Blog Search Results

Women should be silent?

1 Timothy 2:12 - "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent." Here's an often tricky subject, depending on who you speak to about it. Before I begin, it should be noted here that These words ("woman" and "man") could also be translated as "wife" and "husband", which Then changes The thrust of this command quite drastically. This verse, and oThers similar, are often taken by people to mean that it only applies in a church setting (ignoring The fact that we are The Church - 1 Cor 12:27; Rom 12:5). A little while ago when discussing this topic, an argument was put forth about The 'Woman at The Well' preaching to oTher...

Coffee With Jesus: Luke 24

Brief thoughts from daily devotions The road to Emmaus. A familiar story from The Gospel to many, though today as I read it, I noticed some things which I probably glossed over in previous times. At The start of this chapter we see that some of The women who followed Jesus had gone to The tomb with spices to prepare The body of Jesus, and yet were met with a few surprises: an open, empty tomb and some angels! They ran back to The group of apostles and oTher disciples to tell The exciting news, and what was Their response? “[T]hese words seemed to Them an idle tale, and They did not believe Them.” (v.11). They thought it was nonsense! Probably not The react...

Man-Made Tradition vs Apostolic Tradition

Quite often in discussions which are about or involve some aspects of early church history or practices earlier Christians did, someone will inevitably throw out The "show stopper" that is "it's all just man made tradition" Therefore not valid and The discussion is over. It’s as though saying it's "man made", without considering anything oTher than that They can't find an isolated chapter and verse in The bible which states something explicitly, means They've "won" The debate! Nothing more to see here folks, someone told us it's man made so we can all go home now. EiTher that, or The mere mention of The word “tradition” and suddenly you’re accused of be...

Is fasting an expectation for Christians?

The season of Lent is here once again which of course brings up The topic of fasting, since The tradition of Lent comes from following Jesus’ example of his time in The wilderness (Luke 4:1–2). I wasn’t planning on writing anything specific this year like I have previous in previous years, but I felt inspired today at church from one of Gospel readings: MatThew 9:14–15 Then The disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and The Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to Them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as The bridegroom is with Them, can They? The days will come when The bridegroom is t...

Jesus, Mithras and Ancient Roman Cults: Separating Fact from Fiction

Welcome to The next instalment of my series looking at The ancient mythological gods and how They compare to The life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Mithras is yet anoTher popular ancient god that people like to compare with Jesus and make wild claims about, proposing that They are The same deities with different names. But is this even remotely true? This article has ended up being a bit longer than anticipated as it’s one of The few ancient religions that was contemporary to The birth of Christianity which was seen as somewhat of a rival belief system, so There’s a lot of interesting things to cover! The Origins Mithras has his roots in ancient Persi...

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...