It's official. The Answers to Giant Questions Podcast is now available - and to get it first, you need to visit my good friends at the Raven Creek Social Club, who are hosting the show on my behalf.

The first episode is a long one, at roughly an hour and a quarter, because Kris and I took the time to introduce ourselves and the show and then we dived in to answer some of your questions. That's right - we are tackling the questions you submitted through the various avenues, right from the very first episode!

It might be as long as two weeks before you can find the show on your favourite pod catcher, since it's still very new. But that's why you need to follow the links here on this site, that will take you for a visit to Raven Creek. There, you'll find not only the brand new Answers to Giant Questions Podcast, but a whole swathe, a cache, nay, a trove! of really good podcasts done by some of my friends.

The Raven Creek Social Club is home to the flagship podcast, "Faith and Other Oddities," a Bible study show with your hosts Nathan Underwood and Emily Dixon.
You'll also find "The Commentarians," a show about movies, with Joe Zaragoza (I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest on an episode; check it out!).
"Changed My Mind," with Luke T. Harrington, will get you thinking outside the box, and "Tending Our Nets" with Joshua Sherman is a great show that equips believers with what they need to know to be effective stewards of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And now you can add to all that, the Answers to Giant Questions Podcast; the show that tackles your giant questions about the Biblical Nephilim! Featuring of course, yours truly, and my good friend and co-host, Kris Bather. Stay tuned as we will be releasing weekly episodes, and special features every now and then. As I mentioned above, you may not find us on the pod catchers right away, but don't forget to subscribe when you do. It's going to be an enormously interesting show.

A big shout out to my band mates at Grave Forsaken, who obliged with permission for us to use some awesome metal tunes as supporting audio clips for the show.

So, wait no longer - head over to Raven Creek and dive into the most exciting new show on the interwebs - the Answers to Giant Questions Podcast.

- T.J. Steadman :)

What the ancient reader understood from reading Genesis 1-11, is that there was not one single event to which one can ascribe all the ills and maladies of the world. Typically, we are taught in church that the Fall of Man in Genesis 3 is the whole and sole reason for everything that’s wrong with mankind and the world around him. There’s an element of core truth there, but it is usually overstated. Because ancient readers of the Bible knew full well that it was a series of rebellions that resulted in the hopeless condition of the world and the depravity of everything in it.

Breaking down the Primeval History, we are able to discern three major events that contributed to the problem of this fallen world. Event number one was, of course, the Fall, where the serpent robbed God’s image-bearers of their good standing with God by introducing sin. Adam bears full responsibility for his sin (and so do we for ours, by extension), but certainly, the sin did not occur until it was instigated by the serpent.

The second fall was, as we have seen, the fall of the angels, who taught illicit arts to humans and had forbidden unions with women, resulting in the Nephilim and their defilement and destruction of the human race (thus, a human fall).
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The third and final event was the fall of civilization, demonstrated not in the building of a city but in the desire of the humans to exceed their divine mandate. What do these three “falls” have in common?
In each fall, there is the desire on the part of man to acquire power and knowledge that is the exclusive domain of the gods. The promise of the serpent delivered only the insatiable hunger that comes from realizing how much you lack something you were otherwise happy without.
The “sons of God” delivered on knowledge and even god-like power but at the cost of the very essence of humanity and the ravenous appetites of the flesh that were but a mere irritation before. The result was the near-total destruction of the human capacity to bear God’s image.
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Nimrod’s offer to the world was to merge the human and the divine and restore the glory days that the Greeks later called “the Golden Age.” Ironically, this resulted in a “Silver Age” that never quite matched the imagined “glory” of the days of Noah. But the significance of the Babel event was not limited to the destructive force of giants. It went so far as to pervert world religion by facilitating the worship of a pantheon of corrupt, lesser, deities. Put simply, Babel was a transformation of world allegiance. The focus of the powers of darkness had shifted away from man’s capacity to bear the divine image. Now, the target was the allegiance of man to His Creator – if nothing could stop man’s capacity to represent Yahweh, then something had to be done about his desire to represent Him. But Nimrod can’t be credited with such evil genius. He is only remembered as a failure, a broken image, a man who tried to rule the world. He aspired to be a god but came to nothing.

- Excerpt from “Answers to Giant Questions” by T.J. Steadman.

Exciting news - the Answers to Giant Questions Podcast is on its way! Today my good friend and co-host Kris Bather and I got stuck into recording the first two episodes of the show. They'll be in post-production for a while, so stay tuned and we'll let you know when it's live and ready to download.

The first episode is an introduction to myself and Kris, as well as an introduction to the podcast generally. We talk movies, prequels and comics, discussing how the Primeval History of the Bible functions as a prequel of sorts for the rest of the Bible.
We also tackle some Giant Questions submitted by readers and followers.

In the second episode, we take a tour of the ancient near east and examine excerpts of creation stories from Egypt, Akkad, Babylon and Canaan. We discuss how understanding these examples of ancient literature can inform our understanding of Genesis One - as an ancient source document perfectly at home in its own cultural context.
We also hit some more Giant Questions submitted by readers, and we get into Giant Warfare with some advice on correctly engaging with ancient worldviews that still exist in indigenous cultures today.

All that, and we're only two episodes in, with much, much more to come. Stick around, folks, because this is going to be a show you don't want to miss. Details about the release will be forthcoming.

​- T.J. Steadman

1 Peter 3:18-22 "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him."

​As Christians all over the world remember, celebrate and participate with Jesus Christ in His death, resurrection and ascension, I invite you to take a moment to consider what was going on behind the scenes.
Jesus' final moments of earthly life were excruciating. He had endured more than any ordinary man could take. Beaten, whipped until His bones were visible, a tangled wreath of vicious thorns pressed into His head, torn flesh no longer recognisable, He was forced to drag a heavy wooden cross beam up a long hill to the place where they eventually nailed Him to it. The hateful mockery of a Roman coronation being completed, they nailed the King of the Jews to the timbers and hoisted Him aloft.
Psalm 22 makes allusions to the crucifixion scene and reveals to us that Jesus was tormented not only by cruel human adversaries but supernatural ones as well. Surrounded by the "bulls of Bashan," the demons of the old Rephaim, Jesus gave his final breath on the very spot rumoured to be the last resting place of the severed head of Goliath the Philistine giant.
It seemed apparent to all, living and dead, that the Messiah had failed.

And yet, in the unseen world, things were working out quite differently. The moment that Jesus died, the pits of Hell were being overturned. Thousands of graves throughout the land burst open, and resurrected believers rose bodily, going throughout the town and proclaiming Christ's victory. This phenomenon was witnessed publicly by all in Jerusalem at the time.
Jesus Himself had a proclamation to make as well - to the powers of darkness in the underworld. While He was bodily dead, He descended into the deepest, darkest hole in Hell, known as Tartarus to the Greeks. It was a place so bad that it was said to be as far below the earth as the earth is below Heaven. Jesus went and searched out the wicked, rebellious sons of God that had tried to destroy humanity in the days of Noah - and He had a message for them.

Peter doesn't tell us what that message was. Evidently, he seems to expect that we know already. And that is not an unreasonable assumption to make of his original audience. Back in the first century, most Jews would have been aware of a popular text known as the Apocalypse of Enoch (or 1 Enoch as we know it today).
Peter makes allusions to that text throughout his writings, as does the apostle Jude. In fact, every New Testament author uses ideas from 1 Enoch in their work, so it's not surprising. It's not a text incorporated into most Christian Bibles, but it doesn't need to be. The New Testament authors were inspired to refer to it, and that's sufficient to tell us that it's worth reading just to get in the authors' minds and know what they were alluding to.

The author of 1 Enoch tells a story of how the ancient sage and prophet Enoch, who lived during the age of the Nephilim, was contacted by the fallen sons of God. They pleaded with Enoch to go before Yahweh Elohim and intercede on their behalf, that they might be released from imprisonment. God had restrained them in the underworld for the crime of corrupting God's image bearers with forbidden arts and sexual abominations.
Enoch returned to them with a message from God. To put it simply, God says no. You're staying put and you will see the final judgment long after your ill-conceived giant offspring perish before your eyes. The Nephilim are all going to die and you'll still be here, rotting in Hell while you wait.

We shouldn't be surprised then, to find that Peter has cast Jesus as a second type of Enoch figure. Jesus goes to the underworld, finds the Watchers and tells them: You're still here? Oh, that's too bad. Bet you never thought you'd see me here. Well, don't get used to it, because I'm outta here.
And you're not. See you at the final judgment!

And with that, Jesus took the keys of Death and Hell, and walked bodily out of His tomb. Now we who believe in Him and are faithful to Him even though we suffer, are likewise destined to live forever with Him.

Christ is risen!

- T.J. Steadman.

Leviathan represents both the chaotic individualism of self-determination and the unity found in a common enemy since he and all associated with him are at war with God. There is abundant Biblical evidence for the idea that a single entity can represent many spirits. To explore this phenomenon, we’ll look at some examples, starting with perhaps the most striking instance - the exorcism of Legion. As we study this narrative, we will see some parallels with the entity of Leviathan:
Mark 5:1-13 “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.”
Some observations here: Firstly, the initial language used is singular. Mark presents one man and one unclean spirit (Matthew has two men, so apparently there was more than one man, but both Mark and Luke refer only to the one that spoke to Jesus).
Then we note the shift in reference from the singular to the plural, which begins at the point where Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit. Jesus refers to the spirit as singular, and the reply comes back in the plural. After Jesus has dealt with the unclean spirit, the entities separate, leaving the man and finding embodiment in about two thousand separate beasts.
The name “Legion” is important. Everyone knows the term “legion” refers to a large group of Roman soldiers. We usually just consider the name in terms of quantity, because we know that there were many spirits within this man. But why use a military term? Why not some other word that implies a large group or gathering? It is because the military aspect is important. A legion is comprised of soldiers. Soldiers are a hostile force of strong men, mighty warriors. In Hebrew, they would be “gibborim.” In Canaanite tradition, another term might have been more appropriate. The spiritual warriors were the Rephaim.
The idea of chains being unable to restrain the man is an interesting one. While Peter and Jude drew on 1 Enoch’s text to present the fallen angels in chains, none of these authors present the unclean spirits as restrained at all. However, Jesus mastered them by His authority.
The power of Yahweh is what scattered the entities, just as at Babel Yahweh dispersed the people under the dominion of separate “sons of God,” and also as Leviathan was defeated (but not yet utterly destroyed). Note the plurality in use:
Job 26:12 “He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud [Rahab, or Leviathan].”
Psalm 74:13-15 “Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness [Amorites]. Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers.”
Isaiah 51:9 “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”
Ezekiel 29:4-5 “But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.”
The location of this encounter with the demoniac is significant. The region of the Gadarenes was outside the border of Judah, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, in Dan’s tribal allotment. That area is old Bashan, the ancient land of the Rephaim. Note also that the demons, having been permitted to enter the pigs (unclean beasts), rushed immediately down a steep decline into the sea. The sea is the cosmological (not literal) home of Leviathan, and the descent of the swine indicates the idea of a fall. We are getting hints here from the author to connect this event with the Nephilim, the Rephaim and Leviathan.
Even the storm on the sea ties into this whole concept. The storm preceded the encounter with Legion. It was an attempt to kill the Messiah before he could displace the power of Leviathan in Bashan. Although Leviathan’s storm-bringing power was able to devastate Job’s family by killing all of Job’s offspring, it was futile against the pre-eminent Son of God.
Jesus simply rebuked the wind and sea. The Hebrew term for “tempest” is related to the term for “multitude.” The “sea” as we know is connected to the personified force of chaos. Both terms describe perfectly the nature of Leviathan and the situation of the man demonized. This perfectly matches the prophecy of the psalmist:
Psalm 89:9-10 “Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.”
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- Excerpt from “Answers to Giant Questions,” by TJ Steadman.

Acts 17:22-31 "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”"

Why did Paul begin his speech about temples, idols and other objects of worship, by talking about creation?
What made Paul shift from creation to make a cluster of allusions to the Tower of Babel event in Genesis 11?
What are the "appointed times" he refers to? How were they supposed to point the way for the people of the nations, to return to God?
What does Paul mean by "repent" in the light of his words about idols and image?

These questions and many more will be answered in fascinating detail in the forthcoming "Answers to Giant Questions Podcast," coming soon to a pod catcher near you. Join me as we unlock the mysteries of Holy Scripture and reveal even more amazing insights about the Lord Jesus Christ and His mission to once and for all break the hold of the fallen sons of God upon humanity, God's true children.

Our initial focus on the show will be an exploration of the Primeval History (Genesis 1-11), as well as taking time to answer your questions and learn about Biblical spiritual warfare. You can submit questions to be answered on the show - just use the "Email" links on this page. We'll be examining pop culture as well, so if you're curious about how your comic book heroes or cinematic mythology fits with the Bible, you're going to enjoy the show.

Stay tuned for details!

- T.J. Steadman

“They are banded together and at the side of Tiamat they advance;
They are furious, they devise mischief without resting night and day.
They prepare for battle, fuming and raging;
They have joined their forces and are making war.
Ummu-Hubur, who formed all things,
Hath made in addition weapons invincible; she hath spawned monster-serpents,
Sharp of tooth, and merciless of fang.
With poison, instead of blood, she hath filled their bodies.
Fierce monster-vipers she hath clothed with terror,
With splendor she hath decked them; she hath made them of lofty stature.
Whoever beholdeth them is overcome by terror,
Their bodies rear up and none can withstand their attack.
She hath set up vipers, and dragons, and the monster Lahamu,
And hurricanes and raging hounds, and scorpion-men,
And mighty tempests, and fish-men and rams;
They bear cruel weapons, without fear of the fight.
Her commands are mighty; none can resist them;
After this fashion, huge of stature, hath she made eleven monsters.
Among the gods who are her sons, inasmuch as he hath given her support,
She hath exalted Kingu; in their midst she hath raised him to power.”

- Excerpt from ENUMA ELISH
THE EPIC OF CREATION (Tablet One)
L.W. King, Translator
(from The Seven Tablets of Creation, London 1902).

The failure of modern scholars to recognise the many cycles of the Primeval History in both Biblical and Babylonian sacred texts has led them to believe that the creatures described above cannot be identified with the Biblical Nephilim.
Things are never that simple.
When we recognise that creation stories in the ancient near eastern world are usually national foundation stories and not concerned with the universal origins of material existence, we see that it makes sense to find that the giants of the ancient world were a part of every ancient culture, not just an imaginative storytelling device employed in Hebrew literature. The giants belong in our history because they were part of our past. And even the Akkadians, who preceded the Babylonians, believed they had a role to play in our future...

- T.J. Steadman

“The Bible affirms that the Rephaim tribes were physical giants, who originated from within groups of Amorite humans, their demonic spirits having “come out of the (dead) Nephilim,” and that as such there were people groups which featured “Rephaim” as their tribal designation. There were also other tribes of Rephaim giants under different names.
There are places named after the Rephaim, particularly the region of Bashan (“the land of the Rephaim” which can also be legitimately translated as “the hell of the dead”!) and a valley in Israel (“the Valley of Rephaim” or “Pit of Death”). The term is usually translated as “giants.”
The Rephaim giants were named after the spirits within them, the very same spirits that had previously walked the earth in the Nephilim of the pre-Flood world. The physical size of the Rephaim was due to the change brought about by the corruption and defilement of the human host, a leftover trait of the Nephilim.
The Rephaim spirit within a person served as an influencer, additional to that person’s own human spirit, thus creating a kind of duality. When the spirits separated at death, the human spirit was believed to reside with the body, while the Rephaim spirit departed and was released upon the earth. These were subsequently referred to as “unclean spirits,” a term sometimes translated in the NT as “demons.”
The Rephaim gods or Biblical shêdîm (devils) being by nature territorial, often controlled earthly kings in order to take advantage of their sphere of influence. Thus, they are often associated with dead kings, and the living kings claimed connection to them through ancestral or royal heritage and occultic spiritual influence. These Rephaim gods ranged in rank from minor to supreme deities in Canaanite religion.
Because some Rephaim spirits are spirits of the dead (in the case of deified kings), they are frequently connected with the underworld, despite the fact that they are not confined to that world but are free to trespass into ours.
The Rephaim were always regarded as evil, unholy and unclean to Israelites, despite the belief of apostates that the Rephaim had healing powers. The Scriptures tell us that they have a tendency to congregate together.”
Proverbs 21:16 “The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the Rephaim.”

Excerpt from T.J. Steadman, “Answers to Giant Questions.” For a much more detailed breakdown of everything discussed here, please consult the book!

“What about Noah’s wife? Could she have been indirectly related to a Nephilim ancestor? If so, the mutated genes in her genetic makeup must have reappeared in the generations descended from her. Since the nations that were described as giants could be traced back to the descendants of Noah, and since it can’t have been Noah himself, then surely it must have been Noah’s wife who introduced the “Nephilim genes” (for lack of better terminology) back into the human genome.
The idea is supported by a flawed understanding of the text of Genesis 6, following the idea that when the Bible says, “all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth,” it must by necessity mean that everyone was genetically corrupted except for Noah himself. As mentioned earlier in our discussion of the “Sethite interpretation,” there are people out there who are happy to say “all means all” when we are talking about Noah’s family being genetically impure like the rest of the world, but somehow “all” never includes Noah. So, if “all” has one exception, why not eight exceptions? But let’s bear it out anyway.
Let’s take a moment to consider the implications of this theory since it appears to be the prevailing school of thought on this issue today. It seems everyone wants to chime in on this topic and be the one who can explain the return of the Nephilim, but not everyone wants to acknowledge the outworking of his or her hypotheses.
Suppose that Noah’s wife was somehow related by blood to the Nephilim. We don’t know how closely related she may have been. But regardless of the biological connection, we can understand that all offspring that she carried would have either exhibited or carried the corrupted genes. Therefore, all of her sons would have passed on that tainted bloodline into their descendants. It follows then, that every person ever born since the “days of Noah” would be genetically impure, and that includes you and me.
If you and I, and everyone else since the Flood, have received corrupt DNA, then we are by nature part man and part giant. Is that the way that God created us? No! Let us be abundantly clear on this: if we are no longer 100% human, then we are definitely 100% unsaved.
It was the sin of Adam that condemned humanity before God, and the only way to settle the debt of that sin was for God Himself to become a man and to die as an innocent man in our place. However, this works only because of the equality in the equation; that Adam was the same in his humanity as Christ was in His. Where we run into problems is that by taking the view that Noah’s wife introduced the corrupted Nephilim bloodline to the post-Flood world, we sever that connection between Adam and Christ. The equation is no longer balanced because humanity is no longer made in the image of God like Adam was. This was the reason that Noah “found grace in the eyes of Yahweh.”
The reason it is called grace that was given to Noah is that he was not sinless. Genesis 9 affirms that fact. It was grace given to him that allowed him to be saved when “all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” But Noah specifically received that grace for certain reasons. Noah was “perfect in his generation.” The Hebrew word here translated as “perfect” is tamiym, which is the same word used to describe a sacrificial animal as “without spot or blemish.” In other words, Noah was a perfect specimen of a man in the physical sense. It follows that his choice of wife did not disqualify him from the responsibility of preserving humanity, or else God should have chosen a different couple to save the species. There was nothing wrong with Noah’s wife.
Some will refine their “Noah’s Wife” argument by saying that the corruption of the genome must have been selective and corrupted only certain bloodlines from Noah’s family. This conveniently preserves the line of Christ from corruption in theory because His descent can be traced back not to Ham but Shem. However, all along the genealogies, we find instances where non-Semitic people appear in the line of descent. The obvious fact that there has always been intermarriage between the different people groups negates the idea that any particular group might have been spared from the influence of tainted DNA. Therefore, if we are going to take the view that there was any Nephilim blood passed down through Noah’s wife, we must accept that all humanity since then has become corrupt. That means that Jesus Christ (not to mention the rest of us) could not be 100% human.
Sin entered the world through Adam, as Moses (Genesis 3:17) and the apostle Paul (Romans 5:18-19) make clear. Christ’s death was to pay the exact price of that sin in order to forgive us all in accordance with the perfect justice of God. The idea that Christ’s death was a price somehow unequal to the debt owed by Adam means that the price was never paid in full. By extension, the justice of God has not been satisfied. Therefore, the death of Christ atoned for nothing, and we are all dead in our sins. We have inherited the sinful nature from Adam (Romans 5:12) but received no comfort from the sufferings of Christ. This heretical idea has no place in our faith and should occupy no space in our minds. Yet it is perhaps unwittingly promoted by many in these days who claim to have the answer to the return of the Nephilim.”
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- Excerpt from “Answers to Giant Questions,” by T.J. Steadman.

1 Corinthians 9:22b - "I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some."
I don't usually post blog posts of a personal nature but there are times when it just seems appropriate. Today in my home country of Australia, Facebook blocked news providers from posting news, while also preventing users from having access to news through the platform. I don't do politics here and I don't care about the mainstream media enough to be bothered by it all, but it did get me thinking about news on a bigger scale. The Good News, to be more precise.
What would you do to get the good news of Jesus Christ out to the world?
For me, the answer is simple. I've never been a mainstream media kind of person, as I mentioned above, so for me, the priority has always been to reach the fringes and the marginalised; in particular those on the cultural outer limits. And that was why, back in 2004, I joined a heavy metal band.
Grave Forsaken began as an evangelistic effort to take the Gospel of Christ out into the world of heavy metal fans - to preach it to youth groups, play it in pubs, scream it at festivals and share it with music lovers everywhere as a personal testimony. More than fifteen years later, the band is still going and still bringing Jesus metal to the people.
Our debut album was entitled, "Beside The River of Blood" (2006), and it was unashamedly Gospel-centred, repentance oriented and apocalyptically driven. From the outset, we wanted people to know that there is a God who made us, who loves us, and who overcame death itself to welcome us into His presence for eternity.
Many years have passed, and in the time between my seasons in the band, I wrote "Answers to Giant Questions." It was actually friendly interaction between myself and some followers of Grave Forsaken in the music forums that motivated me at times to study and write. My passion has remained the same. While I didn't write the book as an evangelistic exercise, I doubt anyone could read it and not receive the good news of Jesus Christ and the message of His imminent return in glory.
I'm still active with Grave Forsaken today, and more than ever, as the world tries to tell us all what we can say and what we can share, and even tries to shut us down, we still have a mission to share the good news of Jesus Christ. He's coming back, and I want to be found to be about His business when He returns. Whether I'll be dressed in black, twirling drumsticks or in an online discussion group talking about ancient giants, who knows? But please keep thinking about my question to you:
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What would you do to get the good news of Jesus Christ out to the world?

- T.J. Steadman

You can watch the full video of Grave Forsaken performing their entire debut album "Beside The River Of Blood" live and free on YouTube. Visit soundmass.com for more.