Video courtesy of Christianity.com It’s one thing to live as a Christian in a world where your faith is persecuted and oppressed. Life may be hard but the boundaries between belief and unbelief are fairly clear. It’s quite another to remain faithful when the name “Christian” is not persecuted but praised and even endowed with […]
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Church History: What Was the Real St. Nicholas Known For?
Today, St. Nicholas is mostly known as a paunchy old geezer who spends one night each year breaking into people’s houses and stealing cookies before escaping to an Arctic hideaway where enslaved elves do his work for him. Kind of creepy when you think about it. The good news is that none of this was […]
[Read More...]Church History: How Did Christians Decide Which Books Belonged in the New Testament?
Video courtesy of Christianity.com To learn more about how Christians determined which texts were true and authoritative, read these articles: Who Decided Which Books Belong in My Bible? and Why No Baptized Lions or Talking Crosses Made It Into Your Bible. 30 Days through Church History: Day 8
[Read More...]Church History: Who Were the Gnostics and What About Their Gospels?
Video courtesy of Christianity.com To learn even more about the Gnostics and other challenges to second-century Christians, read these four brief articles from Ligonier Ministries: * Montanism * Gnosticism * Marcion’s Challenge * Irenaeus of Lyons 30 Days through Church History: Day 7
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Church History: What Happened after the Apostles Died?
By the end of the first century, Roman persecutions were dogging God’s people from the outside, and false teachings from people who claimed to be Christians were hounding the church from within. The Ebionites said that Jesus was a human Messiah but not the divine Lord. Most Gnostics, on the other hand, depicted Jesus as […]
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Church History: Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Have Anything to Do with Jesus and the Early Church?
Near the northwest corner of the Dead Sea, there is a long-deserted settlement known as Qumran. Here, it appears that a discontented Jewish sect maintained a thriving religious community in the second century B.C. and again in the first century A.D. At one point, this community’s library contained more than a thousand sacred scrolls. Some […]
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Church History: What Happened to the Jewish Temple?
When Jesus walked along the dusty roads of Judea and Galilee, the Jewish people had a temple in Jerusalem. But today, there isn’t one. So what happened to this temple? First, a bit of background: The temple in the time of Jesus was the second Jewish temple. The Babylonians had burned the first temple in […]
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Church History: Did Nero Really Fiddle While Rome Burned?
You’ve at least heard the saying. Maybe you’ve even said it yourself at some point when someone was fooling around in the face of an impending crisis. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” But did he? No, not even a chance. In the first place, fiddles as we know them weren’t even invented until the Renaissance, […]
[Read More...]Church History: Do Any Ancient Historians Mention Jesus?
Video courtesy of Christianity.com To dig deeper into ancient historians’ references to Jesus, take a look at this chapter from Gary Habermas. 30 Days through Church History: Day 2
[Read More...]Apologetics: How The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife May Have Been Forged
Earlier this week, I mentioned that the news of the fragment known as Gospel of Jesus’s Wife will end “quite possibly with the revelation that the fragment was a forgery in the first place.” My rationale for this suspicion was and is insufficient to advance any sort of argument. I am no expert in Coptic […]
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Apologetics: Why the Singleness of Jesus Makes the Best Sense of the Evidence
“It is an embarrassing insight into human nature that the more fantastic the scenario, the more sensational is the promotion it receives and the more intense the faddish interest it attracts,” biblical scholar Raymond Brown wrote nearly two decades ago. “People who would never bother reading a responsible analysis of the traditions about how Jesus […]
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Family Ministry: Living in the Right Story
Accused by a member of Parliament of always repeating “the same old story,” British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once retorted, “Of course, it’s the same old story! Truth usually is the same old story.” Whatever one may think of Margaret Thatcher’s politics, her words carry with them a reminder that can transform the lives of […]
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Family Ministry: Gut Feelings, the Gospel, and the Big Lie About Nine-Out-of-Ten
“So, tell me,” I ask, “why do you want to transition your church toward family ministry?” “Well,” the pastor begins “nine out of every ten kids are dropping out of church after they graduate, aren’t they? Evidently, what we’re doing right now isn’t working.” “Mm-hmm,” the children’s director agrees. “Eighty-eight percent is what they said […]
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Church History: The Forgotten Hymn That Once Preceded “Amazing Grace”
While doing some research related to the writer of the lyrics now know as the hymn “Amazing Grace,” I ran across another set of lyrics that are equally powerful but far less familiar. First off, a few little-known facts about “Amazing Grace”: * The original title wasn’t “Amazing Grace” at all but “Faith’s Review and […]
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How the Southern Baptist Convention Began
Friend and former SBTS colleague Lawrence Smith, now at WDRB television in Louisville, has produced a helpful video on the origins of the Southern Baptist Convention as well as the probable election of Fred Luter as president of the SBC. Click here to watch the video. To understand more about the history of Christianity during […]
[Read More...]The Prayer Meeting That Lasted One Hundred Years
On this day—May 26—in the year 1700, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf was born. While still in his twenties, Nikolaus became part of a prayer meeting that—through hundreds of men and women who took turns praying—continued twenty-four hours every day for more than one hundred years. So how did this prayer meeting begin? Well, […]
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Why No Baptized Lions Or Talking Crosses Made It Into Your Bible
From the first century forward, Christians viewed testimony that could be connected to eyewitnesses of Jesus as uniquely authoritative. The logic of this standard was simple: The people most likely to know the truth about Jesus were either eyewitnesses who had encountered Jesus personally or close associates of these witnesses. So, although Christians wrangled for […]
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Theology: What I Love About the Resurrection
I have believed in the resurrection of Jesus for many years. Over the past seven months, I have grown to love the truth of the resurrection like never before. On a summer Sunday eight months ago, my mother called to let me know that my father had collapsed that morning. A few weeks after that […]
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“Don’t Worry. I Read the Book. He Doesn’t Stay Dead.”
One rule in our household is that, if a book is turned into a movie, everyone must read the book before watching the movie. Our oldest daughter was eight years old when C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was turned into a feature film. In the weeks leading up to the movie’s […]
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Apologetics: Gospel-Centered Apologetics
So much can depend on the answer to a single question. “Will you marry me?” “Did he get the job?” “Was I accepted into the program?” “Did she survive?” “Will you forgive me?” Sometimes, everything comes together—or falls apart—in the shadow of a single question. The Christian faith is that way. In the case of […]
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