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The Author of Life Knew Death For Our Sake!

...all it “Good Friday”! What’s so Good about Good Friday though if the saviour is barbarically killed on this day? I wondered that for many years when I was younger, until one day it ‘clicked’. It may not have been a very Good day as far as Jesus was concerned, by the fact he was being flogged, beaten and nailed to pieces of wood, but in terms of what he accomplished through his death – that is what makes Good Friday so very Good! The death of Jesus is a very central point to our faith, though only made sense of by the resurrection. This is the Gospel, the Good News, which has been preached the world over since. The Good News is that despite the One...

What was so Good about Good Friday?

...just why Good Friday is so Good! If Christ was not raised, then our faith is pointless. If Christ was not raised, then there is no forgiveness for our sins. If Christ did not die, then he could not be raised. If Christ did not die, then there was no atonement for our sins (1 Jn 2:2; 1 Jn 4:10). And that is why Good Friday is Good. Because without the death of Jesus, there is no redemptive forgiveness from God and thus no hope for ourselves. Eph 1:7-8a In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. Happy Easter everyone :)...

Why do bad things happen to 'Good' people?

...A question most often asked by Christians and non-Christians alike is "why do bad things happen to 'Good' people?" I say 'Good' in quotations because, as Paul writes in Romans 3:10, "There is no one who is righteous, not even one". In light of that this question is technically, fundamentally flawed, as it presupposes that some people are better or more worthy than others. We all do wrong one way or another, so at a base level and in comparison to a Holy God, no one is any more 'Good' than another, which is Paul's argument I believe (but that's probably a whole other blog post for another day). But that aside, taking the question as it is, and assuming tha...

BOOK REVIEW: Four Views on Hell 2nd edition

...This is a guest post by David Jakubovic. The views are that of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of That Ancient Faith. A 20 year update of the 1996 book by the same name, this slim volume (211 pages) is a helpful cross-section of current evangelical thought on Final Punishment, sampling Denny Burk on Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT hereafter), John Stackhouse Jr on Conditional immortality (CI hereafter), Robin Parry on Christian Universalism (CU hereafter) and Jerry Walls on (a Protestant) Purgatory. Preston Sprinkle pens both Introduction and Conclusion, plus there are Scripture, Author and Subject indices. The Introduction sets the scene,...

Great Lent: The Season of Fasting

...Fasting A spiritual and physical discipline If you are looking for a Lenten reading plan, make sure to check out my book, 40 Days with the Fathers: A Journey Through Church History, which will take you through the first 400 years of church history in forty days! Lent is upon us once again (according to Western tradition), and so I thought it’d be Good to write something on the discipline of fasting, which is often neglected or overlooked in many Protestant churches. And much like any major holiday, there is the usual arguments and accusations about how it's all just pagan festivities with a "Christian mask". Easter is no different, and usually gets hit...

Fasting: A spiritual and physical discipline

...The topic of fasting often comes up in online discussion groups that I'm a part of, more often in Protestant circles where the practice is more often sidelined in low churches. So let's take a look at the practice of fasting from a practical and historical view, as it seems to be a spiritual discipline which has been pushed aside in many churches today, with prayer, worship and bible reading taking more precedence in a Christian's life instead (not that those are bad things to do!). Why fast? There are many reasons to fast, and recent studies have shown a lot of health benefits that can be derived from fasting. But on the spiritual side of life, there are also...