Dear Fellow Believers,

In this episode of Grace Cafe, the group at the table in Cleveland, OH, in June of 1999—broadcasting live from the studios of WCCD, 1000 AM—broached the topic of hell. The thrust of this show was the three Greek words (gehenna, hades, and tartarus) commonly mistranslated “hell” in most English versions of Scripture. You will enjoy my on-air analogy of “KJV Airlines,” which advertises flights to New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, yet sends everyone to Pittsburgh. This is the equivalent of translating three different Greek words with the single English word “hell.”

In addition, a caller named R.J. insisted that the noun form of the Greek word aion—a word that clearly means “eon” or “age”—changes meaning when it becomes the adjective aionias. Not only does it change meanings but, according to R.J., the adjective form of the word, by some miracle of linguistics, assumes the exact opposite meaning of the noun. R.J. tacitly agreed that the noun means time, but insisted that the adjective “can mean” eternity. He based this understanding on faulty translations in the common versions. R.J. used faulty translations to “prove” that the faulty translations were correct. I believe this is known circular reasoning.

We let R.J. speak his piece, then corrected his many erroneous statements after we’d relieved ourselves of his phone call.

This is the perfect show to send people who need clarity on the word “hell,” which never appears in any properly translated Scripture. As I have said, the appeal of these Grace Cafe radio broadcasts is that being on the air in a major city on an established Christian radio station lends our position a certain weight and legitimacy that, in the minds of some, it would not ordinarily enjoy.

Rodney Paris of Texas has once again done a fine job by enhancing the audio file with video and text frames, making this a multimedia presentation.

As a bonus, Rodney chose a snappy “Return to Zender” video I made in my car in 2018 for a wham-bang finish, a video in which I heralded the conciliation of the world to God by the cross, and the universal nature of justification.

This Rodney Paris/Martin Zender classic obliterates the false teaching of eternal torment—in case I hadn’t made that clear by now.

I love it any time the false teaching of eternal torment gets obliterated.

Grace and peace from the Floridan peninsula,

Martin