Don’t Miss Out On Your Mom’s Meatloaf; Use Biblical Tools To Better Understand Scripture

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<God said to Isaiah,> “..so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’ (Isaiah 55:11)

Someone mentioned to me awhile back that they had heard a reference on ‘levels of Hell’ and asked if I knew about this and if this was heretical or not.  Fortunately I did, having taught a series on the subject several years ago.  There are at least 4 levels of Hell in the Bible; Sheol (or the Grave, or Abraham’s Bosom, or Paradise; Isaiah 5:12 among many others), Gehenna (or the Fires of Hell, Matthew 5:22), Tartarus (the ‘bottom floor’ of Hell, 2 Peter 2:4), and the Abyss (the deepest pit of Hell, Revelation 9:1-11 among others). Most English Bible translations simply refer to these levels under the one word, Hell. (Keep reading to understand why.)

Catholicism (without a great deal of study of the subject on my part, admittedly), adds a couple more; Limbo (‘Hell for Kids’ is my best take on this one) and Purgatory (Temporary Hell, or Hell’s holding cell while awaiting adjudication), but those do not have a direct Biblical correlation (though the Apocrypha or the additional canonical books of the Catholic Bible have some, though in my opinion are weak tie-ins).  Dante Alighieri, the 12th-century author of ‘Divine Comedy‘, sometimes referred to as ‘Dante’s Inferno‘, references 9 levels of Hell but these are literary in nature and not literal.

Much of this stems from a larger issue that is the result of translation.  The original Greek text of the New Testament allowed the authors (predominately Paul) to elaborate on meaning when they wrote.  When the Greek was translated into English, the unique meanings of unique Greek words were mixed into the broader and less defined English words.  We end up with the four defined levels of Hell from the original languages wrapped up into the one English word of hell.  This is not the only word in English like this, for example there are eight different types of Greek meanings of love covered into the one English word, love. 

We often see a word in the Bible that doesn’t jive with our thought on how it should be, or doesn’t fit with the narrative the Scriptures generally portray.  This is how we read in Luke 14:26 that Jesus tells us to ‘hate’ our family members. This does not fit the narrative of Jesus at all portrayed throughout the Gospels and is counter to what is taught of Him.  This can cause confusion and taken in the raw (and incorrect) context may cause harm. 

Hopefully, no one made this phone call due to reading Luke 14:26; ‘Mom, I’m sorry but I ain’t calling you no more because Jesus says I have to hate you.  Right there in Luke 14.  So sad, too bad, I’ll miss your meatloaf.  I hate you!… Goodbye!’

Before we jump to conclusions and burn that bridge with our loved ones, again we must go back to the original language of the Scriptures (in this case the Greek), and using Strong’s Concordance we find the word ‘hate’ is derived from the Greek word ‘miseo’, which does translate as a very mild form of hate, more in the category of ‘to love less than’.  

To ‘correct’ the translation, Luke 14:26 is really telling us that in order to follow Jesus properly we must love Him more than our families, or love our families on a lesser scale than Jesus.  This does jive with the rest of the Bible as we should love God first and foremost, then ourselves and our families.

So call your Mom back quickly, tell her you love her dearly (it’s just that you love Jesus more), and perhaps she may make you her meatloaf in time for Christmas dinner.

When you come across something in the Scriptures, in a church service or in class that doesn’t fit, or someone speaks of a verse in a context that is different from your perception, it may be the result of a variation of a given word.  Now please, if you called a ‘former’ loved one or family member and told them you now hate them, you can call them back, tell them ‘April Fools’, and tell them you love them very much.  Just make sure you use the proper meaning of the word ‘love’ for the relationship at hand – more on this in a later Word-of-the-Day.

God’s Word never intends to be confusing or misleading, and typically it is our misunderstanding or misapplication of His Word that will provide us the incorrect message.  Sometimes the weakness of the translation finds the closest but ‘not-entirely-correct’ word to provide the meaning.  But God’s Word in incorruptible and inerrant, and when we review other translations we can ‘fine tune’ the message to what God wants to convey. 

For me personally, when there is a verse that I have a concern in my understanding, I first go to Blue Letter Bible, a free-to-use on-line study tool, to search for the verse in question, then look at the ‘Bibles’ tab to pull up all pertinent English translations, plus the Latin Vulgate and two Greek translations.  My daily Bible is the New International Version, but there are those times when another translation, like the New Living Translation, is more concise or clear in the meaning. 

What happens, though, when you run into a word that doesn’t seem to be correct in context but runs through all the translations (the aforementioned word ‘hate’ in Luke 14:26, for example)?  You can dig deeper, using Blue Letter Bible’s Interlinear tab, to go and look at Strong’s Concordance, which breaks down the verse by each word, to find the Greek root of the word in question.  

The word ‘hate’ corresponds to Strong’s index value G3404, and provides the Greek root is ‘miseo’, which Strong’s defines as ‘to detest (especially to persecute); by extension, to love less:—hate(-ful)’.   You can then replace the word ‘hate’ with either ‘detest’ or (better) the phrase ‘to love less’, and this is where you can get what Jesus truly meant when He spoke (in Aramaic) while He was on His earthly ministry.  Jesus wants us to honor and love our parents, and not ignore them, but to also love and prioritize Him and His needs first.

There are other ways to find understanding; there are also various Commentaries by Biblical experts, such as the most famous, Matthew Henry’s Commentary.   One can also ask their Bible Study or Life Group teacher, or an Elder or the Pastor.  The most important way to understand the Bible is something I’ve been speaking on for a while now – Pray, Read, Fellowship, and Follow the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will lead you to what the Truth is of a given verse.  That’s how we know Jesus telling us to ‘hate’ our families is not what we normally attribute as ‘hate’ in the English sense, but to correctly place family behind Jesus as our number one love.