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What does the word "Catholic" mean?

  For many people today, non-Christians and (low church) Christians alike, when they hear the word “Catholic”, certain images spring to mind: the Pope, the rosery, Catholic school, big old churches buildings, choirboys, maybe monks or statues of Mary even; and sadly more recently, sex abuse scandals. But, generally speaking, all of these are actually aspects of Roman Catholicism — a particular branch of Christianity, and not what the word “catholic” truly means as we’ll see when examining how the early church used the word and what the original Greek word means. καθολικός (katholikos) The Greek word where we get the English word “c...

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...

The World's Oldest Anti-Christian Meme

I first came across the Alexamenos graffito back in Bible college in the early 2000s. It was one of those “fun facts” that gets dropped into a church history lecture and sticks with you — the ancient Roman equivalent of someone spray-painting an insult on a wall. I filed it away, thought it was fascinating, and largely forgot about it for two decades. Then, recently, I discovered something about it I had never known. There’s a response to it. Scratched in a different room, in a different hand. So I started digging into this more to verify the information and discovered more historical curiosities surrounding the graffiti than I ever knew existed wh...

Horus, Jesus, and Egyptian Mythology: Separating Fact from Fiction

If you've ever found yourself immersed in the world of ancient Egyptian mythology or perhaps watching a documentary on the subject (or even just browsing social media around Christmas time), you might have come across the claim that the story of Jesus shares striking similarities with the story of Horus, an ancient Egyptian deity. While it might seem convincing at first that there's a direct connection between the two, it's essential to understand that the similarities are often exaggerated in popular culture, and many scholars consider them vastly different. In this article, we'll explore the life of Horus, his birth, the miracles he performed, and the truth b...

Was Jesus worshipped in the New Testament?

Often a claim from critics of the faith, and especially Muslims arguing against Christianity, is that Jesus wasn't thought of as God early on and more to the point, wasn't ever worshipped in the accounts of the New Testament. This is a very cursory look at a few places within the Gospels where Jesus was clearly worshipped, either by his followers or others he encountered, and didn't rebuke or correct people for doing something wrong. Worshiping Jesus: 1. Matthew 14:33 - The Proclamation of Divinity And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” In the aftermath of a storm on the Lake of Galilee which Jesus calmed with a...

Where Hal Lindsey and Dispensationalism Went Wrong

This is a guest post from Charles Meek Hal Lindsey’s bookThe Late Great Planet Earth Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth, first edition in 1970, sold over 40 million copies. Gullible Christians got sucked into Lindsey’s soon-end-of-the-world cult-like poppycock. As time has passed without his version of Armageddon taking place, we can now objectively analyze where Lindsey went wrong: Lindsey (p. 54, 181), like other dispensationalists, placed the beginning of the end with Israel becoming a nation in 1948. He thought all prophecy would be fulfilled within a 40-year generation (Matthew 24:34). But 1988 came and went, proving him to b...