Religion

Biblical interpretation is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges for the Bible reader. What are the essential hermeneutical principles we need?

Belief in life after death is present in many religions and cultures and has always been an important aid in accepting the tragic reality of death. However, rather than speaking of the intrinsic immortality of the soul, the Bible speaks of the future resurrection of the dead.

Louis Zamperini experienced the bizarre smell of death so many times that he came to the verge of losing his mind. However, he survived, and by choosing to forgive the unforgivable, he was able to breathe life into an entire world.

In the choppy waters of Port Doha, Qatar, things weren’t looking good. Moesha was midway through a 10-kilometre open water race in the World Championships. This was her chance to qualify for the Olympics. But she was trailing behind a pack of thirty girls and had been for much of the race.

“Imagine there’s no heaven ...” sang John Lennon. “… and no religion too.” The implication is that the world would be a better place without religion. Wrong. Christianity has changed the world in dramatic and positive ways.

Professor Bailey V. Gillespie, from La Sierra University's Department of Theology and Christian Character in California, impressed me with both the diversity of his interests and his prestigious achievements, particularly in the field of young people's religious experience.

Trying to describe a dying church like the one he was called to serve, Pastor Chris Lewis uses the image of a car "turned over, in a ditch, covered by weeds and beer cans, with a rusted out engine, and a couple of bodies in the trunk."

No other court in the world can judge a person as effectively as their own conscience. Before and immediately after a wrong has been committed, the "merciless" trial begins.

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

On the night when heaven descended among mortals, it was not the high priests or scholars who were the first to see God, but some lowly shepherds.

"I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me" (Proverbs 8:17).

"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them" (James 4:17).

In cell number 8 of the prison in Pyongyang, a few frozen and emaciated prisoners had to endure an additional torture: the pungent smell and wild screams of an untamed creature.

As soon as the tourists leave the land of the silent agony of Gethsemane, their lives return to normal, and the garden where the Son of God sobbed in indescribable pain, misunderstood and unsupported even by His closest disciples, sinks back into oblivion.

In the first part of this series, we familiarised ourselves with the classical Protestant perception of the concept and prophetic figure of the Antichrist, and evaluated the classical identification of the Antichrist with the papacy. Further analysis becomes even more intriguing with a close reading of the major biblical prophecies about the Antichrist.