During our recent filming trip Dr Randall Smith showed us in the city of Corinth a bema. A bema is a built up platform in a city center. There is a short video showing this bema. On the home page, under “In the steps of Paul,” you’ll find it under the heading THE JUDGEMENT SEAT OF CHRIST. Dr Smith explained that a platform or bema such as this, was the stage from where a judge would sometimes pronounce judgment. We find an example of this in Acts 18:12-16 where the Roman proconsul, Gallio, had to judge Paul at this particular bema in Corinth. However, the bema was more often used to hand laurels to winners of competitions (1 Cor. 9:25). Even today at sporting events, the winners receive their trophies while standing on a podium. Paul used the image of athletes, receiving laurels at the bema in Corinth, to describe the reward that a believer will receive:
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (the bema), so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).
Dr Randall Smith explains that Paul used the word bema here as an image of the day Continue reading The Judgment Seat of Christ
A Testimony by Naas le Roux (From the Kerugma Bulletin of February 2014)
I viewed the DVD by Dr Randall Smith