A popular song asks what Mary knew. But as is often true in the Bible, the people in question knew much more then we think, sometimes more than we ourselves know. For example, have you ever wondered why so many women are named Mary in the Gospels? The name Mary comes from the Hebrew “Miriam” […]
God’s interest in justice flows out of His interest in and love for His Creation. This is at the core of the uniqueness of God’s revelation to the Jewish people. The Greco-Roman world pictured justice as a blind-folded maiden with a scale and a sword. The Torah presents Justice as emanating from an All-Seeing God with a Heart of Compassion.
In The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers makes some clarifying distinctions about “law” and “laws”. She speaks of laws that are based on consensus, contrasted with laws rooted in nature of things . The second are generally learned by observation and subject to the test of an if/then clause. If an apple is released […]
As Jews and Christians both wrestle how to fit Jewish Believers in a convenient box, it becomes evident that we have forgotten the central question of the New Testament, Can a Gentile be saved? And if so, how? This was question was on the mind of Jesus’ Disciples as the Messiah spoke to a woman […]
Growing up, I was told “Jews don’t believe in Jesus.” Though I was hearing this from the vantage point of Judaism, many Christians have believed, been told, and said the same thing. But the first thing that struck me about the New Testament, when I first read Matthew 1:1 was that this was a Jewish […]
After centuries of confiscating and burning copies of the Mishnah and Talmud, Christians had not only lost the ability to read and understand the language of the Tanakh (the Old Testament) , they also lost the trust of the Jewish people who might have taught them Hebrew. After driving God’s Chosen people from their countries […]
What people have called for 200 years “Liberal” and “Conservative” theology, then, are not extreme ends of a pole, but two variations of the same heresy, that stand apart from and against an orthodoxy that holds the Cross of Christ and the Teaching of Christ in balance and in tension with each other.
When Jesus went to His “Father’s House” to “prepare a place for us” He was not simply going there to dust the furniture and change the sheets. He had come to earth to make sinners fit for Heaven. He has returned there to get Heaven ready to receive sinners, to receive us…
The logic behind the idea that Moses could not have written Deuteronomy is simply because it’s too accurate. As its author, Moses would have prophetically spoken of things that would happen 900 years later. If our assumption is that prophecy doesn’t occur, Deuteronomy must be a later composition. If we are going to accept the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy we will need to be open to miracles or at least vast coincidences.
The definition we have of “Apostle” is “one who was with us from the beginning” who will “bear witness to His resurrection”. (Acts 1:21-23) Since “Apostle” carries the idea of “one who is sent” there is an idea of being commissioned (Matthew 28:18-20) This are qualifications that Paul recognized himself unqualified to fill. Mary Magdalene, […]
