“Why isn’t Easter in the Bible?”

Steve Brown:
Why isn’t Easter in the Bible? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s nobody’s guru, but he does have honest answers to hard questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, and worship. Now, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday to you. You know, when we were a pastor, there was no Happy Friday.

Pete Alwinson:
Ha ha ha.

Steve Brown:
Because that’s when everybody else is looking forward to goofing off over the week-end. And if you’re a pastor, there’s no goofing off.

Pete Alwinson:
It’s ramping up.

Steve Brown:
It really is.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it is.

Steve Brown:
So now, Pete and I both have happy Fridays. As you know, Pete comes in and he has been doing that for years. And we sit down on Fridays and answer your questions. We’re not always right. But we have strong views and we share them with you. If you haven’t checked out ForgeTruth.Com or all things, Pete Alwinson and Jesus, you ought to check that out. That’s important. By the way, we do really love your questions. This is a fun part of our lives. You can ask your question, 24 7, by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE and following instructions. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

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or you can send your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, please do. This is an expensive ministry, but an ethical one, and we will squeeze every dime for the glory of God. We’re a member of ECFA in the States, and CCCC in Canada. And those organizations oversee our practices to make sure that we continue to be ethical in all that we do. If you can’t help us, we understand, say a prayer for the ministry. And Pete, speaking of prayer, why don’t you lead us and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray together. Our Father, what a privilege it is, our holy, holy God, to come into your presence right now. We come before you boldly, but we come humbly too. We come in the name and in the merit of our risen Savior, Jesus. And Lord Jesus, we thank you that as you sit at the right hand of the throne of God on high, you are making intercession for us. You pray for us. You’re with us always, even to the end of the age. We thank you that you are our Savior, our Lord, our King. You have sent your Spirit into our hearts to be our comforter as well. And Lord, at the end of this week, we need your comfort. We need you to help us untangle some of the problems that still exist in our life, the questions that we have, the relationships that we can’t seem to straighten out, the people that we need to forgive but don’t want to. Lord, we come to you and we ask that you would continue your work in our hearts, that are sometimes troubled hearts. And we pray this week-end in worship that you would do a great work in continuing to disciple us, develop us, to mold us into your image all by grace. Be with our leaders, those that you have appointed to stand over us, to be prepared to speak to us. Lord, may they speak from your holy word and may we hear it. So Lord, now we give you this time of Q&A, we ask, Lord, do a great work in us. Answer the questions that we have. We commit it to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s first go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I picked up a Daily Bread and it asked the question, what does Easter mean to you? And I checked my study Bible. I checked the King James Bible, all of the concordances, no reference whatsoever to Easter, and I don’t know what it means, so this is asking what it means. And I tried to look it up. I assume it had something to do with Jesus dying on the cross and then rising up three days later into heaven, but no actual Scriptural reference to Easter.

Steve Brown:
Hey, that’s a good question. I’ve never gotten that question before. I thought I’d heard them all.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, I know.

Steve Brown:
Okay, we did a little, I said we don’t ever research, we just hear these, but our producer suggested that he had a question kind of like this, and so we began to look to see, what’d you discover, Pete?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you know, the word Easter could be related and is etymologically traced back to the goddess Ishtar. And has a pagan background

Steve Brown:
That doesn’t sound very good.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, by some accounts where, you know, the fertility goddess and the eggs were a symbol of fertility as they, as you prayed and sacrifice to that goddess. Other etymological traces go back to a word that could just simply be of Germanic origin, interpreting East, meaning East. And so, but the bottom line is Easter for Christians has been triumphed over by Christians because of the resurrection of Jesus.

Steve Brown:
And even if we’re using the name of a pagan god, it means we won.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
We took it over.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And that’s a good thing.

Pete Alwinson:
It really, and it’s also at the same time of the Passover, right? So, the paschal time, the Hebrew word or Aramaic word paschal is also used in this regard.

Steve Brown:
But our friend was really, it’s interesting. He did the research. And found out which is true. That word is not used in Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
The reality, the celebration, the fact that it happened, that’s celebrated and that’s repeated over and over again. It’s just not called Easter.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. So for us, Easter is Resurrection Sunday. And of course, every Sunday, is Resurrection Sunday.

Steve Brown:
In a sense, it really is.

Pete Alwinson:
As we, the gospel, the worship of God’s people moved to the first day of the week because of the resurrection. So, Easter is the high and holy beginning day of the church calendar.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
It really is.

Steve Brown:
And it’s a great holiday because the pagans haven’t taken it over yet.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I mean, they try with the Easter bunny and all that stuff, but they haven’t been able to pull it off.

Pete Alwinson:
We’re not going to give it up.

Steve Brown:
No, we’re just not going to give that one up. Christmas is pretty much gone. I think we ought to celebrate Christmas in the summer and let the pagans have the winter one if they want. Why didn’t, in Genesis, God accept Cain’s offering?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, why?

Steve Brown:
That’s a good question.

Pete Alwinson:
It is a good question. Why? Because that’s

Steve Brown:
There was no blood involved.

Pete Alwinson:
Ah.

Steve Brown:
And blood becomes kind of important.

Pete Alwinson:
It does.

Steve Brown:
Every time you read things in Scripture like that, it’s not just there for the fun of it. It’s teaching something important.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm hmm.

Steve Brown:
And even though at the time of Cain’s offering, people were not geared into the idea that was so extant within the Old Testament that without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins. That’s built into the DNA of every culture in every place throughout history. And that’s because God was preparing something, that was so amazing and so unbelieving that it’ll blow you away.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
The Lamb of God, Jesus, slain for the sins of the world.

Pete Alwinson:
Isn’t that amazing? And so, in the animal sacrifices, he prepared us for the sacrifice of Jesus. Pagans moved that in a wrong direction by sometimes doing human sacrifices.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, there’s always been an abuse of this, whenever God ordains something perfect, people corrupt it. But what a setup to understand who Jesus is.

Steve Brown:
It really is. And it’s one of the great arguments that isn’t often used for the existence of God. You can’t explain why blood is so important in every place and every time and sacrifice so extant. That’s crazy. And it’s because there is a God who was setting up for his major act in the world.

Pete Alwinson:
And why we can never take the blood out of the work of Christ.

Steve Brown:
You really can’t. Is there any Scripture reference that, this is an e-mail, explicitly states whether the rapture comes before the tribulation, starts in the middle of the tribulation, or happens after the tribulation?

Pete Alwinson:
Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Do we agree on this one? I’m not sure.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, we do, I think.

Pete Alwinson:
But it’s I Thessalonians chapter 4, and it really shows that the rapture, and the word rapture is the Latin word, rapere, or something like that. But the Greek word, it means to be caught up and that being caught up takes place exactly at the time of the second coming of Christ. So, when you put those two together, I Thessalonians 4: right down around verse 13 and following.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Now, are there Christians who would disagree with what you said?

Pete Alwinson:
Yes.

Steve Brown:
And are they lost?

Pete Alwinson:
They’re not, you know, I used to believe that view that there was the rapture was before all kinds of, but that verse just transforms it. I Thessalonians 4:13 on, we can agree to disagree, but it’s very plain here that the rapture is just

Steve Brown:
a part of the second coming of Christ and not a separate thing

Pete Alwinson:
which begs the question, in my mind, in a very important way, why the rapture? And I think the answer to that, and there’s no Biblical answer given, but I think the reason is that we are being caught up to meet the returning king who’s coming to his planet. And that’s what you did to returning, to the glorious conquering kings. When they came to your city, you went outside the city to meet them. And so, that’s what the rapture is, it’s not escape from persecution. Christians have never escaped persecution.

Steve Brown:
In fact, Corrie Ten Boom said the persecution at the death camps was greater than anything that was ever talked about in Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
Totally

Steve Brown:
So, we don’t get out of that, now one more, just before you send us letters. Pete very in an expert way articulated what is our view on the rapture? We are aware that other Christians disagree with us and if we had a debate which we aren’t, we would sit down and they would show the reasons they believe that a rapture is pre trib or mid trib. So, we understand that, but you asked.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. What’s your view? And I think this is the most clear verse.

Steve Brown:
Of course.

Pete Alwinson:
But, so ask somebody else, ask what their clear verses are.

Steve Brown:
And they’ll probably, and that’s not a place where you divide.

Pete Alwinson:
No.

Steve Brown:
Where you break fellowship. That has nothing to do with that, it has to do with surmise and discussion. But with all of that being said, we’re right and they’re wrong. Joke, don’t send me letters. Hey, we’ve got to go. But before we go, one other thing. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.