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Coffee With Jesus: Luke 24

...esus, who has disguised himself from them (v.16), then explains everything from Moses and all the prophets to them about the Messiah. How I often wish this was recorded in full detail here, rather than just as a passing detail! I’d love to read how Jesus himself interprets and exegetes the Scriptures in full. They later have a meal together and it’s only when Jesus breaks the bread that they recognise him before he vanishes from their sight (v.31). My first thoughts when reading this were how it almost is a pointer towards the later understanding of the Eucharist in that we see Jesus in the bread and receive him there. Even in verse 35, Luke says it in such...

When did Christians become so whiny?

...probably has non-Christian's whining more). Though nothing quite sums up the Christian attitude more than the recent fiasco in the news about Google's doodle for Easter — or rather, lack thereof. Here is the "offending" Google page on Easter day: Shocking, isn't it.  Apparently it was/is to many Christians who felt the need to vent their frustrations and outrage on the Google forums (and even declare a boycott), as you can see from the screenshot below (click for larger view): I'm sure there was probably many more comments too. Source: aattp.org   Yep, even Google not doing something is something to get in a flap about. The thing is thoug...

Jesus, Mithras and Ancient Roman Cults: Separating Fact from Fiction

...Welcome to the next instalment of my series looking at the ancient mythological gods and how they compare to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Mithras is yet another popular ancient god that people like to compare with Jesus and make wild claims about, proposing that they are the same deities with different names. But is this even remotely true? This article has ended up being a bit longer than anticipated as it’s one of the few ancient religions that was contemporary to the birth of Christianity which was seen as somewhat of a rival belief system, so there’s a lot of interesting things to cover! The Origins Mithras has his roots in ancient Persi...

Is Halloween a Pagan Holiday?

...n society has really taken the holiday to its extremes with some of the decorations I've seen online and on TV and in films, to the point that suicide and murder victims left in public view have been mistaken for scary props! Origins of the holiday has Hallowe'en always been like this though? Let's take a look at its origins to see where this holiday comes from to help us decide whether we should partake or not. Did you know that Hallowe'en actually started out as a Christian holiday (Holy Day)? “Hallowe’en”, or more precisely, All Hallows Eve (from the Old English hallowed meaning “holy”), is an ancient holiday in the Christian calendar to mark the...

Before The Pumpkins: Faith In The Flames

...Picture the scene: the year is somewhere around 155–160, Polycarp has just been arrested and brought to the city. The crowd roared in the stadium. The smell of sweat and fear mingled with the dust of Smyrna’s arena. And in the centre of it all stood an old man — calm, unflinching, his face marked with years of faith. The Roman proconsul urged him again: “Swear by the fortune of Caesar. Curse Christ, and I will release you.” Polycarp looked him in the eye and replied with a defiant response that has echoed down the ages, Eighty and six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me? Those words hav...

The World's Oldest Anti-Christian Meme

...ian faith has never been new, and neither has the faithfulness that meets it. Alexamenos was being publicly humiliated for believing in a crucified God. He lived in a world where that belief marked you out as credulous, weak, socially embarrassing. The intellectual class sneered. The popular culture mocked. And somewhere on a wall in Rome, an image designed to shame him has survived nearly two thousand years. But so has the response. We don’t know who wrote “Alexamenos is faithful”. We don’t know his name, whether he was a soldier or a slave or a page boy who’d heard the Gospel and believed it. But he picked up something to write with and answered t...