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Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! What a wonderful day to remember and praise, but not just because Jesus was raised to new life, but because in that moment it sealed the promise of our own hope in God. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, we can now be partakers in that new, eternal life! 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” "Where, O death, is your sting?" Paul write...

Ancient “curse” amulet drastically changes perspective on Biblical dating

...ript that has ever been published by at least 200 years. This is earlier than many sceptics believe the Bible existed, making this the earliest appearance of the word YHWH in Israel and it was found at a covenant site. The implications are enormous and will reverberate for many years to come. Mount Ebal, where the amulet was found, was the mountain from which the curses were called out when the children of Israel made a covenant with God before entering the land of Israel, as seen in Deuteronomy 11:29: When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that you are entering to occupy, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal....

Great is the Mystery of Faith!

...h: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!”. What we believe and live by in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is a mystery! It is a strange and powerful thing that God did by sending his Son in the form of a human to grow, teach and ultimately die for us so that we can be made righteous and adopted into the family of God. I don’t think we’ll ever quite wrap our heads around it all fully. I’m going to end this with another poetic excerpt from Melito. I find this to be a very powerful image of what Jesus did for us. I get chills every time I read it. Take a moment to really ponder on these words as you read them and consider th...

Jesus was a pagan copy, and other Christmas myths

...It's that time of year again when certain groups of people like to share memes and videos that apparently "prove" Jesus to be a carbon-copy of ancient Egyptian gods. This has been debunked so many times, yet it's still so pervasive on social media, mindlessly shared over and over again. This myth about Jesus being a copy of other pagan "dying-and-rising gods" doesn't have its roots in Egyptian legend, but rather in the claims of a film called Zeitgeist. A quick search online will bring up many websites which have gone through the claims of this film with a fine tooth comb, and debunked each one. Here's one such example, which lists out the major claims and giv...

Before the Pumpkins: The Barbecued Deacon

...followed has been remembered ever since, partly for its irony, partly for its courage. “Bring forth,” said the prefect, “the treasures of the Church — the gold, the silver, and the precious vessels — that the emperor may possess them.” Lawrence asked for three days to gather them, which the prefect granted, no doubt imagining chests of glittering riches being prepared for him. Instead, Lawrence went through the city, gathering the blind, the crippled, the widows, the orphans, and all who were destitute or suffering. On the third day, he presented them before the prefect and declared: These are the treasures of the Church. Behold the gold...

God from God: The Eternal Son in the Crib

...How can God beget a Son? Does that mean Jesus is His creation? This question comes sharply into focus during Advent, when the Church contemplates the Incarnation: the eternal Son entering the world as a baby in Mary’s womb. And to understand this, we turn to language the Church has treasured for centuries — especially that crucial distinction between begotten and created. And C. S. Lewis describes this with a real concise clarity: We don’t use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget...