A Pilgrim’s Search

In his letter to the Ephesian church, the Apostle Paul reveals that for millennia God had knowledge kept secret that suddenly, through Christ, had been revealed, first to Christ’s Apostles, and then to those to whom they preached.  The revelation of this secret, this μυστήριον mustḗrion, was for Paul the life- and reality-shattering apocalypse of…

Do you need to see concrete evidence for something before you believe it? Most people would say they do. Michael Guillen has written an insightful book arguing that, in fact, that’s not the case – that before you can actually see and accept something as true, you have to first believe it is true.

Modernity has gradually abandoned the love of Jesus as the key tenet of society with predictably disastrous effects.  Ever since the Enlightenment (1650-1900) mankind has committed itself to a mission of analyzing technical and societal problems and, through its own IQ, skills, and determination (you know, “hard work”, etc.), “fixing” them. 

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) has many stories in which beings typically identified as “an angel of the LORD ”, or just “angel”, are depicted interacting with people as, apparently, another person. What can we learn about these persons from the texts? More than you might think.

Why a human Jesus? Wasn’t there another way?

How did Paul see “all Israel” being saved? (Romans 11:26)

People who read the Bible somewhat seriously are well aware of the Biblical story leading up to the nation of Israel; their near-total rejection of their redeeming God; His attempts to retrieve them from their apostasy; and their ultimate destruction as a nation and collection of tribes in 70 and 135 AD.  What some may…

Most will recognize this title as one of the most famous admonitions of Jesus of Nazareth.  But most of us don’t have much experience in fulfilling it.  How can we turn this around?

The book of Isaiah is in many ways a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. In it, we find a seemingly bipolar God concerning His chosen but about-to-be-exiled Israel. One moment He chastises their behavior while the next He promises future redemption and blessing. And in it, we find the enigma of His…

Anyone who has spent any time in Israel knows that it is a land of hills, and therefore of constant elevation change from one location to another.  From the cliffs overlooking the Rift Valley of the Dead Sea and Masada in the South, to Qumran, to the Central Highlands, to the Golan Heights and Mount…

Calvinism defames and assaults the character of God. Here’s how.

If you haven’t yet recognized your abject needfulness; haven’t yet plumbed the depths of your prideful self-satisfaction with your comfortable, predictable existence as your greatest and most challenging failure, then you haven’t approached the door of God’s Kingdom, nor, perhaps, do you know where to look for it.

Paul in Romans 3:27 says: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. Unfortunately, Paul never explicitly tells us what this law is that he is referring to (this is the only occurrence of the phrase not…

In this note we’ll look at this imperative of obedience to Christ as portrayed in the Bible, and uncover some insight into what the Bible means by “obedience” and “believe”.

Here I want to look at, to the degree we can, how Jesus Himself thought about the Gospel He was bringing. What did He think the Gospel was that He was bringing, and, more importantly for our present situation, how did He see it being enacted?

When you hear the term “Gospel”, what story or message comes to mind? When you hear the statement “Believe and be saved”, what does “believe” mean to you? And when you read: “For by grace you have been saved through faith”, what is your understanding of what “faith” looks like?

What was Paul teaching us in his epistles?  Ever since Martin Luther and the Reformation he inspired 500 years ago, we’ve thought we knew.  However, in the last 30 years, a different understanding has been proposed as the result of research to understand Jewish thinking on their relationship to God in first-century Israel, so that…

In the Bible the people of God are commanded to love Him (Deut 6:5, 11:13, 30:6, Mt 22:37) and love their neighbors (Lev 19:34, Mt 22:39-40), whether those neighbors are love-able or not. But what is Biblical love? And how do we get it, and give it away[i]?

The Parables of the Treasure and Pearl

What makes us think we have any idea of what “heaven” is like?

This note focuses on the sincere Christian desiring to live the life he has been called to live in Christ — to live your life as Christ would live it if He was you.

Did God “know” the future “before the beginning”? Or did He simply design it?

Most modern western Christians miss what the Bible has to say about its good news – the Gospel of Christ. It’s right there in black and white. But somehow they miss it – read right past it. How does this happen?

When you read something in the Bible, perhaps for the umpteenth time, but suddenly it communicates something new to you, you pay attention. Such was the case when I ran across (on my way to researching a completely different topic) these verses in Hebrews 3:7-8:

Christianity for Dummies

Christians are taught to “know” and love God.  And for some, their experience in the faith leads them to moments of perceiving God with them.  Here I’m not talking about some strange incursion into your life by some spirit-like presence, perhaps in response to some crisis or loss in your life.  The web is full…