The Meaning of "Fire"

While most of Jesus's verses in the New Testament regarding fire seem threatening today, that is because of the context we bring to them. They sounded very different to Jesus’s listeners. If Jesus used “light” as a great positive symbol for knowledge, how could “fire,” the only source of light in his time, be seen as a negative?

Today, “fire” is associated more with the punishment of Sodom, Gomorrah, and hell (see this article) than with light and heaven. In Jesus’s era, however, "fire" was understood to be a great Divine gift, the only source of light in the skies and on earth. The burning bush of Moses and the pillar of fire leading Israel at night in the desert were symbolic of the Divine. The heat and energy of fire and the sun were critical to human existence. People fear global warming today, but warming has been welcomed for most of human history. It is the cold and darkness that was feared.

The Greek word translated as “fire” is pyr (πῦρ). Jesus uses it only in fourteen verses]. In English, this is the source of the word, “pyre,” which is associated with death. The Greek word is used to refer to "fire," "sacrificial fire," "funeral fire," "hearth-fire," "lightning," "the light of torches," and the "heat of fever."

Connecting Fire and Light

First, we must see fire as a source of light and, from that connection, the source of enlightenment. When we start a fire, we also create light. Consider how Jesus says this in verses that treat “fire” and “light” with similar wording. Look at the beginning of Luke 12:49:

King James Version: I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
Listeners Heard: I started a fire to toss upon the earth. And how I wish that it was already lit up.

And compared that to the beginning of John 12:46:

King James Version: I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
Listeners Heard: I myself have started a light in this society so that everyone trusting as much as me might not remain in this darkness.

The KJV and other translations consistently mistranslate the Greek verb in the first part of this verse as “come,” but its primary meaning is “to start.” Unlike the English word “come,” “start” takes an object. This is clear in both of these verses. In Luke, the object is the Greek word for “fire." In John, it is “light.”

In the Luke verse about fire, the verb translated as “kindled” in English Bibles has the specific meaning in the passive voice as “to be lit up.” Jesus starts a fire, which creates light. This is how he ends the darkness and, by analogy, ignorance.

Fire as Purification

People then also saw fire as a source of purification, a part of cleansing. We can see this connection because Luke 12:49, about fire, is followed by a verse about baptism, Luke 12:50:

KJV But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

The fire of purification and the water of baptism seem like opposites to us today, but both were used in ritual purification. The purification of fire was compared to the refining of gold and silver where the impurities were separated from what is precious by melting it. This is explicit a verse describing the promised coming in Malachi 3:2-3:

New International Version (NIV): But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness.

Again, notice the connection the coming of a redeemer with the starting of a fire.

The sacrificial fires of altars were also an act of purification in Jesus’s time. Today, we confused the idea of “sacrifice” with that of punishment. Consider what Jesus says in Mark 9:49: 

KJV: For every one shall be salted with fire …
Listeners Heard: Because everyone will be seasoned by a fire…

Notice that Jesus says “everyone” in this verse. This is not a punishment confined to evil-doers. It is a purification process that everyone must go through. The idea is that we are all flawed, all tested, and all need purification. The fires of the trash dump outside of Jerusalem, called Gehenna (see this article) were used for cleansing, that is, this disposal of dangerous waste like diseased bodies. Many of Jesus’s verses that refer to fire (Matthew 7:19, Matthew 18:8, Matthew 18:9, Mark 9:43, etc.) are references to sacrifice for purification. The trees burnt in Matthew 7:19 are specifically described in Greek as diseased. While the hands and eyes that are tossed into the fire are sacrificed because they trip us up to save the body.

The Fire of Baking

Another important use of fire in the time of Jesus was the baking of bread, pottery, and bricks. Jesus describes two different types of ovens in his stories.

In talking about the lilies of the field being tossed into an oven (Matthew 6:30, Luke 12:28 ), the Greek word Jesus uses is klibanos, which is a clay pot oven in which bread is baked. These ovens typically burned foliage. In areas with few trees, using dried grasses and weeds as fuel is common.

Folliage is mentioned again in the parable of the grain and the weeds. Both grow together until the harvest. Then the weeds are burned in a “furnace of fire” (Matthew 13:42, Matthew 13:50). Jesus says specifically that they are tossed, not into a “furnace,” which is also a modern idea, but into a kaminos, a large oven used to bake bread, bricks, and pottery. The context here is bread because of the separation of the weeds from the wheat. So, in this story, the grain goes to make bread, but the weeds also make the bread by becoming the fuel for its baking. There are some interesting philosophical points here about everything having a purpose, but my job isn’t philosophy. It is an accurate translation so we can understand what Jesus was saying.

Conclusions

Today, all these Biblical mentions of fire are assumed to be threats of pain, but that is largely because our religious teachers have conditioned us to think that way. Everyone knows that fire is painful, but seeing it only from that viewpoint is like seeing a car, not as transportation, but as a potential accident. Almost any tool can be misused. To understand it, we must focus on its purpose, not its misused. Fire was and is primarily a tool. We should think of it that way when we read it in Jesus’s words.