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Has Brexit just spoiled “End Times” prophecy?

...ation and part of the prophecy in Daniel), and thus begins the reign of the aniti-christ across the globe – identified by popular End Times preacher John Hagee, as the head of the European Union. As you can see, this type of eschatology (the fancy word for “end times prophecy”) which is mainly based on interpreting newspaper headlines over Scripture, leads to all sorts of nonsense and failed predictions year after year, plus the need to rewrite your theories whenever something doesn’t turn out as expected… like the UK leaving the EU and potentially bringing about its collapse. Maybe Brexit just inadvertently thwarted the devil and unwittingly did th...

Biblical Inspiration and the Canon: How We Got the Bible

...The Bible is often described as “God-breathed,” a phrase taken from 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” But what does it mean for Scripture to be “inspired,” and how did the books of the Bible come to be recognised as part of the canon — the authoritative collection of writings that make up the Bible? Were they really “decided” at the Council of Nicaea, as some popular myths claim? Table of Contents Understanding Biblical Inspiration What is the Canon? The Septuagint and the Deuterocanonical Books How Were the Books of the Bi...

Exodus: Gods and Kings Review - Action epic loosely based on the Bible

...I know the film has been out for a while now, but I missed seeing it in the cinema and so have only just seen it. I'm sure there's others out there who still haven't watched this and are wondering whether it's worth the time and effort, so here goes: my review of Exodus.  The film begins with Moses later in life living in the Pharaoh's palace as his adopted son along side his half brother. Now I'm not sure if this part was based on any Jewish Midrash or if it was purely artistic license, but either way I thought it was well done to show how Moses' life could well have gone being brought up Egyptian. Apart from some pretty epic looking battle scenes, t...

An ancient fragment mentions Jesus' wife!?

...urch were part of some big cover-up to hide the "truth" about Jesus: that he married Mary Magdalene and had children. But before we all get too carried away at the so-called implications of this, lets now forget one thing: Jesus being a bridegroom and having a bride (ie. a wife) is in the Gospels and New Testament all along. In his parables, Jesus often referred to, or implied himself as the bridegroom (Matthew 9:15; Mk 2:19; Lk 5:34), whilst the people of the Kingdom of God were a part of the bridal or wedding party (Matthew 25:1-13; Jn 3:29). In Paul's second letter to the Corinthian church, he speaks of them as a bride to be presented to Christ, the husba...

Francis Chan turns towards a more historical and ancient view of Communion

...” This part isn’t too far from reality, really, though a little over-simplified. But I understand his zeal and excitement about this discovery of his, as I went through the exact same mind-blowing realisation around five or so years ago when I first delved into the writings of the Early Church Fathers and was forced to come to the same conclusion that there was something there to seriously consider. If the Church had always understood Jesus’ words and the interpretation of Scripture in a fairly singular and unified way for nearly two millennia, then who was I to come along and say my understanding exceeds the wisdom of everyone before me? It was actually...

The Relationship Between Jesus and Sophia

...the final part of the claims from the pastor in the Instagram post: Sophia is our divine Mother.God is She who loves you. For the final two lines of the caption, I’m going to quote from Matthew J. Ramage’s book, Dark Passages of the Bible: Engaging Scripture with Benedict XVI & Thomas Aquinas, as he deals with, and concludes, what I find to be the best way to respond to whether we should address God as “mother” or “she”, or anything primarily feminine: In the Old Testament, see Dt 32:18 ( “the God who gave you birth”); Ps 22:10 (which appears to compare God to a midwife); Ps 131:2 (“like a child quieted at its mother’s breast”); Is...