshua 1040 contradicts the rest of Joshua. That's why option A, so you can choose that option or option B is there's hyperbole going on. Those are your two options. I remember teaching a class on this several years ago and there's somebody in the audience who just, he just said, no, no, it's, it's no, it's not hyperbole. It's not contradiction. I'm like, you don't have, those are your two options. Like you don't have another

option here. I'm going to go with hyperbole because that's a very biblical thing. We know, I mean, Jesus uses hyperbole. The Bible clearly uses hyperbole. It's a biblical category. I'm a little more nervous with contradiction. So if you're, if you can't just say no, neither of you can stick your head in the sand and say, I'm not choosing either because it has to be one or the other. Next question, which study Bible do I recommend? Do you recommend a particular study Bible? It seems that all have their own slant or lens.

They view things through, I guess we all do, but what do you look for in choosing a study Bible? I went to my library here. I don't have a big library, but I've got several study Bibles here. I went to my library here. I don't have a big library, but I've got several study Bibles here. And the three that I really liked, and I wouldn't say that I do a lot of work in study Bibles, not because I'm against it, just because the Bible that I typically use isn't a study Bible and study Bibles are huge, as Donald Trump and, uh, it's hard to carry them around. So like I do a

lot of work in coffee shops or, you know, when I go to church or whatever, I mean, I, I like a Bible that's not, you know, like 10 pounds. So I typically don't use study Bible for that reason, but I do think they're incredibly helpful. So the three that I have here are the NIV So the three that I have here are the NIV Study Bible, edited by D.A. Carson. Then I also have, gosh, a really nice leather-bound Holman Christian Standard Study Bible. This is the translation I use, but I'd hardly ever use the Study Bible. And then another one that just came out that's really awesome is the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, also in NIV and put out by Zondervan. Two of these, both the NIV Study Bible and Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible are put out by Zondervan. Why do I say I like these? Well, as you said, I do look for the

theological commitments and assumptions and agendas of the contributors. So, when I'm looking at a study Bible, the very first thing I do is I go to the first few pages and look up who are the authors of the study Bible. And maybe you don't know the names or whatever, so it might be harder for the average person, I guess, to say, well, I don't know who these people are. But for me personally, I do. I know most of these names. And so, I can tell, is there going to be a slant here? Because I've read a lot of other books by these writers and authors, and I could tell how honest they are with the text. And so,

I do like all three of these. I think the NIV study Bible might be the, the broadest. Um, it still is very, it's very evangelical, but it's, it's, I would say it's broadly evangelical. I'm looking at some of the names right here that contributed to it. People like, uh, um, oh, Todd Bolin. So Todd Bolin teaches at Masters College. He's one of my mentors growing up. I mean, just amazing. Very, very conservative. I'm the far conservative end of evangelicalism.

So, he wrote an intro to Second Kings. You also have Bruce Waltke, who would be more moderate, even left evangelical. Richard Hess would be broadly evangelical. John T or John Oswalt is an amazing scholar. V Phillips Long is wonderful. Doug Moo, Andrew Hill, Craig Blomberg, Ricky Watts. Ricky Watts, as far as I know, would be moderate, kind of mid-level, you know, not super conservative, not liberal. I mean, nobody in here is going to be liberal, but Tim Keller wrote an article in here. Desmond Alexander, wonderful scholar. Sam Storms, very solid. Moise Silva is very solid. Stephen Westerholm, broadly evangelical, barely evangelical, I think.

And yeah, Karen Jobes and many others. So it's not a far right, far conservative list of contributors. They're all over the map on this kind of spectrum of evangelicalism. I would say the same thing about the Holman Christian Study Bible. The one thing about the Holman Christian Study Bible,

most of them have, most have like a Baptist background and the Holman Christian Study Bible or Holman Christian Standard Bible, the translation, Holman Christian HCSB, I think it does have Baptist kind of roots or background, not that everybody involved in the translation is a Baptist, but with the Study Bible, you do see a lot of Baptists in there, but even then it's, they're not all like really conservative Baptists necessarily. So, there is still some broad, somewhat broad theological contributions. But for instance, if you looked at like the John MacArthur study Bible, I mean, you're going to get a very, very particular viewpoint. And, you know, there's a lot of great work that goes into that i mean they they took i mean years and years and years i think i was an undergrad when they were working on that

thing just working night and day and a lot of research that went into it but i can i can i mean i don't even need to open it i can tell you what they're going to say about you know first thessalonians chapter four about the rapture passage i know what they're going to say about the millennial kingdom because and there is a certain slant that they're going to say about the millennial kingdom because, and there is a certain slant that you're going to get through all of those notes. And so, I would recommend with the study Bible not getting something that is so slanted or has a particular viewpoint through the whole thing. Even if you have that viewpoint, I don't think it's healthy just to read in an echo chamber, you know, certain, you know, interpretations of a verse that you grew up with, that you agree with,

and you just need that solidified. I don't think that's intellectually very healthy nor very honest. So, I would, yeah, look at the contributors, look where they went to, maybe where they did their degrees, where they currently teach, and that can tell you something about where they're coming from theologically. I also look at presentation and clarity. So, the Holman Christian Study Bible has, I think this one is, it's so well done. It's got, it's so organized. It's clear. You can find the notes. Like it's, you know, sometimes it takes a lot of work to say, okay, this verse and it's, where's this note down below? And this one just leaps off the pages. It's got a ton of,

I'm just flipping through right now if you can hear that, a ton of great pictures and maps and tables. I love tables and things that are sort of, you know, graphic design where it makes things, sorry, like an infograph where it makes things, you know, more clear, clearly organized. The other study Bible that I mentioned, that's really fantastic is the cultural background study Bible. This is edited. Um, Oh, who is it? Craig Keener, Craig Keener. Who's one of the, one of the, I mean, to my mind, one of the top new Testament scholars of our day, the guy's just off the chart, brilliant and loves the Lord like crazy, like crazy. I mean, just solid Christian, amazing scholar. So you have the New Testament editors, Craig Keener, and then John Walton, in my mind, one of the best evangelical

Old Testament scholars. So you have two people who are, again, and I would say broadly evangelical, like they're, if you're familiar with, you know, John Walton, we just, we mentioned him with the conquest, but I mean, he's, yeah, he's kind of extended some people's thinking in terms of how to understand the Old Testament. You have other contributors to this like uh daniel block amazing scholar you have duane garrett an incredible scholar rich hess amazing scholar um uh fred maybe edwin yamuchi yamauchi i don't know his name but he i mean one of the top one of the he's like a world-renowned egyptologist and archeologist and like back, you know, ancient Near East scholar and happens to be evangelical. He's like

amazing scholar. So he contributes to it in Provan and others. I mean, this is a, yeah, great contributors to this. Now, here's what I love about the background study Bible is it doesn't really get into theology primarily. Like that's, it's not trying to, like, you're not going to get as much of a slant theologically because that's not the purpose. The purpose is simply to reveal, you know, lots of helpful background pieces of information. So, when you're looking at the footnotes, you're not saying, you know, you know, therefore you can't lose your salvation. You're not going to get like some theological conclusion. You're going to say, you know, well, here's what was going on in Assyria at this time and how it illuminates the text. So, um, this one might be, um, I don't know. I, if you're, if you're kind of tired of, or nervous about the theological,

um, you know, uh, slant with the study Bible, this, this one might be the one that you should get then if you're looking for, if you're, if you're into background into background stuff next question where are old testament believers and unbelievers held after they die you say there is no mention of hell in the old testament and the people who believe that that the messiah was to come were held in abraham's bosom i always crack up at that abraham's bosom like it's just i get these junior high giggles whenever I see that, like bosom. But yeah, you can translate it bosom or Abraham's side. This comes from Luke 16 where we get that reference. So were the people, oh no, yeah. So you spelled it wrong here.

So it threw me off. Were the people that did not believe in the Messiah held there as well, or were they held somewhere else? Also, the people of today's age that do not choose Christ go to hell, which I understand is not eternal. Are they held until the, where are they held until the great white throne judgment after they are, or until they're annihilated? So, intermediate state, where are believers and unbelievers in the Old Testament and in the New Testament? Where is the intermediate state? So, with the Old Testament, it doesn't say a whole lot. The afterlife, I don't know if you know this, I've talked about it a few times in the podcast, but there's very little mention of an afterlife in the Old Testament.

Very little. And I think there's some verses in Job that have been misinterpreted, um, and, or even Ecclesiastes, um, that eternity in their hearts, I think is, is not, I think that that's not talking about how everybody's just longing for heaven or something. Um, the Old Testament does not say a whole lot. It does reference Sheol quite a bit. Um, Sheol's referenced quite a bit, bit but the word shield can mean lots of different things sometimes it's it's just a synonym for the grave like if you die and you go to go to the

grave you go to shield like it's it's you know six feet underground shield so sometimes it's referring to you know where believers go um and unbelievers and sometimes it's just more of a negative, like only where unbelievers go. But even then, the nature of someone's existence in Sheol, it really depends on each passage. And there's only a small number of passages that could be taken to refer to some kind of conscious existence in Sheol. But again, Sheol is not hell. Even in the places where Sheol might be describing some kind of existence, it is the intermediate state where people go after they die. Hell is a place where some people go after Jesus returns, raises the dead from Sheol or Abraham's side or bism, and then they face judgment and then they are cast into hell. Nobody is in hell right now. Not a single person is in hell right now because Jesus hasn't returned to raise the dead to face judgment and hell is on

the other side of judgment. So, yeah, so the Old Testament is very, very ambiguous, very vague. Luke, or sorry, Ezekiel 32, it might be a little metaphorical, might be hyperbole, but it might give the impression that there's some kind of existence, but it's just really fuzzy, especially that section in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 25 to 32 is filled with allegory and metaphor and hyperbole. So, you know, we got to hold Ezekiel 32 with a question mark. And then again, the references to Sheol are pretty ambiguous. In the New Testament, believers go to heaven or in Luke 16, it's referred to as Abraham's side or his bosom. And there's only a few references

that describe believers going to heaven after they die. Philippians 1, Paul makes a passing reference to, you know, if I die, then I will be with Christ. That's it. I'll be with Jesus. And so, Jesus is in heaven, the right hand of God. And so we're going to be with Christ and we're going to be with him in heaven. Revelation 6 talks about souls that have been martyred or crying out front of the altar, but highly metaphorical. I'm not sure exactly what to make of that. Second Corinthians 5 verses 1 to 10 is the one passage that it's hard. It's really tough to know whether Paul is thinking about where believers go

immediately after they die, or if he's just talking about our future resurrection. I remember several years ago studying this passage and I didn't realize how complicated it was. It's just, it seems that Paul might be going back and forth between a future resurrection and immediately where we go after we die. So, in the New Testament, non-believers go to a place called Hades, which is the New Testament word basically for Sheol. There's one reference in 2 Peter 2, 4 to Tartarus, which is a term drawn, it's drawn on Greek mythology of a place where the Titans were held captive in the underworld. where the Titans were held captive in the underworld. And the believers, so unbelievers go to Sheol, Hades, Tartarus. Those are all overlapping concepts.

That's the intermediate state for those who don't believe in God. And those who do believe in God, believe in Jesus, go to heaven or Abraham's bosom or paradise in different terms for the same thing. All of these we have to hold with a very open mind, open hand, open mind, open hearts. That's a line from Friday Night Lights anyway. No, full hearts, full hearts, eyes clear, full hearts. Anyway, so there's different terms, different concepts that new Testament and old Testament writers are grasping for to describe the afterlife.

And we just, it's just, they don't nail it down with a whole lot of clarity. Um, I don't think we should try to envision what, what is it like the old, the most thorough description of the intermediate state or the afterlife immediately after you die. The most thorough descriptions in Luke 16, the parable of the rich man or the afterlife immediately after you die. The most thorough description is in Luke 16, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But even that it's, it's filled with parabolic elements that aren't to be taken literal. So it's really tough to say how much of that is literal. I mean, if the fact that, you know, Lazarus and the rich man are talking to each other and the rich man says, dip your finger in water and cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire. And, and are they like face to face?

They're like, you know, is there a plexiglass window that they're looking at each other through? I mean, it's just, it's, it's just the whole thing isn't designed to tell us like a geography of the afterlife. So I think we need to be careful reading into that, but that's the most thorough description we have. And it just happens to be in a parable where we need to have a lot of caution in interpreting it very literally. So, all that to say, where our Old Testament, there's no mention of hell in the Old Testament, where people held, yes, Abraham's bosom, heaven, you know, just because it's not stated in the Old Testament doesn't mean they weren't going there in the Old Testament. It just wasn't revealed to us where they were going until the New Testament. But yes, I think Old Testament believers were held in heaven, paradise,

Abraham's side, whatever you want to call it. They are with God in heaven and will be raised from the dead when Jesus returns. They'll be given a resurrection body, sorry, when Jesus returns. How intimate can a non-married couple be? This will be our last question. How intimate can a non-married couple be? Oh my gosh, how many times have I had this question from every single non-married couple? And you give a lot of backstory here. Let me just, I want to read some

of this. I'm not going to read all of it. It's a very long paragraph, but I think some of this would be helpful for our audience to know. So you say, I've been engaged for about two and a half years now and been in my relationship for three and a half total years. All of it has been a long distance relationship. You and your fiance are planning on getting married early last summer, but you didn't get into a funded graduate program. And so your parents, you say, my parents had refused to give their blessing to the wedding because they were worried about our financial stability. And you say, it's been a really rough year and a half. You don't want to get married until you have your parents' blessing. And yet the earliest you can get married is fall 2019.

That would mean you had been engaged for almost four years. You and your fiance are totally committed to each other, you say, but are finding it difficult to exhibit sexual self-control. Well, welcome to the club called Humanity. We don't have a perfect track record with keeping the boundaries as we'd like to. It's an ongoing struggle, but part of our struggle is we're very close emotionally, relationally, spiritually, and so forth. But there's no physical intimacy to match that. spiritually and so forth, but there's no physical intimacy to match that. And yet,

if we get married, then we're going to dishonor, you say, your parents. I don't think you mentioned where her parents are at and all this, but this is just getting really, really tough. So, the question is, is there a level of physical intimacy that is appropriate for your fiance, for my fiance and I to express with each other before we get married. Let me first of all, back up and say, I really, really admire you for honoring your parents and respecting them in, you know, to the point of not going against their will and wanting their blessing. I just think that that perspective is often lost in today's culture. And you know, we're so independent and don't like to submit to any kind of authority. So I really want to honor you for or admire you for honoring your parents in this way.

That said, I don't, well, I would need more information. But based on the information you gave me, I don't necessarily agree with their reasoning. Financial stability, I guess I would need to know what they mean by financial stability. But just, I don't know, looking anecdotally at my own 18 years of marriage, some of the most best, most memorable, most spiritually invigorating times I've had in my marriage was when we were dirt poor, spiritually invigorating times I've had in my marriage was when we were dirt poor, when we couldn't afford anything. And we just played cards at night for three hours and couldn't afford a TV. So we didn't watch movies and, you know, we went on long, long walks

and we, you know, scraped together enough money to go on a date once a month or something, you know, and and and ate really cheap and it was so like looking back those are such some of the sweetest sweetest memories we lived in a tiny little apartment in a kind of ghetto part of town and um and it was what it was wonderful well it was wonderful didn't didn't feel that that safe all the time it was what wonderful experiences of you know making sure the doors are locked at night and, you know, getting up in the middle of night when I hear a bang on the window or something, you know, like those are, those are all wonderful times.

So I guess I would want to know, what do they mean by financial stability? Like until you can buy a house or have a couple of cars, like, is it, is it kind of American standard of financial stability? But let me, let me, let me just qualify everything I'm saying here is I don't, even if I did disagree with, say, your parents' advice, that doesn't matter. I'm not your parents. I honor your parents. So I'm just, maybe to give you some peace of mind, I don't know. I think financial stability can be overplayed.

Again, if it's something where you've been super lazy, you don't have a job, you can't even pay the bills, there might be some other things going on there that, yeah, you need to work through before you get married. But just simply financial stability alone, I'd want to explore that. Could you explore that with your parents

and have a conversation? I would love to see that happen. If that would be a profitable conversation to have. I would love to see that happen if that would be a profitable conversation to have. I mean, to be clear, I don't know if your parents are Christians or not, but there's nothing in the Bible that talks about being financially independent before marriage. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I mean, people got married, they would typically live with one of their parents, typically the husband's parents for a while worked on the farm and, you know, it was, of course, they're not financially independent.

They're barely married. So the Bible kind of gives the opposite perspective of there's financial dependence on your greater family network while you're married. It would never be expected that you would just kind of get financially independent before you got married. Like that's just, that wasn't, you know, so, so biblically, I think I would, I would, I would want to maybe have that conversation. So your question, your main question, how far can we go? First base, second base, third base. Can we, can we hit a home run and ask for forgiveness later?

You know, there's no, there's no verse that tells us how far we can go. I do think the Bible says you shouldn't have sex before marriage. And when the Bible talks about sex, it is thinking specifically of intercourse. I would say practically there's other expressions of sex that aren't just limited to intercourse. But so, I mean, there may be some fuzziness on, well, what do you mean by sex? If we just avoid intercourse, is that totally fine? Or I, apparently, I've heard that, you know, some in Christian colleges,

it's popular for girls to have anal sex because they think that that's, you know, they can preserve their virginity by just having anal sex with their boyfriend. And I would say, you know, they're, they, they can preserve their virginity by just having anal sex with their boyfriend. Um, and I would say, come on like that. No, that's, you're having that, that's a sexual act. And, and there are other acts, uh, oral sex. Um, I think I would consider a sexual act and I would say all of that belongs within the context of, of marriage. Again, if there's a mutual consent and so on. So, yeah, I want to take a strong view that you shouldn't have sex before marriage, and it seems like you would definitely agree with that.

And a commitment to be married someday does not extend the sexual leash. Sorry, I shouldn't say sexual leash. It sounds like some bdsm reference or something like i don't i don't think just because you're committed to be married means you have more liberty sexual liberty now with your future spouse um so i you know with these kind of questions i am much more concerned about the heart i'm much more concerned about the heart. I'm much more concerned about, you know, not asking the question, how far can we go until it's sin? But let's ask the question, how can we pursue holiness and sexual integrity in our relationship? So, it does sound like you're wanting me to say, ah, you know, yes, in your situation, you can be more perhaps intimate than if you were

just boyfriend, girlfriend, or if you had, you know, not been engaged for very long or something like you have more, more liberty. But I do think it's, there is a black and white, the black and white nature of this is sex belongs to people who are married, not committed to be married, but who are married. And most activities that are very intimate or erotic or would be considered, say, foreplay end up leading to a sexual act. So even messing around, even, you know, let's just say, okay, we're going to stay at second base, right? We're not going any farther than second base. I'm like, yeah, right. Second base leads, the third base leads to knocking it out of the park. So, um, just, I'm not going to, I'm not going to give you a black and white, here's exactly what you can do and shouldn't do. I'm saying the more physically intimate you are, the much, much, much harder it's going to be to not have sex. So, as much as I get accused of being kind of, you know, edgy or loose or, you

know, liberal or whatever, progressive. I actually take a very conservative view on this conversation. And I'm aware of all the purity movements and how people have been harmed by the rhetoric there. And I'm very sensitive to that and actually agree with a lot of the critiques of purity movements. But in this case, I stay, why make

it harder on yourself? Why put yourself in the more temptation? And the fact is, and it is a human fact of, you know, the, the, the, the, the further you go, the more intimate you are, the more likely you're going to go all the way and, and, and regret it. it. And it doesn't mean there's not forgiveness. Absolutely, forgiveness. And you can mess up several times and you can still be forgiven and God doesn't hate you. He loves you because of Jesus, not because of your purity. So, I don't want to shame you into staying away, but I would highly encourage you to, into, you know, staying away, but I would highly encourage you to, um, yes, let's, let's ask a question. How can we do whatever we can to remain holy in this very difficult situation, um, and preserve sexual integrity. And I guess, look, I, I have a lot of friends who are gay and pursuing

celibacy who will never have, if things go as planned, never have a sexual relationship. And so, I mean, I come kind of from their vantage point. So, I know you're going through, I know this is a difficult situation for you and I don't want to downplay that, but there are people that will have it even way more difficult than you do in this area. So, if we're going to call other people to sexual holiness, we need to demonstrate that in our own life. Hope that helps. Sorry to rain on your parade, but I really hope you can have a conversation with your parents

because I do think we're not designed to be engaged for four years, be of marital age and be engaged for four years and say no to, like we're designed to get, I mean, if you're called to marriage and you have a marriage partner and you're both committed to it and you're of marital age, then you're supposed to get married.

Like, and by delaying that, I think you're going against the grain of your humanity, your flesh, and your specific calling. And yeah, I think 1 Corinthians 7, you know, where Paul says it's better to marry than to burn. I think that you're, you're realizing that now. So have that conversation with your parents, see if, if they can come around maybe and, and, and bless your marriage. Um, uh,

yeah. Ooh. All right. Uh, again, thank you so much to my Patreon supporters for choosing some very difficult questions. If you do want to support this podcast now at $5 a month, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Appreciate your support. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time on Theology of the Roam. Thank you.