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Fasting: A spiritual and physical discipline

...an and an introduction to the Early Church Fathers that is spread across forty days, originally written as a Lenten reading plan. You can get a copy by clicking here. http://steadfastlutherans.org/2014/03/redeeming-holy-days-from-pagan-lies-ash-wednesday-and-lent-2/ http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/history-of-lent.html http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxv.iii.iii.iii.html http://www.goarch.org/chapel/calendar/ http://www.infoplease.com/spot/easter1.html http://www.thedidache.com http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07157.htm https://www.buzzsprout.com/3196/52849-fasting-for-divine-intervention-fasting-edition-45 ht...

The Relationship Between Jesus and Sophia

...Now you may be wondering about the title, or thinking “who the heck is Sophia??” — well, bear with me, and all will be revealed. It’s not as sinister or weird as it may first appear. I saw a post on my Instagram feed the other day that just got me a little riled up. I’ll admit it, I can be a little short-tempered at times, especially around the subject of Jesus and seeing him/the Christian faith misrepresented to such a degree that it could mislead others down the wrong path. I don’t normally write responses to things like this, but I felt this one deserved it, mainly just to add some clarity to a somewhat confusing topic, and so there’s a pla...

Why Read The Early Church Fathers?

...from the introduction to my new book. You can read more from the Early Church Fathers in my new book, 40 Days with the Fathers: A Journey Through Church History, which is available now on Amazon. See lukejwilson.com for more details and to begin your journey through the first four centuries of the Church!  ...

The Deity of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew - Part 2

...Matthew's theme - The divine presence of Jesus This is a guest post by “KingsServant”, see Part 1 here. Having covered Matthew’s introduction to his gospel in his nativity account, we will now consider the way Matthew “bookends” the gospel by beginning his work with the promise of God dwelling with his people (fulfilled in the incarnation) and ending it in the same way with Jesus’ comforting promise never to leave his followers. This theme of Matthew begins with his quotation of Isaiah 7:14, which we have already analysed in the previous article with regard to how it reveals Matthew’s teaching that Jesus is God. As noted before, in Matthew...

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...

Man-Made Tradition vs Apostolic Tradition

...and as an introduction to the traditions of the Apostles as we can see the things they did and said, and what they taught the churches. But Christianity didn’t (and doesn’t) stop with the New Testament. Jesus himself promised the Holy Spirit to us as a means to be taught more (Jn 14:26) so that we wouldn’t be left alone or have everything he taught, lost to the sands of time. The truth of the Gospel and how believers should act and live, and how to conduct ourselves in Church gatherings, was tied closely to what the Apostles taught and those traditions of theirs which were handed down to the succession of Bishops in all the churches. These Bishops and chu...