Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the First Century Church.

This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard.

Dr. Bernard is dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives.

In apostolic life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible

teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this episode.

When a person dies in the United States, they have three legal options for putting their

body to rest, burial, cremation, or medical donation.

Now, for most of our country's history, burial was long the preferred method, but that's

changed in recent years.

I read a report by the National Funeral Directors Association. They report that

58% of people in the U.S. are now actually cremated at death. And it's predicted that this number

will continue to rise. They also noted that religion is a major influence in the decision of how to

dispose of a body of death. Until 1963, the Catholic

Church actually prohibited cremation for their members. How should Apostolic Pentecostals view

cremation? Does it violate God's word, or is it an acceptable choice for believers?

I believe the Bible is silent on the subject of cremation.

Now, sometimes people quote some Old Testament passages.

I think those have to do more with avoiding pagan practices, idolatrous practices.

Now, the root of this, however, is we as Christians have respect for the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And, you know, some pagan concepts or secular concepts or even Greek philosophy

is that, you know, the true person is a soul and we're kind of entrapped in a body or temporarily

in a body.

...