The Resurrection as a historical event
Header Image: The Resurrection by Luca Giordano (1632–1705)
Table of Contents
What with Easter still ringing in our ears, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the topic of resurrection, but from a historical standpoint and why we can trust it as a real, world-changing event. So, what really is the resurrection? How will we be resurrected, and what does it mean for us that Jesus rose again? Let’s explore what this means for us as Christians, and see what the Scriptures say.
Jesus was raised bodily – and historically
Let’s look at the way Jesus was resurrected first, since he is the “firstfruits” of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:20-23).
The historical, bodily resurrection of Christ is central to our faith. Without it, we may as well pack up and go home, which Paul makes clear to the Corinthian church:
1 Corinthians 15:12-15
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
I saw a survey recently about this very topic, which suggested that a worrying amount of self-identifying Christians in Britain don’t believe that the resurrection of Jesus happened at all!
Fewer than one-in-three Christians in Britain believe “word-for-word” the Biblical story of Jesus rising from the dead … A survey for the BBC carried out to mark Palm Sunday found that 23 per cent of those calling themselves Christians “do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead” at all. [Source: telegraph.co.uk]
The resurrection is what makes Christianity unique!
Despite the misinformation that circulates on the internet, Jesus isn’t just a carbon-copy of previous “dying and rising gods” from Egypt and Greece – mainly because none pre-date Christianity!
The consensus among modern scholars — nearly universal — is that there were no dying and rising gods that preceded Christianity. They all post-dated the first century. [Source: y-jesus.com]
It’s this uniqueness and reality which impacts our lives and changes us from within, because the “Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells” in us (Rom 8:11)! Think about that for a moment. The power that raised Christ from the dead – that incredible force of God; the very life giving Spirit of the universe, dwells in US!
Christians might do all those [good works], but that is not the core of their faith. It is the result of their faith. They do those things as the musician plays music or the athlete plays his sport. They do those things because they are talented and it gives them joy. So the Christian does these good things because he has been filled with the Spirit of the risen Jesus Christ and he does those things with joy because he wants to. [Source: patheos.com]
Recently, the Shroud of Turin has been in the news again, as it has been recently authenticated again, which shows that it may not be a medieval forgery or piece of art! If you’ve not heard of this “Shroud of Turin”, it’s an ancient burial cloth which bears the image of a man who has been crucified, obviously meaning to be of Jesus. It attracts attention because of its unique nature and that it appears to be a negative image somehow imprinted on the cloth in an inexplicable way:
Giulio Fanti of Padua University ... In 2012 … concluded that an electrical charge in the form of radiation is what likely caused the man’s image to be imprinted on the Shroud. He has also dated the Shroud to the time of Jesus, debunking the flawed carbon-14 testing conducted in 1988.
You can read more about the recent study and its results here: nationalreview.com.
Now obviously, the truth of the resurrection doesn't rely on the Shroud’s authenticity; but if the Shroud is authentic, then it just adds further weight to what Christianity proclaims.
Imagine the level of power that must have happened to make something like that, and that is the same Spirit which lives in us! Just think about it, the death of Jesus caused an earthquake across all of Jerusalem, how much more power was there in the life of God coming back in resurrection? Maybe a similar process of how “nuclear shadows” were created? It’s speculation, but it’s definitely interesting.
Evidence from Paul
Paul talks a lot about Jesus in a spiritual, post-resurrection way; but he does give us a couple of references to the historic Jesus too. In his letter to the Corinth church there is one such example of what happened after the resurrection:
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
(v.6) “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.”
After a quick run-down of the Gospel and how Jesus rose again, Paul highlights a little tidbit of info which is him basically saying, “if you don’t believe me, you can go an ask those people!” He’s saying, “don’t just take my word for it”, because there are living witnesses all over the place who can testify to this fact, not just the small group of Apostles.
Aside from this, Paul’s own life and testimony is a pretty solid proof of the resurrection of Jesus. Paul was taught by the best, had a high position, well respected etc. (Acts 22:3 cf. Acts 5:34; Phil 3:4-6; 2 Cor 11:22); basically he was living the life – and then decided to throw all of that away and endure shipwrecks, beatings, lashings, torture, stoning, hunger and homelessness (see 2 Cor 11:23-27 for the full run-down of Paul’s sufferings!), just for something that may or may not have happened, a convincing story or fable?
No, Paul met the real, risen Christ, and it threw his old life out of the window!
The mystery of the 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 the dead for those people from times of old who had died. Paul also, in his letter to the Ephesians, follows up on this same event when he says that Jesus, “who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things” and that in doing so “he made captivity itself a captive” (Eph 4: 8-10).
Death itself is captive to Jesus because he holds the keys to Death and Hades (Rev 1:18), and dare I say, this moment when the Light of the World went down into the shadowy darkness of Sheol, it was possibly the first and last time there was ever any light in that gloomy place!
Ignatius gives us an early insight into the understanding of this descending and rising out of that “prison” Hades (or Sheol in Hebrew), by linking it to the event in Mat 27:52 –
“For Says the Scripture, ‘Many bodies of the saints that slept arose,’ their graves being opened. He descended, indeed, into Hades alone, but He arose accompanied by a multitude” – Ignatius to the Trallians, ch. IX
The nature of the resurrection
Firstly, the resurrection is spiritual.
Though spiritual isn’t the only type of resurrection taught in the New Testament, many people think that’s it’s purely a physical act only.
Many times in Scripture when speaking of baptism, it is used and described as a symbolic act of dying and being raised with Christ into a new creation, despite keeping our “old” bodies in the meantime (see Col 2:12; Col 3:1; Eph 2:5-6; Rom 6:4). This, I believe, is why there was such an emphasis on the importance of baptism in the early Church, and why it’s something sacred we should also highly esteem and not take lightly.
While these verses (and many others) make it clear that through baptism we die to our old selves and are raised anew in Christ, we must also understand that this prefigures our future resurrection when we finally “put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:53-54). Though we will eventually die physically in the body, we won't die at all because death is defeated and it has no sting nor power over us!
In ancient times (and probably still today) accepting the resurrection of Jesus, and our future selves, was a major sticking point for new converts, or those interested in the faith. Even the Jewish leaders couldn’t agree in on this let alone Gentiles! Resurrection was a totally new concept to expect to receive personally, or to happen at all; even the Jewish sect of the Sadducees didn’t believe it – just see Acts 23:8 for that.
Paul spends quite some time on the resurrection and explaining what it means and how it will be, though it is a topic that will always be limited by our human understanding. This is why the nature of the resurrection is always contrasted with the putting on of new clothes or in building a new tent, or the sowing of seeds. Even if you don’t have a farming background, it’s still easy to understand the concept of what is being said here in terms of our physical, mortal body being removed like an outer garment, and being replaced with something better (1 Cor 15:44; 2 Cor 5:1-2).
It is quite rightly a mystery, as Paul says!
Justin Martyr gives a good analogy in his great work, First Apology, when trying to explain this concept of the resurrection to a Roman emperor, and contrasts it with “human seed” (ie. sperm);
[If I] were to show you human seed and a picture of a man, and were to say with confidence that from such a substance such a being could be produced, would you believe before you saw the actual production?
– St. Justin Martyr: First Apology
Basically, if you’d never known human growth, and someone showed you a drop of fluid and a photo of an adult and said one produced the other, would you believe it if you hadn’t already witnessed it to be true? In the same way then, the resurrection happens, and it can only be accepted by those who are willing to believe something which seems impossible, but will “in God's appointed time, rise again and put on incorruption”.
The resurrection is more than physical
I prefer to use the word “glorified” with regards to our resurrection because saying “physical” just isn't adequate enough to describe the mystery of what our bodies become.
Our new bodies will be similar to our current physical bodies, but not the same – not limited like our earthly bodies are; in the same way Jesus was changed, we too shall also be transformed “into the likeness of His glorious body” (Phil 3:21)!
In the same way that spiritual beings such as angels can become “physical” in appearance, they aren't the same as we are now. Much like when Jesus ascended to the Father and later appeared to his disciples, he was no longer the same human Jesus they once knew (2 Cor 5:16).
Despite eating and drinking (Luke 24:39-43) and seeming the same as before, he now appeared in their midst behind locked doors (John 20:19); travelled with people in an unrecognisable form – or could control other’s perceptions of him until required (Luke 24:15-16), and the could also disappear in the blink of an eye (Luke 24:31)!
Christ was raised physically, initially, but then his body was different. Glorified, not human.
Origen captures this concept well in his book Contra Celsus;
“After his resurrection, Christ existed in an intermediate state, as it were. For it was somewhere between the physicalness of the body He had before his sufferings and the appearance of a soul uncovered by such a body. It was for this reason that … Jesus came and stood in [the disciples] midst, even though the doors were shut.”
– Origen, Contra Celsus, Book II, ch.62
So what is the resurrection? It is a mystery of something which is deeply spiritual, yet also joined in the flesh of renewed bodies. It is hope for our future and peace over death, and encouragement for those who have had people they love die (1 Thess 4:13-14).
It is something we can rejoice in now through our baptism and new spiritual life in Christ by his Spirit within us, which makes us a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).
It is strange co-joining of this world and the heavenly realms where, despite still being in our tarnished flesh, we are also seated with Christ up high (Eph 2:6), waiting until the day in which we finally put on immortality and join our Lord in a restored creation.
Amen!
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��Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38) What is “truth”? A question famously asked by Pilate to Jesus during his trial. Ironically, Pilate was speaking to the embodiment of Truth itself. John 14:6Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ Here’s a little ‘riddle’ to think about while you read this; see if you agree or not: “all truth is fact, but not all facts are truth”. I’ll explain it at the end if you’re confused. Jesus is the ultimate Truth, but in a world and society that is becoming increasingly more relative, how do we test the truth and know what’s real or not? Especially with the sudden rise of AI video and photos getting more and more realistic, that old adage “the camera never lies” is completely false now. This makes sifting and filtering facts from fiction on social media all the more difficult. Memes and images are shared stating claims bluntly and authoritatively as truth, which people just assume are accurate and then share it hundreds of thousands of times. Truth has been replaced by opinion masquerading as truth. “Your truth”, “my truth”, “their truth”. But we can’t just blindly accept everything we see and are told. We must use our brains, check the sources and use our reasoning. God gave us intellect and reasoning to be used. In Isaiah 1:18, God invites us to come and reason together with him. We don’t follow a blind faith, we’re never asked to believe “just because”. The Old Testament is full of times when the historical examples of God’s actions are used as an anchor and reason for faith, and the same is true in the New Testament where we have the Gospels as eyewitness accounts, rooted in history. Paul writes to say that 500 people saw the risen Christ and that many are still alive so you can go and verify it for yourself and that he is passing on what he received from trusted people. The resurrection itself is grounded in it being a real event that if shown otherwise would make our faith “futile” and that we would be people to be most pitied. 1 Corinthians 15:17“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” So with this in mind about our faith being grounded, all the more we should aim to do the same in other aspects of our lives. “Do your own research” is a common mantra online, but that in itself isn’t just Googling something and taking the first result that pops up. Especially now as most search engines give an AI overview first, which is just a compilation of the top results, not anything verified or fact-checked. And top results don’t always mean best results, or even accurate results. It typically just means the best keyworded and SEO-optimised result, which could be anything. To properly research, you must know which are trusted sources, reputable websites as well as looking up people who are experts and authorities in their fields. Now this doesn’t always mean they are right but at least you’ll be better informed to make up your own mind and make decisions based on well-researched information, rather than the first blog you find online, or the most viewed YouTube video with someone yelling “facts” at you. Doing your own research means doing the leg-work in tracing down sources and footnotes and citations to see who said what and where it originated to ensure its faithful and trustworthy, and used in context. The answer and example of the riddle The “Black Swan Problem” Strictly speaking, it highlights the difference between observed facts and absolute truth: The “Fact” (at the time): For thousands of years, every recorded, verified observation of a swan in Europe was white. As far as European zoologists were concerned, “all swans are white” was a well-documented, empirically backed fact. The Truth: Millions of black swans were happily swimming around in Western Australia. The truth was always that black swan...
Luke J. Wilson | 29th December 2025 | Christmas
January 6th marks the day in the liturgical calendar when the arrival of the Magi visiting baby Jesus with their gifts is celebrated. But with it comes the often distressing account of what is known as the Massacre of the Innocents. Matthew places this moment of revelation of Jesus as King alongside one of the darkest episodes in his Gospel, and it’s a stark contrast: one King is here to bring peace on earth, as the angels declared, the other king brought death and destruction. For some readers, this raises an immediate historical question. If Herod truly ordered the killing of all the male children under two in Bethlehem, why does no other ancient historian mention it? Josephus, after all, delights in cataloguing Herod’s cruelty. He records the execution of Herod’s wife, his sons, and numerous political rivals. Herod was paranoid and vicious. As for Herod, if he had before any doubt about the slaughter of his sons, there was now no longer any room left in his soul for it; but he had banished away whatsoever might afford him the least suggestion of reasoning better about this matter, so he already made haste to bring his purpose to a conclusion. He also brought out three hundred of the officers that were under an accusation … whom the multitude stoned with whatsoever came to hand, and thereby slew them. — Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 16.11.7 So, why the silence here about Bethlehem? The answer, I would say, isn’t anything nefarious or made-up by Matthew, but just something simply down to scale. Bethlehem Was a Very Small Place Bethlehem in the early first century was not a city. It was a village — small, agricultural, and politically insignificant. Most historians estimate its population at somewhere between 300 and 1,000 people, with around 500 being a sensible midpoint. Once we factor in ancient demographics, the numbers become surprisingly modest. Modern demographic research into pre-industrial societies consistently shows that nearly half of all children died before adulthood, with the highest concentration of deaths occurring in the first two years of life. These findings align closely with conditions in Roman-period Judea and support conservative estimates for the number of infants living in a small village such as Bethlehem. Source: Mortality in the past: every second child died — Our World in Data In pre-modern societies with high infant mortality, only about 2–3% of the population would be living children under the age of two at any given time. Many children were born; far fewer survived those earliest years. Applying a conservative 2.5% figure to Bethlehem gives us roughly: 7–8 children under two in a village of 300 12–13 children under two in a village of 500 25 children under two even at the extreme upper estimate of 1,000 inhabitants Herod’s order, however, targeted male children only. Statistically, that halves the number. This places the likely number of victims somewhere between three and twelve boys. Matthew’s reference to ‘Bethlehem and the surrounding region’ does slightly widen the scope of Herod’s order, but not by enough to change the demographic picture. Even when nearby settlements are included (e.g. farmsteads, shepherd settlements, etc. not major cities/towns), the total number of children under two likely remained in the dozens rather than the hundreds, maybe anywhere between 14–45 boys maximum if we make an educated estimate. This is entirely consistent with what we know of population size and infant mortality in the ancient world. This is an important number to realise and consider. Not because the deaths are insignificant simply due to being so few, but because ancient historians did not record history the way we do now. A small number of peasant children killed in an obscure village would not have registered as a notable event alongside palace intrigue, royal executions, or political upheaval. For Josephus, it wou...
Luke J. Wilson | 13th December 2025 | Christmas
How can God beget a Son? Does that mean Jesus is His creation? This question comes sharply into focus during Advent, when the Church contemplates the Incarnation: the eternal Son entering the world as a baby in Mary’s womb. And to understand this, we turn to language the Church has treasured for centuries — especially that crucial distinction between begotten and created. And C. S. Lewis describes this with a real concise clarity: We don’t use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers, and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set — or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive. Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God, just as what man creates is not man. By saying that Jesus is begotten from the Father, we are saying that Jesus is fully God and not a creation of God (Arianism), nor is the Son of God simply a mode or action of God (Sabellianism). This is the heart of Christian theology: begotten = shared nature created = different nature Begotten Means “of the Same Essence” When the Father begets the Son, He is not constructing or manufacturing Him. Begetting is not an act inside time. It is an eternal relationship. Just as: light is never without radiance a fire is never without heat the Father is never without the Son There was never a moment “before” the Son existed. The Son is eternally from the Father, sharing His nature, His essence, His Godness. As John says in the opening of his Gospel, Jesus as the Son was/is “in the bosom of the Father”. This was historically understood that the Word always existed within the Father. When Christ Is Misunderstood: Modalism and Arianism Two ancient heresies emerge from misunderstanding “begotten, not made.” 1. Modalism (Sabellianism) This claims that: Father, Son, and Spirit are just different forms or roles of one person. This erases the real distinctions within the Trinity. If Modalism were true: Jesus is praying to Himself. The Father sending the Son is theatre. Christ’s baptism is a staged illusion. Modalism collapses the Persons into one persona wearing different masks. 2. Arianism Arius taught that: Jesus was created by God ex nihilo He is a divine-like being, but not equal in essence This makes Jesus the highest creature… but still a creature. If Jesus is created, then He cannot: reveal God perfectly unite humanity to God save us entirely and absolutely Only God can reconcile us to God. The Nicene Creed: Drawing a Line in the Sand At the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), the Church responded boldly and clearly: God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. This was a decisive boundary. begotten — of the same nature not made — not a creation of one being (homoousios) — equal in essence, not similar The Creed functioned like a theological guardrail. Christ is not “like God” — He is God. The creeds act as guardrails for orthodox interpretation Proverbs 8: Wisdom Begotten, Not Created The Fathers saw Proverbs 8 as speaking of the Son under the title “Wisdom”: The Lord begot me at the beginning of his work...
Luke J. Wilson | 31st October 2025 | Halloween
In our last post, we walked with Perpetua and Felicity through the sands of the amphitheatre, their faith outshining Rome’s cruelty. Now for the final part in this series, we turn to another of the Church’s earliest heroes — one whose courage was matched by an unexpected wit. His name was Lawrence, a deacon of Rome, remembered across centuries as the man who kept his humour even while lying on the griddle. The Setting: Rome, AD 258 Under Emperor Valerian, a fresh persecution of Christians swept through the Empire. Bishops, priests, and deacons were hunted down, their property seized, and their churches closed. The bishop of Rome at that time was Sixtus II — a gentle and wise shepherd who, like the apostles before him, was soon to drink from the same cup as his Lord. Among his closest companions was Deacon Lawrence, entrusted with overseeing the Church’s treasury and distributing alms to the poor. The Acts of St Lawrence tell us that when Sixtus was arrested and led to execution, Lawrence ran after him, crying out that he would not be left behind. Where are you going, father, without your son? Where are you going, priest, without your deacon? You never used to offer sacrifice without me as your minister! To which Sixtus replied: My son, I’m not leaving you. Greater trials are waiting for you. In three days you’ll follow me. Sixtus was beheaded soon after. Lawrence, meanwhile, was arrested and brought before the Roman prefect who, hearing that Lawrence had been the keeper of the Church’s wealth, demanded that he hand it over to the empire. The True Treasure of the Church The exchange that followed has been remembered ever since, partly for its irony, partly for its courage. “Bring forth,” said the prefect, “the treasures of the Church — the gold, the silver, and the precious vessels — that the emperor may possess them.” Lawrence asked for three days to gather them, which the prefect granted, no doubt imagining chests of glittering riches being prepared for him. Instead, Lawrence went through the city, gathering the blind, the crippled, the widows, the orphans, and all who were destitute or suffering. On the third day, he presented them before the prefect and declared: These are the treasures of the Church. Behold the gold and silver that I promised thee — the eternal jewels in whom Christ dwells. The prefect, enraged at being mocked, ordered that Lawrence be scourged and tortured, then laid upon an iron gridiron above a slow fire. The Martyrdom The ancient texts, mingling reverence and humour, tell the story that has echoed down the ages and had left an impact on me purely for the humour that I find in it! They laid him upon the iron bed, and beneath it kindled coals, that his flesh might be roasted little by little. And Lawrence, lying there, lifted up his eyes to heaven and gave thanks to God for counting him worthy to suffer. After some time, the account continues with words that have made Lawrence one of the most memorable of all martyrs: Having been a long time on the fire, he said to his tormentors with a cheerful countenance: ‘This side is done; turn me over and eat.’ It is difficult to read those words without laughing at how funny it sounds! It matches the kind of dark humour that I can have and often think of, which is probably why the story of Lawrence appeals to me so much, it’s the kind of silly thing I would think to say (though I’m not sure if I would in Lawrence’s place!). In the face of unbearable agony, Lawrence mocked his tormentors and even death itself. His humour was not flippant, but a final victory over the fear that his persecutors wanted to instil. His joke was an act of defiance against the gods whom Decius implored against the power of Christ within Lawrence. Despite how hot it must have been, Lawrence declares a worse fate on Decius, warning him of the fire he will face because of this, saying that the “burning c...
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Luke J. Wilson | 25th August 2026 | William Lane Craig
If you’ve been on Christian social media this week, you’ve probably seen it: William Lane Craig — one of the most respected Protestant apologists of our time— flatly denying a core line of the Nicene Creed. In his own words, he does not believe or confess that the Son is eternally begotten from the Father in his divine nature. Human nature, yes. But divine? Nope. For a lot of readers, that’s a jarring sentence. Isn’t “eternally begotten of the Father” literally in the Creed we recite? How can someone who has spent decades defending the resurrection and the existence of God turn around and reject something so central? I want to walk through what’s actually going on here, because it’s more interesting — and older — than a single viral clip suggests. What Craig is actually rejecting The doctrine in question is called eternal generation: the idea that the Son is eternally derived from the Father, “begotten, not made,” sharing the Father’s nature without there ever being a time he didn’t exist. It’s not saying the Son had a beginning; it’s saying the Son’s very being is eternally from the Father, the way light is eternally from the sun. Craig has argued for years, most fully in his paper Is God the Son Begotten in His Divine Nature? (2019), that this idea owes more to Greek philosophical categories borrowed by the second-century Apologists than to anything the biblical writers themselves teach. He calls it a vestige of “Logos Christology” and prefers a model where Father, Son, and Spirit are simply co-equal and co-eternal, without one eternally generating another. William Lane Craig disavows the Nicene Creed Why I think this gets the history backwards Here’s where I’d push back, and where I think this whole debate needs a bit more historical texture than a viral post can give it. Long before Nicaea formalised its language, the earliest post-apostolic Christians were already working with something like what’s called the Monarchy of the Father (or Monarchical Trinitarianism) — a framework that takes the Father’s monarchia (his unique, self-existent source of divinity, or autotheos) seriously as the fountainhead from which the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds. This is worth distinguishing carefully from Monarchianism, the second/third-century heresy that collapsed the persons of the Trinity into one another to protect God’s oneness — the Monarchy of the Father is the orthodox opposite of that, affirming three distinct, co-eternal persons while still honouring the Father as their singular source. On this reading, the Son and Spirit aren’t lesser, but they do find the very source of their divinity in the Father — not as effects of a philosophical system layered onto scripture, but as a way of taking John’s own language (the Word who was with God and was God, yet distinct from “the Father”) with full seriousness. That’s the thing I think gets lost when eternal generation gets dismissed as a “leftover.” Logos Christology isn’t an embarrassing accretion — it’s arguably what John 1 is doing from verse one. The Church didn’t import that idea to explain the text; the text seems to be why the Church needed the idea. None of this makes Craig any less serious a thinker, and it’s worth saying plainly: this isn’t the first time he’s stepped outside Nicene orthodoxy — he’s made similar moves on Christ’s two wills (dyothelitism) in the past. But it is, I think, a real departure, not just a “minor unorthodoxy.” Why it matters beyond the argument It would be easy to turn this into another “gotcha” moment — ‘look, even the great apologist gets it wrong!’ I don’t think that’s the right response. Craig has done more than most to defend the reasonableness of the Christian faith to a sceptical world, and disagreeing with him on this doesn’t erase that. But it is a good reminder that ev...
Guest Author | 31st July 2026 | Prayer
Guest Post By Fiach OBroin-Molloy My own roots lie in the Catholic tradition, but my workbench has brought me into contact with Christians whose devotional lives differ from mine. I make Catholic rosaries, Anglican prayer beads and other forms of devotional beads by hand. That work has not taught me that distinctions between traditions do not matter. It has taught me that, beneath those distinctions, many of us know the same difficulty: we want to pray, but our attention is restless. I have travelled, lived and worked in a number of countries, from parts of Africa to countries further east. Again and again, I encountered beads or knotted cords held, counted or carried in prayer. The words, beliefs and purposes were not the same, and I would not flatten them into one vague spirituality. What stayed with me was the recurring human instinct to give devotion rhythm and weight—to let the body help the mind and heart remain present. For a Christian, however, that instinct is gathered into a particular faith—the faith confessed in the creeds. Our prayer is addressed to the God made known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is shaped by Scripture and centred on Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, crucified and risen. Prayer beads do not broaden that confession into something less definite. At their best, they help us stay with it. A faith that takes flesh seriously Christian prayer is never only an activity of the mind. We speak and sing. We stand, kneel and bow. We fold our hands, make the sign of the cross, and receive bread and wine. The Christian faith does not ask us to escape being embodied creatures. At its centre is the astonishing declaration that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Material things are not God, but they can serve our attention to God. That is the modest place in which I understand prayer beads. They do not create faith, improve the words of Scripture or make prayer more sincere. They simply give the hands something quiet to do while the heart and mind try to remain present. As a maker, I think about weight, texture, spacing and movement. A bead should pass naturally beneath the thumb. The cord or chain should be strong enough to be returned to repeatedly. A good set of prayer beads should not continually demand admiration for itself. Its purpose is to become quiet in the hand. Over time, beads polish, wood darkens and metal takes on the small marks of use. I rarely know the prayers that have been said with something I have made, but sometimes its wear tells me that it has been held often. That is a different kind of beauty from newness: not decoration, but evidence of return. What the hands bring to Scripture Lectio Divina invites us to read Scripture slowly and receptively. Luke J. Wilson has written much more fully about its four movements—reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation—and I would not try to redefine that teaching here. What interests me as a maker is the point at which a reader’s hand might support that attention. Most of us have become highly practised at moving quickly through words. We skim messages, headlines and pages, often looking for the next piece of information before we have received the one in front of us. Sacred reading asks something different. It asks us to stay. A bead introduces a small resistance to speed. It marks a pause and gives us somewhere to return when the mind has already hurried ahead. The Anglican prayer beads I make contain a cross, an invitatory bead, four cruciform beads and four groups of seven, often called weeks. I know that structure first through the work of my hands, not because I would presume to tell Anglicans how they ought to pray. What strikes me about it is its spaciousness: there are landmarks, passages and repeated opportunities to return to the cross. One possible practice would be to choose a short passage from the Gospels. At the cross, the reader might remember that Christ is the centre of the reading. ...
Luke J. Wilson | 29th July 2026 | Faith & Reason
��Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38) What is “truth”? A question famously asked by Pilate to Jesus during his trial. Ironically, Pilate was speaking to the embodiment of Truth itself. John 14:6Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ Here’s a little ‘riddle’ to think about while you read this; see if you agree or not: “all truth is fact, but not all facts are truth”. I’ll explain it at the end if you’re confused. Jesus is the ultimate Truth, but in a world and society that is becoming increasingly more relative, how do we test the truth and know what’s real or not? Especially with the sudden rise of AI video and photos getting more and more realistic, that old adage “the camera never lies” is completely false now. This makes sifting and filtering facts from fiction on social media all the more difficult. Memes and images are shared stating claims bluntly and authoritatively as truth, which people just assume are accurate and then share it hundreds of thousands of times. Truth has been replaced by opinion masquerading as truth. “Your truth”, “my truth”, “their truth”. But we can’t just blindly accept everything we see and are told. We must use our brains, check the sources and use our reasoning. God gave us intellect and reasoning to be used. In Isaiah 1:18, God invites us to come and reason together with him. We don’t follow a blind faith, we’re never asked to believe “just because”. The Old Testament is full of times when the historical examples of God’s actions are used as an anchor and reason for faith, and the same is true in the New Testament where we have the Gospels as eyewitness accounts, rooted in history. Paul writes to say that 500 people saw the risen Christ and that many are still alive so you can go and verify it for yourself and that he is passing on what he received from trusted people. The resurrection itself is grounded in it being a real event that if shown otherwise would make our faith “futile” and that we would be people to be most pitied. 1 Corinthians 15:17“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” So with this in mind about our faith being grounded, all the more we should aim to do the same in other aspects of our lives. “Do your own research” is a common mantra online, but that in itself isn’t just Googling something and taking the first result that pops up. Especially now as most search engines give an AI overview first, which is just a compilation of the top results, not anything verified or fact-checked. And top results don’t always mean best results, or even accurate results. It typically just means the best keyworded and SEO-optimised result, which could be anything. To properly research, you must know which are trusted sources, reputable websites as well as looking up people who are experts and authorities in their fields. Now this doesn’t always mean they are right but at least you’ll be better informed to make up your own mind and make decisions based on well-researched information, rather than the first blog you find online, or the most viewed YouTube video with someone yelling “facts” at you. Doing your own research means doing the leg-work in tracing down sources and footnotes and citations to see who said what and where it originated to ensure its faithful and trustworthy, and used in context. The answer and example of the riddle The “Black Swan Problem” Strictly speaking, it highlights the difference between observed facts and absolute truth: The “Fact” (at the time): For thousands of years, every recorded, verified observation of a swan in Europe was white. As far as European zoologists were concerned, “all swans are white” was a well-documented, empirically backed fact. The Truth: Millions of black swans were happily swimming around in Western Australia. The truth was always that black swan...
Luke J. Wilson | 27th July 2026 | Archaeology
In early July 2026, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced something pretty amazing: an entire Byzantine-era city, buried beneath the sands of the Dakhla Oasis, had been uncovered almost intact! Streets, homes, bread ovens, a fortress, and at its heart, a fourth-century basilica church. That might not seem very exciting on first glance. But this find deserves a closer look, because it puts flesh on something we usually only encounter in the abstract: what it actually looked like when Christianity took root, house by house, in an ordinary town far from the centres of imperial power. What Was Found The excavation, carried out by an Egyptian mission under the Supreme Council of Antiquities at the Ain El-Sabil site in the New Valley Governorate, roughly 185 miles west of Luxor, has been underway for several seasons. According to Hisham El Leithy, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the settlement was laid out on a deliberate grid — north-south thoroughfares crossed by east-west streets, forming open squares and public spaces. This wasn’t a huddle of huts; it was a planned town. At the centre of that plan stood a basilica church dating to the mid-fourth century AD, overlooking one of the main streets. Around it, archaeologists found the remains of two watchtowers, a heavily fortified structure with thick defensive walls, and houses with spacious reception halls and vaulted roofs — complete with bread ovens, kitchens, and grinding stones for processing grain. Everyday life, preserved almost exactly as it was left. Two houses stand out that have been identified. One belonged to a man named Tisous,* identified as a church deacon, dating to the second half of the fourth century. The other belonged to a man named Tabibos. Over a thousand years later and we know the name of who owned a house and a home-church; I always find it fascinating! Archaeologists believe Tabibos’s house, which dates to the early fourth century, functioned as a house church before the basilica was ever built. A collection of coins bearing Byzantine emperors, Christian symbols and Latin inscriptions was uncovered during the excavation. (Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities via Facebook; Dea Picture Library/De Agostini via Getty Images) There’s also a documentary find that’s easy to skim past but genuinely significant: nearly 200 ostraca — broken pieces of pottery and limestone used as everyday writing material — inscribed in Coptic and Greek. Diaa Zahran, head of the Islamic, Coptic and Jewish Antiquities Sector, described them as recording sales transactions, correspondence, and other mundane details of daily life. Things we rarely get a glimpse into as the mundane rarely makes history. Alongside these, the mission recovered a substantial haul of bronze coins bearing Byzantine emperors and Christian symbols, plus gold coins from the reign of Constantius II (337–361 AD) — coinage that anchors the site’s prosperity firmly within the fourth century. Before the Basilica: The House Church at Ain El-Sabil What makes Tabibos’s house the most theologically interesting part of this discovery is timing. If it predates the basilica and dates to the early fourth century, it sits right at — or just before — the pivot point of Roman-Egyptian Christian history: the years surrounding Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 AD, when Christianity moved from a persecuted minority faith to a tolerated, and increasingly favoured, one. A time of transition between a house church and a purpose-built basilica when the threat of persecution no longer loomed over the Church. We know from Paul’s letters that the earliest churches met in homes — Romans 16:5 greets “the church in [Prisca and Aquila’s] house,” and similar greetings appear in 1 Corinthians 16:19 and Colossians 4:15. If we were to imagine how a letter from Paul to this house church might...
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