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The Deity of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew - Part 1

...h to whom she was betrothed, Mary was found to be pregnant, Matthew tells us this was through the Holy Spirit, although this, of course, was unknown to Joseph, her husband to be. Certain questions arise immediately. First, we may note that Jesus being the Son of God in a unique sense (only-begotten) cannot be the result of his conception as a human by Mary as it is the Holy Spirit who begat Jesus as a man, rather than the Father. The Father is never identified as the Spirit and in 28:19 the Father, Son and Spirit are distinguished from each other. Since the Spirit is not the Father, but rather the Father is a distinct person from the Spirit, we can conclude tha...

Armageddon Is Not A Battle Plan: What Revelation Actually Says — And Why It Matters Right Now

...ll-established Jewish and early Christian genre which uses vivid symbolic imagery to pull back the curtain on earthly power and name it for what it truly is. The seven-headed beast of Revelation is Rome. The seven heads are the seven hills of Rome, an identification so widely acknowledged in early church scholarship that it barely requires argument. The mark of the beast, calculated through Hebrew gematria to 666 (or 616 in some early manuscripts), points directly to Nero Caesar (transliterated into Hebrew as נרון קסר, “nrwn qsr”) — the Emperor who became the archetype of anti-Christian persecution due to the levels of evilness he enacted. The s...

Horus, Jesus, and Egyptian Mythology: Separating Fact from Fiction

...l powers, she temporarily revived Osiris, and during this brief period, she conceived Horus without engaging in sexual intercourse by taking the form of a bird and hovered over Osiris' reassembled body, receiving his “seed” and becoming pregnant with Horus. Afterward, Osiris died again and descended to the underworld, where he became the god of the afterlife. This miraculous conception has led some people to draw comparisons between the birth of Horus and the virgin birth of Jesus, although once you consider how Horus was conceived, it becomes clear that there are no real similarities at all. There's also no connection to December 25th with Horus. Horus' Mi...

Was there death before the Fall?

...Eve that she wouldn't die by eating from the Tree of Knowledge - except that they did indeed die because they could no longer attain immortality; they stayed mortal as punishment. After they ate the forbidden fruit, God 'evicted' them from the Garden in case they "might reach out [their] hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen 3:22) - but if they were already immortal then this would surely be of no concern to God. Their sin separated them from God as they would now not live forever with him (Ezk 18:4; Ezk 18:20). The concept of a spiritual aspect to people that is separate from the physical body seems to come in later, or is...

Lent Day 26: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 51-60

...way refreshed and restored. On arriving at the the cells of the other monks, Anthony rejoiced in seeing their earnestness and was also happy to find that his sister had become the leader of the nuns in her old age. During this time, Anthony gave some teaching to the monks and hermits who were living there which were his guidelines for his discipline: Believe on the Lord and love Him; keep yourselves from filthy thoughts and fleshly pleasures, and as it is written in the Proverbs, be not deceived "by the fullness of the belly." Pray continually; avoid vainglory; sing psalms before sleep and on awaking; hold in your heart the commandments of Scripture; be mi...

Does Christmas have pagan origins?

...ll-established before this point in time, as Christians had been celebrating Easter (or Pascha) and Pentecost pretty much since the birth of the Church. If the apostle has erased all devotion absolutely of “seasons, days, months and years”, why do we celebrate Easter by an annual rotation in the first month? Why in the fifty ensuing days do we spend our time in all exultation? Why do we … [fast on] the Preparation Day [i.e. Good Friday]? — Tertullian, 213 AD We can see from at least the second century, Christians had fixed times of the year which were kept for certain celebrations around the resurrection, Passover and Pentecost — celebrations whi...