Religion

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.

Sometimes, life is a succession of questions that God seems to ignore—until, at the right time, His silence provides an answer that is better than any answer in the world.

What guarantees do we have that the texts from which modern translations of the Bible were made reflect the original?

More than 300 bodies have been found in a Kenyan forest and at least 600 people are missing. The victims, including children, belonged to an apocalyptic cult that carried out a plan of mass suicide by starvation. The shock of the Shakahola massacre has reverberated beyond Kenya's borders, raising disturbing questions, including how the message of Revelation, part of the good news of...

Hudson Taylor undertook eleven journeys between Europe and China, and his mission prospered. He had one of the most complex and successful visions for evangelism.

The relationship between religion and science is complicated, and occasional controversies over healing through prayer have not helped. The tragedy of stories in which refusing medical treatment in favour of prayer ends in death is often exploited in the press to portray religion as rudimentary and backward. That is why it is all the more interesting that a case study attesting to the...

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

If you’ve ever been to a Christian church, there’s a good chance that you’ll have experienced a unique ritual involving bread and grape juice: the Lord’s Supper, or as we’ll refer to it, Communion. Depending on the denomination, your experience may vary wildly. You may be offered a cup that everyone collectively sips out of, accompanied by a piece of bread. Others will...

In ancient Israel, the high priests wore a vest that had two stones on it called the Urim and Thummim. Whenever a question about God’s will was brought to the priest, he would ask God to give the answer. If the stone on the left glowed, it indicated divine approval. If the stone on the right glowed instead, it indicated God’s disapproval.

“It was as if I were living in a fairy tale. And the most wonderful part was that I knew—hard as it may be to believe—that the story was true. None of the hardships of imprisonment touched me. The fear of the unknown no longer unsettled me, nor did the fact that, three days after my arrest, no one had yet called me...

Some expectations dissolve into routine or turn into despair, while others invigorate life. The former are measured in deeds and desires, while the latter are measured in faithfulness and beliefs.

A black basalt stone found in the desert of Jordan has an inscription with the earliest known use of the name of Yahweh (one of the many names for the Old Testament God). It is one of many ancient items which confirm biblical history.

One reason, if not the reason why the story of humanity's first wrong choice, the original failure, is vehemently denounced is the brutality with which this event—a seemingly trivial "dietary" decision that turned out to be the most costly ever made by a human being—reminds us more powerfully than any other story how painful the consequences of our mistakes can be. We do...