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Lent: Day 2 - Mathetes to Diognetus, pt. 1

Day two: Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus: Chaps. 1-6 Who: Anonymous author, “mathetes” is not a name, but is the Greek word for “a disciple” What: possibly one of the earliest examples of a Christian apologetic defending the faith from its accusers, written to someone interested in learning more about the faith and its customs Why: The Christian faith was under attack and ridicule in the early centuries, many things about the Church were misunderstood and so various Christians took to writing apologetic's (defences) to clarify doctrines and beliefs from being maligned. When: Estimated between AD 130 and late 2nd century I've only ever come acros...

Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up (Book Review)

Straight off, this book will challenge you in your thinking and quite possibly in your practice and outworking of life as a Christian—especially if you are from an evangelical/Baptist/non-denominational background. Will the Real HereticsPlease Stand Up The book starts of taking you carefully through some of the practices and beliefs of the early church and those who knew the Apostles personally. It all feels very hopeful and like you're being led onward in a journey towards a certain goal, much of which I'm sure you'll find agreeable in what Bercot points out as discrepancies between early Christianity and today. Then we get to a few points about the Re...

Jesus Like You've Never Seen Before - Discoveries from Early Christian Art

I recently made a video on TikTok about what Jesus looks like in religious art and icons across various cultures, showing that people see Jesus as relatable to them and their people groups, and thus often depict Jesus looking the same as their own race. There was a comment made claiming that the Christ Pantocrator icon is exactly what Jesus looked like, and thus all others are wrong. If you’re wondering about the icon name, Pantocrator (Greek: Παντοκράτωρ) literally means “ruler of all”, but usually gets translated as “Almighty” or “all-powerful”. The oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator,6th-century encaustic icon fromSaint Catheri...

Did St. Nicholas Really Slap Arius?

It’s nearly Christmas time again, and like clockwork, the internet memes come out all over social media about Saint Nicholas giving the heretic Arius a slap across the face at the Council of Nicaea! As it’s almost the end of November and coming up soon is the feast day of St. Nicholas on December 6th, the original inspiration behind Santa Claus, I thought I’d address this long-standing myth about Nicholas of Myra (present-day Demre, Turkey), the fourth century bishop. St. Nicholas is often humorously portrayed in social media memes which playfully recount the infamous incident during the Council of Nicaea when the good bishop, provoked by Arius’s blasp...

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...

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...