Religion

Pietism was a movement of spiritual revival that took place between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries mainly in Germany and Bohemia.

Dr Kendra Haloviak-Valentine, Professor of New Testament at La Sierra University in Redlands, California, comes from a family with a tradition of theology and research.

“Soul” is a very special term. Due to lack of space, I shall not approach it here philosophically or scientifically, but exclusively in the context of biblical theology, narrowing it even further, to a linguistic point of view.

The spontaneous generation of life on Earth is as likely as a whirlwind putting a Boeing 747 together using scattered spare parts in a junkyard.

The question of human suffering concerns atheists and believers alike. For the former, the search for an answer drives them to the heights of despair. For the latter, suffering inevitably poses a dilemma: why is there so much suffering in the world if the God who created it is loving and omnipotent?

Most of our beliefs are easy to keep, as long as nothing puts them to the test. Like many others, Henry Gerecke discovered to what extent he truly believed in what he had preached for years when faced with a difficult choice.

Up until the Enlightenment, the idea that the miracles recorded in the pages of the Bible happened as the biblical writers described them was widely accepted. With the rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an alternative theory emerged: that miracles were not possible in naturalistic metaphysics.

The way we pray in public reveals what our secret prayers are truly like. Beyond mere words, it is our attitude and motivation that give meaning and substance to prayer.

“They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting” (Psalm 94:4).

Mary was an ordinary person, just like us. The Gospel does not suggest that she had any particular merit, yet her obedience played a pivotal role in a story that would change the world.

“The newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street...and the devotees of the weird doctrine... work themselves into a state of mad excitement...They claim to have the ‘gift of tongues’ and to be able to understand the babel”.

Much of the Bible was written by prophets, so it is full of prophetic revelation. Most of these revelations are about mysteries of the past and present that we would not otherwise have access to.

“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).

They say that "all roads lead to Rome". This famous saying originated in ancient times with the extensive network of roads built by the Romans to facilitate communication and travel throughout their empire.

The idea of the end of the world refers to the end of the social order and humanity; the end of the planet as we know it. But according to the Bible, these will not all come at once.