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Man-Made Tradition vs Apostolic Tradition

Quite often in discussions which are about or involve some aspects of early church history or practices earlier Christians did, someone will inevitably throw out the "show stopper" that is "it's all just man made tradition" therefore not valid and the discussion is over. It’s as though saying it's "man made", without considering anything other than that they can't find an isolated chapter and verse in the bible which states something explicitly, means they've "won" the debate! Nothing more to see here folks, someone told us it's man made so we can all go home now. Either that, or the mere mention of the word “tradition” and suddenly you’re accused of be...

Lent, Lament and Lockdown

Lent is a time of self denial and of giving things up, and also a period of lament in the lead up to Easter where we remember the Passion and death of Christ before we celebrated the glorious resurrection.  Often this is a personal affair on the discipline side of things, even if it's a practice shared within your church community, but this year has been so very different. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, the whole world has slowly gone into lockdown country by country, creating a strange sort of global “Lent” where everyone is having to practice self control and self denial. This has been underpinned with a sense of lament at the way thi...

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

September 28th 2015 will be a supermoon and a red moon at that. I last wrote about these four "blood moons" way back in April last year when certain self-styled prophets John Hagee and Mark Blitz's "End Times" teaching gained some popularity (and subsequent book promotions). One thing that I predicted in my previous article was that if nothing else comes from all of this "end is nigh" nonsense, is that these "prophets" would indeed profit from their books – as has been shown to be true in which the "Four Blood Moons" book has been in the top 20 on the New York Times Best-seller List, and has also recently been turned into a docu-drama! Other than th...

A Historic Easter Change Is Coming — But Will Protestants Get On Board?

Pope Francis has recently expressed the Catholic Church’s willingness to accept a unified date for Easter, a move aimed at fostering greater Christian unity, particularly with the Orthodox Church. This long-standing issue arises from the different calendars used by Western and Eastern Christian traditions — the Gregorian and Julian calendars — leading to discrepancies in Easter celebrations. Talks between Catholic and Orthodox leaders have intensified, hoping a common date could be agreed upon. However, this raises important questions for Protestant denominations regarding whether they would adopt the unified date or risk falling out of alignment w...

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...

A City In The Sand: What A Fourth-Century Discovery In Egypt’s Western Desert Tells Us About The Early Church

In early July 2026, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced something pretty amazing: an entire Byzantine-era city, buried beneath the sands of the Dakhla Oasis, had been uncovered almost intact! Streets, homes, bread ovens, a fortress, and at its heart, a fourth-century basilica church. That might not seem very exciting on first glance. But this find deserves a closer look, because it puts flesh on something we usually only encounter in the abstract: what it actually looked like when Christianity took root, house by house, in an ordinary town far from the centres of imperial power. What Was Found The excavation, carried out by an Egy...