Tag: Questions

In Luke 22:31-32, Jesus said to the disciple Peter: "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." As a backdrop to understanding this passage, wheat in ancient times was s...

In Genesis 32:30 Jacob said, "I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." Mormons sometimes cite this verse with a view to proving that God the Father has a physical body with a face that can be seen. This is a faulty interpretation. To begin, it is possible for a blind person to speak "fac...

In the Church, the day begins at sunset, so Easter Day really begins at sunset on what we call Saturday evening. The ancient Church held its main Easter service on Saturday evening, and some Orthodox churches have continued this tradition to the present day. The Easter Vigil service begins somberly ...

Many New Agers say that Jesus went to India as a child to learn from Hindu gurus. He allegedly later went to Israel and performed miracles learned from these gurus, and taught doctrines He derived from them. Such an idea is preposterous. To begin with, Jesus' teaching about God was not pantheistic (...

According to 2 John 10, we are not to receive into our homes or even greet anyone who comes to us and does not believe that Christ is come in the flesh. How does this apply to cultists? Should we turn them away? I do not believe this verse prohibits Christians from allowing cultists into their homes...

In 3 John 2 we read: "Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers." Some people have cited this verse in support of what they call the "prosperity gospel." But this is a misunderstanding of the verse. The Greek word for "prosper" here refers...

First Kings 11:1-3 indicates that King Solomon had hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines, many from lands of which God had previously instructed the Israelites to avoid intermarrying. God knew that such intermarrying would lead to the worship of false gods. Why, then, did Solomon do this? His...

In 1 Corinthians 10:14 we read, "Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry." The Jehovah's Witnesses argue that the command against idolatry in this verse represents a command not to wear a cross. To wear a cross, they say, is a form of idolatry. It is certainly true that Christians must avoid ...

There are situations in which clothing is very important. I found this out by accident once, when I walked into a furniture store, coincidentally wearing the same sort of shirt as the employees. I had to leave because the other customers expected me to wait on them. Clothing conveys a message. A bus...

In Mark 1:34 we read that Jesus "drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was." The parallel account in Luke's Gospel tells us that Jesus "rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ" (Luke 4:41). There are probably...

In Jesus' instructions about prayer, He taught His followers: "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words" (Matthew 6:7). These words of Jesus were aimed straight at the Pharisees. These individuals always made a public show ...

Biblical inspiration may be defined as God's superintending of the human authors so that, using their own individual personalities (and even their writing styles), they composed and recorded without error His revelation to man in the words of the original manuscripts. Inspiration means that the Holy...