(…as pronounced by Jane to Mr. Collins in the A&E version of P&P.)
I’ve just begun meeting with a small group of girls on a weekly basis. It’s a mentoring/discipleship program sponsored by our church, and we’re doing a Bible study called Undercover Princess, written by one of the youth interns at the church. I’m very excited to be doing something like this; it’s my first such involvement since AWANA, and I really missed the challenge and the discipline.
Last night was our second meeting, and I think our group is really going to click. There are four girls, all fourteen, and we had such an interesting conversation. The lesson was on getting to know you: WHY is it so important to build a relationship with God? Because we only trust that which we know. And then the lesson took us on a whirlwind tour of the Old Testament sacrifice system, in order to set the stage for WHY the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was such a necessity and what a burden it was that He freed us from.
When the girls came, I told them we were going to start off with a game, and forthwith played a few rounds of Tri-Bond to set the stage. Then, without further explanation, I directed their attention to three items I’d set out on the table: a tube of concealer, a tin of tic-tacs, and a picture of an Old Testament sacrifice. I was so delighted at the end of the evening when one of the girls suddenly got it!
Anyway, at one point the topic of Christ’s location after His death came up, and we wondered where He was during that three-day interval. Somehow all of us had had the impression that He spent those days in Hell, which was what made it all so awful: the separation from God the Father, the reason why He so wished to have the cup pass from Him, etc. We pulled out our Bibles to find a verse to support this theory, and couldn’t exactly nail it down, but all of us had the distinct impression of being taught that Christ spent the time between His death and resurrection in Hell. Then followed the logical question: how could He promise the thief on the cross that that very day he would be with Him in Paradise? If He wasn’t going to be there for three more days Himself? Hmmm. Very puzzling.
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Just writing off the top of my head here and not being a Bible scholar or anything, but I think the issue may be the distinction between "sheol" and "gehenna" or in other words, between the place where all dead people went pre-resurrection and the place of torment for the wicked. (In other words, the thief and Jesus both went to the good side of the place of the dead, but not actually up to heaven until later. Or something like that.) The reference to going into hell is in one of the epistles, I think, something about preaching to the spirits in prison. Also it's in the Apostle's Creed.
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