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The Neuroscience Of Resisting Temptation

...to Him. Jesus says that He will give us rest because His “yoke is easy, and [His] burden is light” (Matthew 11:28,30). His commands shouldn’t be something that weighs us down, but rather give us life, and life to the full (John 10:10)! In a similar vein, Paul writes in Galatians 6:1–2 that we should help those who have fallen to temptation and to bear one another’s burdens so that we may fulfil the “Law of Christ”. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3) Jesus Himself demonstrated perfect self-control, resisting every temptation (Hebrews 4:15). He did this not only to set...

Doubting Defying Jihad: Questioning the Popular Conversion Story

...nies that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for sinners. Following her conversion according to her account, she engaged in a number of public debates with clerics in which she defended her decision to leave Islam and follow Christ. It is not uncommon for apostates to have meetings with scholars arranged by their family members in the hope that they might be won back to Islam, but it is very surprising that her influential father would want to give his apostate daughter such a platform to speak to an audience, given the shame on the family that would have been brought already by her leaving Islam, in the mindset of such people. Furthermore, according to t...

Lent: Day 3 - Mathetes to Diognetus, pt. 2

...the name Jesus or the title of Christ, except in a chapter heading, but there's no mistaking who the author is writing about, with some great descriptions of the nature and love of God throughout the remaining portion of this book. There is one small detail which stood out to me near the end of the epistle, and that's when the author gives a small tidbit of information about himself by saying that the things he is teaching are not “strange to [him]” nor is it “inconsistent with right reason” because he had been, in fact, “a disciple of the Apostles” and now had become “a teacher of the Gentiles”! The use of the title “Word” throughout, and...

Hello

...  Hello, this is a blog that I've been intending to create for too long now. So today I finally decided to sit down and do it. I've been compiling notes and thoughts, and have been writing on topics I'm exploring and grappling with for well over a year now - maybe even two. And then I stuff them in a digital folder to gather dust, so to speak. A lot of the discussion and ideas from these notes have come from being active in an Apologetics group on Facebook, which has helped to wrestle out some points and subjects by having about 20+ different opinions thrown into the mix! I'm planning to cover some big topics in small parts over a period of time and post...

Lent: Day 12 - Justin Martyr: First Apology, Chaps. 1-11

...e Reason (Jesus) which condemns them all for following demons. The word play is lost in English, but the word for “reason” is logos and so he says that the Greeks used their own reasoning (logos) to pass judgement, but that they, along with the Barbarians, were condemned by Reason Himself (the Logos), “who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus Christ”. It is because of this, Justin argues, that the Christians denounce the gods as being “wicked and impious demons”. Now, to modern ears, what the Christians were accused of will sound strange: their charge was that of atheism! But back in the early second century “atheism” was a phrase wh...

Lent Day 31: Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures: Lecture XX

...to Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? … since you are not under law but under grace. Now, these people that Cyril was teaching had already gone through the act of baptism, so now he was going over the symbolism and realities of what that meant to them personally. In describing the baptism rite to make one of his points, Cyril gives us a small insight into how the Church in the fourth century performed this, which I always find interesting to see how things have changed or stayed the same over the centuries. Before entering the waters, the one being baptised would strip of their tunic, symbolising “putting off the old man with his deeds” (Co...