Gehenna And Cutting off Your Hand: What Jesus Really Meant

"If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off." This is one of the most uncomfortable teachings of Jesus, which almost everyone assumes means to fight your private and personal sin, or you'll go to hell. But is that what Jesus is really trying to communicate? In this episode, we dig into the "dismemberment logia" in Mark 9 and Matthew 18 and ask a simple question, "What if the hand, foot, and eye aren't about your personal sins, but about people within the community?" Drawing on Paul's body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12, and other ancient sources, I make the case for a "limb-as-person" metaphor and show how it suddenly makes these "disorganized" chapters click into place. We also connect this back to the Valley of Hinnom and Gehenna tradition from Jeremiah, and why this warning was always aimed at God's own covenant community, not outsiders. Gehenna's Old Testament background Start here:    / @beyond-hell   And click on "Gehenna."