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The Coming of Jesus: Coming on the clouds

...ngry. The disciples/apostles understood this about Jesus also, which is what they preached and wrote about and also why they worshipped him (cf. Ps 110:1, Jn 5:18; Matt 26:64, Acts 2:33, Acts 5:31, Rom 8:34, Col 3:1, Heb 1:3, Heb 12:2).   'Jesus is coming soon' by Nakedpastor But what's all this got to do with Jesus coming on the clouds? If Jesus is making a reference to a vision in Daniel, which describes something that happens in a purely spiritual realm, then why all of a sudden, does it become a literal, physical event when it concerns Jesus? Daniel's vision is about the Son of Man coming before the "Ancient One" (ie. God the Father) and being pr...

Did the Qumran community predict the coming of Jesus?

...I'm going to start a new category here for "General Interest" which will be for things I see or read about that I think are interesting or informative about the Bible, Christianity or the Faith in general; but which aren't necessarily topics I could, or would need to, write a full blog post about. I'll kick off this new venture with an brief look at something I read the other day from the Dead Sea scrolls which is very interesting – Qumran text 4Q521. It gives us a glimpse of early Jewish expectations of the coming Messiah from the time before Jesus arrived, and shows just how Jesus did actually meet those expectations. For example, when John asks his disci...

The Author of Life Knew Death For Our Sake!

...ny of his disciples abandoned him and turned away saying that it was a “difficult teaching” that was hard to accept. The metaphor is gruesome and vivid, but I believe that that was due to it prefiguring in what was to come when the crucifixion arrived, something which his disciples needed to be prepared for. Jesus later uses this flesh and blood analogy again in the Last Supper when he tells his disciples that the bread and wine are his body and blood which was to be “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:26-28). The Message of the Cross Paul writes that “the message of the cross is foolishness” in his letter to the Corinthian c...

What did Jesus actually sacrifice?

...ys to his disciples that he is “deeply grieved, even to death” (Matt 26:38). Luke 22:42-44‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’ Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. We can see from the quote above that Jesus really wasn’t looking forward to this, despite knowing its purpose. He even needed an angel to come to physically come to him to give him the strength to go on with this plan! Suggesting that this was a walk in the park for Jesus and making light of...

Is it the end of the world as we know it?

...where the disciples are all hiding in a room when suddenly the Holy Spirit comes down on them in a dramatic way like a "rush of a violent wind" which filled the house they were in, and then tongues of fire appears on their heads, then they begin speaking different languages — it all must have been quite strange and bewildering! But not only for them, the people in the street below heard and saw and thought that the disciples were drunk! Then Peter gets up in front of the crowd and says "Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: In the last days it will be,...

Man-Made Tradition vs Apostolic Tradition

...he Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice. Papias, fragments of.  Just in this short quote from Papias (a bishop of Hierapolis, c. 70-163 AD), it displays that there was a value in seeking after those who had had direct contact with the source, and that was the preferred method over reading what was in books, to make sure that what they learned was as accurate as possible. But, again, when we refer them (the Gnostics/heretics) to that tradition which originates from the apost...