View this email in your browser

It's Saturday, June 15, 2024.

Today’s edition covers a clash between North Korea and South Korea over balloons (some containing Bibles) sent across the border, how a blind Hussite general in the Middle Ages led a defense against the Catholic Church, all the Bible’s words for “hell,” and more.

“The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near” (Proverbs 10:14). Lay up some knowledge here today!

Of Christian Concern

BATTLE OF BALLOONS: TENSIONS RISE AS NORTH KOREA SENDS TRASH AND MANURE AFTER SOUTH KOREANS SEND BIBLES

A balloon with Bibles is launched into the air at the border of North Korea. (Screenshot: Voice of the Martyrs Korea / YouTube)

Balloon Battles

Since May 28, North Korea has sent more than 1,400 balloons filled with trash and manure to South Korea in response to South Korean private citizens sending balloons with items including Bibles.

The North Korean balloons dumped “manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and even reportedly dirty diapers across South Korea,” AP News reports, causing South Korea to suspend a military deal that had prevented “frontline military drills.”

In response, according to International Christian Concern, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jung, warned there could be a “crisis of confrontation” between the two nations, calling the trash balloons “sincere presents” sent to the “goblins of liberal democracy who are crying for the guarantee of freedom of expression.”

Smuggled Items

Items smuggled into North Korea from the South include leaflets, music recordings, TV shows, and, as mentioned, Bibles. North Korean officials call the materials, most of which are intercepted by the military, “anti-North Korean propaganda.”

The Voice of the Martyrs Korea (VOMK) reports that they send around 30,000 Bibles to North Korea each year “in print and in audio form on SD card,” plus “additional Bible study and Christian history contents” on the SD cards. “We never send political or cultural materials,” VOMK says, “only the Bible.”

Even sending political or cultural materials, which others do, is entirely legal. Last year, South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a law that criminalized anti-Pyongyang leafleting, saying the measure was “an excessive restriction on free speech.”

Impact of the Effort

VOMK’s balloon ministry has been ongoing for 13 years, and GPS tracking confirms that most of their balloons land in North Korea. But how effective is this effort in light of the North Korean military’s interception of the balloons?

The ministry reports, “According to a North Korean defector (an official tasked with ‘cleaning up’ the landing sites of Bibles before civilians found them), even when these drops are reported—which, owing to strict punishment, nearly always happens—Bibles are still smuggled out of the quarantine area—or at least glanced over. The government’s fierce opposition to a single book intrigues North Koreans: What is this book that can overthrow a nation?”

Despite North Korea’s efforts to squelch the spread of the Scriptures, the ministry’s impact is observed in an “increasing number of North Korean defectors who have seen a Bible inside of North Korea.”

Also Noteworthy

The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. (Screenshot: thecovenantschool.com)

→ The shooter who murdered six last year at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian elementary school in Nashville, described transgender ideations and animosity toward Christianity in her journal, according to images of four pages obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire.

→ The US Supreme Court rejected a case this week that could have stopped the abortion pill mifepristone from being mailed to mothers without an in-person doctor’s visit. The unanimous decision, written by Kavanaugh, ruled that those bringing the case “do not have standing to sue…”

→ Dr. Tony Evans, popular pastor and radio host, steps away from ministry due to some unnamed sin, according to a statement released this week.

→ Christians in the United Kingdom “are increasingly subjected to discrimination and marginalisation,” per the data in a new report by Voice for Justice UK. “Over half (56%) reported experiencing hostility or ridicule for discussing their religious beliefs, rising to 61% among under-35s.”

→ 69% of Trump supporters say the Bible should have at least some influence on US laws, while 69% of Biden supporters say it should have little to no influence, in a new Pew Research study about cultural issues in the upcoming election.

Church History Tidbit

Jan Žižka and the Hussite Wars

Jan Žižka in a detail of Jan Matejko's allegorical Battle of Grunwald. (Public Domain)

After Jan Hus

The death of Jan Hus on July 6, 1415, caused quite a stir. “Hus’s followers were no minority group,” History Extra explains, and included figures of significant influence. News of his execution caused civil outbreaks and instigated many Bohemian noblemen, eventually leading to the 15-year conflict known as the Hussite Wars (1419-1434).

“The Hussites,” as Hus’s followers were called, “weren’t a single unified group” but had factions with different beliefs and goals. For example, Utraquists wanted to reform the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, whereas Taborites wanted “to abolish the hierarchy, its rituals and its earthly possessions.”

A 1420 papal bull authorized a crusade against the so-thought heretics. The Bohemian king Sigismund laid siege to Prague, “causing the Hussites to set forth their demands in a document known as the Four Articles of Prague,” which was “essentially a distillation of their core beliefs.” Sigismund rejected the articles and opted to continue the conflict, but his forces were defeated by the Hussites, led by the one-eyed general Jan Žižka.

The Undefeated Jan Žižka

Over the next four years, two more crusades against the Hussites were attempted and failed, thanks to the leadership of Žižka, who lost his second eye but never a battle despite nearly always being outnumbered. How did he manage it?

• Effective use of limited resources: He armed his forces (which were made up of “Bohemian peasants or farmers, poorly armed and equipped, and with next to no training”) with flails and pitchforks, which they were more accustomed to than swords and bows.

• Innovation: He invented the Wagenburg (wagon fort), a kind of Medieval version of a tank, by “[r]einforcing common carts with thick wooden sides, mounting small cannons and guns on top, and manning each with up to 20 soldiers with hand weapons, crossbows and pistols...”

• Tactical prowess: In “his first battle, at Sudoměř in March 1420,” Žižka’s clever positioning “in a swampy area” allowed his force of 400 (including women and children) to defeat “an estimated 700–2,500 crusaders forced to dismount in the unfavourable terrain.”

The Final Decade

Žižka died in 1424 from the plague, giving the Hussites’ enemies a hope of victory, but after a fourth and fifth crusade, the Hussite forces still were not defeated.

In 1434, a decade after Žižka’s death, an internal conflict among Hussite factions broke out, with the Utraquists defeating the Taborites and coming to a compromise with the Catholic Church. Utraquists remained “the dominant church in Bohemia for the best part of the next two centuries” until non-Catholic religion was outlawed in 1620.

The Bible, Briefly

Multiple “Hells”?

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus as depicted by James Tissot sometime between 1886-1894. (Public Domain)

Three words in the Greek scriptures (the New Testament) are translated as “hell”—Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus. In some translations, “hell” also appears in the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament) as a translation of the word Sheol. What does each of these words mean, and why are they all called “hell”? Pastor Doug Wilson explains:

• Hades / Sheol— “‘Hades’… [is] the place of the dead. The Hebrew for that is ‘Sheol’ in the Old Testament. …In the Old Testament, Samuel came up out of the ground from Sheol [1 Samuel 28:11-15]; those who rebelled against Moses fell alive into Sheol [Numbers 16:30-33]; Jonah cries out to the Lord from the depths of Sheol [Jonah 2], where he was taken by the fish that swallowed him, down to the depths (and I actually think that Jonah actually died—you know, that Jonah died and was brought back to life and then was deposited on the beach after that). So, you have all these different uses of Sheol, which the New Testament describes as Hades. …Hades is a place where, in the Lord's Parable, Lazarus and the rich man were conversing with one another [Luke 16:19-31]. The rich man was in torment in Hades, there was a chasm between them, and Lazarus was in ‘Abraham's bosom’—sort of on the other side of the chasm, but in the same basic place.”

• Gehenna— “And ‘Gehenna’…comes from the garbage dump outside Jerusalem, the Valley of Ben Hinnom. So, the Valley of Ben Hinnom was the place ‘where the worm did not die, and the fire was not quenched’ [cf. Mark 9:48]…you know, like at a lot of dumps, there are fires burning all the time and that sort of thing, and that became a metaphor or an image of the final torment. So, Gehenna is a word referring to everlasting damnation.” Another name for Gehenna is the Lake of Fire. “In the Book of Revelation, death and Hades are thrown into the Lake of Fire [Revelation 20:14]. So, the Lake of Fire is the final judgment, the everlasting torment.”

• Tartarus— “In the Greek conception, Hades had two compartments. There was Elysium, where the good folks went—I take ‘Abraham's bosom’ to be a Hebraism for Elysium—and…the deepest pit of the bad side was called Tartarus, which Peter uses that word one time without redefinition or anything like that [2 Peter 2:4]. I think many modern translations translate it ‘the nether gloom,’ but it's a very specific word for a specific place on the bad side of Hades.”

So, to summarize, Sheol or Hades is the place of the dead, which has both a good and a bad side; Tartarus is the deepest pit of the bad side; and Gehenna is the place of final judgment.

Why do we use the word “hell” for all of these?

“The Anglo-Saxon word hel,” Wilson says, “originally was much closer to ‘Hades’ [or Sheol]… But, over time, the modern English—contemporary English—makes people think of Gehenna, the final lake of torment…”

So, today, people often use the word “hell” to refer to the place of eternal torment at the end of time rather than the place of the dead. It’s just a matter of how the English language has developed. For that reason, when discussing hell, defining terms is always a good idea. As our language changes, though, God’s Word remains the same: there is a place of the dead and a coming final judgment.

But wait. If Hades/Sheol is the place of the dead, with both a good and a bad side, does that mean believers who die go there? We’ll touch on that next week.

What did you think of today’s briefing?

Know someone who would enjoy this?Please SHARE this newsletter

Have some feedback for me? Reply to this email with comments or suggestions. I’d love to hear from you!

Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright (C) " target="_blank">unsubscribe.