Pastor's Circle - Brian Jones

Brian Jones is the Senior Pastor at Christ's Church of the Valley in Philadelphia. He joined the Pastor's Circle to discuss the impetus behind his newest book Hell Is Real (But I Hate To Admit It). Below are the "CliffsNotes" of his segment.

You say here that for the first part of your ministry, you didn't believe in Hell.

I carried that for four years.

I went to seminary on fire for God, ready to get equipped to serve him, and in the middle of that, I found myself an atheist.

I was able by the time I graduated to get my faith in God back together, but I was unable to believe in Hell.

I made a commitment that I wasn't going to tell anybody.

So for four years after I graduated, I didn't believe in Hell.

What changed your mind?

I do this thing where I try to get away once a month for a prayer and planning retreat.

On one such day I was at a monastery in Northwest Ohio, and I realized right in the middle of my prayer time that something was wrong.

So I did something that I encourage Christians never to do: I played Bible Roulette.

And my finger landed on a passage about hell. And it did it again. And again. And again. It happened six times.

I spent the rest of the day reading the New Testament, and underlining all the passages about Hell. They were all over the place.

I was so full of remorse. I spent an hour repenting before God.

Then I flew home and repented to my wife. I called my staff together for an emergency meeting, and repented to them. I repented to the congregation.

Why do we "hate to admit it"?

There is reluctance, and I totally get it.

For one, it's a very unpopular idea. Typically, in the Christian community, it's the really strange, creepy Christians who talk about hell.

No one wants to be like that.

Also, I think a lot of people think that life is hell enough. It's hard to conceive honestly for most people that "Oh, I deserve hell on top of all this."

Another thing is that it seems like the punishment is disproportionate to the crime.

Most people don't get that at the core of Christianity is a very disturbing concept: Propitiation.

God made Jesus into this slaughtered sacrifice to appease his justice and wrath.

But most people also don't understand the love that inspired God to do that.

You can't understand God's love until you understand His wrath.

What do you want to see happen as a result of this book?

That is the most important question you could ask me.

I've been hoping and praying that people will have the same experience I did.

I want the book to take people through their own personal discovery.

You change someone's technique, and they'll stop evangelizing next month.

You change their heart, and they'll evangelize for a lifetime.