Blog Search Results

The Coming of Jesus: Daniel's 70 Weeks

...t is the Greek version of that Hebrew word – hence Jesus Christ, or Jesus the Messiah (although, not all who were anointed were thought or expected to be the promised Saviour-Messiah). This timescale brings us perfectly up to the 69 "weeks" of Daniel's prophecy, which is 483 years leaving only the remaining "week" to go. There is a 'pause' here, similar to the first 7 weeks, in the way the angel Gabriel phrases the prophecy to Daniel in verse 26: "After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing" – so the initial 483 years brings us up to the next appearance of the Anointed One, and then after this he shall be "cut of...

Raised in the Heavenlies!

...(Hades in Greek) had become more defined in its description and how the dead were handled there. We can see an example of this in the parable of Jesus about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) where the wicked are punished in a separate ‘section’ to where the righteous wait peacefully, kept apart by a huge gulf. But this was said and taught pre-crucifixion and more importantly, pre-resurrection. We get a small glimpse into the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection from Peter and Paul in their letters where Peter explains that Jesus “went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:18-19) – “prison” being the place of th...

Lent: Day 15 - Justin Martyr: First Apology, Chaps. 36-47

...y ancient Greek text to have this wording, and then any other quote from Tertullian onward (~200 AD), comes purely from the The Old Latin Version (Vetus Latina Bible) translation of the Psalm, which is the Latin Bible which predated the Vulgate. Prophecy and free will The rest of the chapters go through more examples of prophetic messages and the different types that can be found in the OT, such as explaining that sometimes the Spirit spoke prophecies in the past tense as though they had already happened. To avoid this being used as a reason to misrepresent the message, Justin goes on to explain that the “things which [God] absolutely knows will take place,...

Women should be silent?

...ue to the Greek words). First thing though - "as the law also says": what law? Where is this in the Torah? Even if it is, why is Paul suddenly enforcing the Law when his other letters take so much time to explain our freedom from it (cf. Gal 3:1-14; Gal 5:1-15)? Cultural and historical explanations of this aside - and common explanations such as men and women sitting separately in Jewish synagogues which then followed through to the early church, (and women/wives then trying to shout across to their husbands causing havoc and Paul calling for order, not submission) - if some men and women, and some denominations in general, are taking Paul so literally on th...

God before ages becomes an infant!

...'s all in Greek,  but subtitled.      May you all have a good Christmas  :)...

40 Days with the Fathers: Companion Texts OUT NOW!

...40 Days with the Fathers: Companion Texts is now available to buy as Paperback or Kindle! I am happy to say that the new book is now available in paperback and Kindle format on Amazon! Other eBook formats will be available soon as it rolls out. This book is the companion to my other book (40 Days with the Fathers: A Daily Reading Plan), and includes twenty-three Early Church texts in full—including all additional footnotes from the original editors and translators so that you can get as close as possible to reading these ancient texts without needing to know ancient Greek or Latin. It's structured in such a way to read a chapter a day over a 40 day period...