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The Coming of Jesus: Our Future Hope - What Now?

...ounds and love rules. Sin and death are defeated (2 Tim 1:10) and those who believe on Christ are given new life and right to be heirs to eternal life (Titus 3:6-7)! The old has passed and the new has surely come (2 Cor 5:17)!   Through baptism we are born again into our new bodies, spiritually speaking (Col 2:12), whilst we wait to put on and clothe ourselves with immortality fully upon physical death by our resurrected bodies (1 Cor 15:54).   In terms of the new creation in contrast to the old, the early Christians had a belief and view of the resurrection of Jesus as being the beginning of the new creation – the eighth day they called it. The epistle...

?️ How Do I Become a Christian? A message for Muslims seeking to understand the way of Christ

...e. In His love, He has revealed Himself as Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit — not three gods, but one God in three persons. ➤ Jesus Is More Than a Prophet Muslims honour Jesus as a great prophet, born of the virgin Mary. Christians also affirm this — but go further. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Word of God (Kalimat Allāh), who became flesh to live among us. He performed miracles, healed the sick, raised the dead — and lived without sin.Jesus came not just to teach but to save — to bring us back to God by bearing our sins and rising again in victory over death. 2. Why Do We Need Saving? ➤ The Problem: Sin All people...

Before The Pumpkins: The Road To The Lions

...t of deep love, a participation in the suffering of Christ, and he viewed it as a way to complete his race (2 Timothy 4:7). Sharing in Christ’s Passion In Philippians 3:10, Paul writes of his desire “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”. Ignatius embodied this verse (and many others with a similar theme) to the letter. His understanding of discipleship was not one of half-measures but of total surrender, even to the point of death. To the Roman believers who pleaded for his rescue, he responded almost with rebuke but also concern that they might prevent his death, “For I a...

An ancient fragment mentions Jesus' wife!?

...tween the love of a husband and wife being the same kind of love and commitment as Jesus had for his church: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25) This theme of husband and wife with Jesus as the groom and husband even follows through into John's apocalyptic Revelation, probably in a more vivid depiction than the previous examples: And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride,...

Lent: Day 11 - Ignatius to Polycarp

...men to “love their wives, even as the Lord the Church”, but also to those who are unmarried and virgins, they should strive to remain “in a state of purity” – another echo of Paul’s teaching on marriage in 1 Cor 7:8. But there is a definite change of thinking between what Paul wrote and what Ignatius says to Polycarp in the remainder of this chapter. Where Paul says that “it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (1 Cor 7:9) with no other rules attached, Ignatius writes saying that those who wish to marry should plan to “form their union with the approval of the bishop” so that it may be a Godly coupling and not something formed...

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

...ature 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 the high majestic descriptions of Jesus and the Father does have a striking resemblance to John's gospel, and so there's a possibility that this author may have bee...