Weird Stuff in the Bible

I made this podcast to answer all those questions your Sunday School teacher hoped you’d never ask.  But today, I remember being a Sunday School teacher myself, and I remember teaching Revelation chapter 20, and here’s the question I was afraid of being asked. Revelation 20:14 says Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Now, here’s what...

There’s a popular teaching in Christianity that there are only three named angels in the Bible. I’ve heard this a million times. I’ve probably even taught it before myself.  GotQuestions.org states: Only three angels are identified by name in the Bible: Gabriel ( Daniel 8:16 ), Michael the archangel ( Daniel 10:13 ), and Lucifer the fallen angel ( Isaiah 14:12 ).  Unfortunately, this common belief...

We’ve spent a lot of time the past few months talking about this spiritual region called The Underworld, also known as Sheol in the Bible.  Now, it’s actually part of something I would call my Underworld series, which started in July and will conclude in a few weeks. Only I didn’t call it that because I thought that saying we would do a 10-week Underworld series would scare a lot of people off.  A...

I got sick! Something like strep throat- and I was in bed all weekend. I could not record a new episode this week, unfortunately, as my voice was not strong enough to record yet as of Tuesday morning. Fortunately, I had already recorded an extra episode a few months ago, and it’s been sitting patiently on my hard drive until I needed it. So, here’s a reflection on the Book of Enoch study- which co...

Before we were arguing over flat earth vs round earth, before we were arguing over creation vs evolution, before were were arguing over whether Tom Holland has surpassed Tobey Maguire as the best portrayal of Spider-Man, there was another debate within the church: did God create the earth with a canopy around it like a dome or protective shield? Now, perhaps you’ve never heard of this, but it cent...

Everyone’s heard of the Mount of Olives from the Scriptures.  This is where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  It’s where He gave the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24. It’s where He went to pray on the night He was crucified. It’s where He ascended to the heavens after His resurrection. And—it’s where prophecy says He will return at the Second Coming of Christ.  Obviously a pretty significant moun...

Alright guys, I’ve got an extra-weird one for you this time: does the Bible demonstrate some kind of connection between gardens and the Underworld? Uh, what? When I first heard that, I thought it was one of the most bizarre ideas I’d ever read. While we might use a garden to grow our carrots and cucumbers, the ancient people of the Old Testament era thought of gardens as gateways to the spiritual...

What exactly was Eden? I mean, we do know it was a garden, right?  Genesis 2:8 tells us And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. So it was a place of lush growth. Trees. Fruit. Vegetation. Water. Life. We all get these visuals of a green paradise in our heads as we read the opening chapters of Genesis. I mean, other than the devil showing...

Hang around Christians long enough, listen to sermons long enough, or pick up just about any prophecy book sitting on the bookstore shelves, and you’re gonna hear about this dude called The Antichrist- an end-times world ruler who takes control in the last days.  And he’s referenced all throughout the Bible. The Old Testament has 33 names for him; the New Testament has at least 13. Daniel calls hi...

We hear it all the time- the claim that Satan is the god of the Underworld. That he runs and rules hell. That he has a throne down there and goes around jabbing people with a pitchfork.  But did you know that the Bible says nothing like that? Those ideas are assumptions, superstitions, myths and even lies.  The good news is: The Bible is abundantly clear about where Satan’s dominion lies—and the l...

You can breathe huge sigh of relief once you get to Revelation 21. Because not only are you almost done reading the whole Bible, but you’re also past all the bad stuff. The devil, the antichrist and false prophet have been taken care of. Judgement day is over. Sin and the corrupted world are wadded up and thrown away. And Revelation 21 and 22 speak of eternity: the place we will spend the rest of...

On this podcast, we like to explore the strange things tucked away in Scripture. There are so many obscure and unfamiliar passages in your Bible that don’t often get studied, so that’s what we like to shine a light on with this show. But there’s actually something pretty weird stuff that isn’t tucked away; it’s right there in the opening verses of Genesis. I mean we all know the first two verses o...

This year, we’ve talked typology. We’ve talked about what happens when you see the glory of God. We’ve talked about Mount Hermon. Today, I’m gonna put these pieces together. Today’s episode ties up a lot of things we’ve been learning about this mysterious mountain, because it’s the place where the Watchers came down to the earth in Genesis 6. And throughout the Old Testament, this mountain and the...

One of the most mysterious statements Jesus ever said was this claim that He made in three of the Gospels: (Matthew 16:28) “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” He says this in Matthew 16:28, Luke 9:27 and Mark 9:1. And it’s caused a lot of Christians to wonder: what could Jesus have meant by this when 2,00...

There is a parable which I believe is not technically a parable- I believe it’s a true story- called The Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus tells this story in Luke 16. And there’s a lot of strange things you could point out about this story, but what always sticks out to me is where Lazarus goes when he dies in this story. Luke 16:22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abrah...

Last week, we talked about where demons come from. This week, I want to talk about why they’re still here.  So demons are the spirits of the giants in the Old Testament. Most of them probably lived prior to the flood. But they all died, and when they did, their spirits didn’t leave this planet. God left them right here on the earth to act as spirits of affliction against mankind.  These are demons...

Virtually all the theology books out there tell us: demons are fallen angels. This is the prevailing theory offered by most scholars, pastors and theologians today. In GotQuestions.org 's article titled “What Does the Bible Say about Demons?” The first four words are these: “Demons are fallen angels…”  And I love that website, but this is an area where I would disagree with them. But I bring that...

I Corinthians 11 is one of those really weird passages of Scripture that I would say 90% of Christians just kind of try to ignore.  It’s probably the most out-of-place chapter in the entire New Testament. It feels very counter-cultural, extremely outdated, and not super relevant to anything in modern church practice.  It’s a section that even the most conservative, Biblically faithful modern churc...

We have covered Psalm 82 on the podcast before. It’s the chapter where God holds His Divine Council to account. These are a group of higher-up spiritual beings.  He has placed these principalities in charge of certain sectors of the world, yet they haven’t influenced humanity rightly.  So for those of us who like studying the weird stuff in the Bible, Psalm 82 is familiar territory.  And yet, it h...

If you thought the Book of Enoch’s account of the Watchers who descended to earth was kinda spooky- or if you thought the stories of their bloodthirsty cannibalistic giant children were scary- or if you thought the description of their gloomy dark underworld prison sounded terrifying- just wait until what comes next.  Because Enoch is about to see something that shocks him more than zombie fallen...

I know in these episodes I often talk about wacky spiritual things going on in the unseen realm. Angels and demons and spiritual legal rights and all that kinda stuff. And, of course, the Bible is our best source of information about all that. Today, I want to talk about how we study our Bible . I hope you read your bible. I hope you pay attention to what you’re reading as you’re reading it. And i...

Jesus tells us to love our enemies. To do good for those who hate you. To pray for those who persecute you.  Now, He said all this before they invented the Walmart parking lot, but I think it probably still applies for today. However, when it comes to evil spirits, the Bible has a different game plan: we give them no quarter. When it comes to the devil, we don’t take any half measures. Zero tolera...

Thor has his hammer. Indiana Jones has his whip. Robin Hood has his bow. Iron Man has…laser hands. I don’t really know what you call them. Anyway- in Matthew 16, Jesus gave us an incredible weapon that we can use to fight our enemies as well. He said Matthew 16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on...

Enoch is one of the most mysterious people in the Bible. He appears in Genesis 5 for about 10 seconds, at which point we’re told that he basically disappeared. He was there one minute, gone the next. Like my wife when the pastor tells us to turn and greet the person next to us. Just “poof,” gone.  And I’ve spoken about this on the podcast before. Not my wife being an introvert, but about Enoch’s s...

One of the great honors and treasures of my life is that I actually got to speak with Dr. Michael Heiser in 2015, and I’m going to share that conversation with you today. Not only did I speak with him- this was also the first time I’d ever even heard of the guy. He was not really a big name yet. His epic work The Unseen Realm released that year; that was the book that put him on the map.  And at t...