Theology

The word sacrifice is not really a pleasant word. When you hear it, you may think of weird archaic rituals involving blood and animals. You may think of giving up something you love or like to save money or to save your waistline. Sacrifice is not a word we use often, and it’s often used with negative associations. But in a strange twist, the action...

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.

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.

Between 2008 and 2021, 379 people died in selfie-related accidents. Made habitual by consumerism and social media, this cult of self-promotion is part of a nefarious cycle of narcissistic stimulation and a powerful indicator of our longing for worth and, by extension, meaning.

The mix of emotions a family goes through when expecting a baby is both wonderful and terrifying. When everything seems to be in order, the...

Over the centuries, strong but artificial tensions have been created between the Gospel of Paul (proclaimed especially by Augustine and many Protestants) and the "legalism" of the biblical writers James, Peter, Jude, and so on, which Catholic and Orthodox theologians have usually defended. What is at stake in these tensions is the authority of God's commandments and thus the duty or obligation to...

In this second article in a series of three, we continue our analysis of three major anti-Sabbatarian arguments. The series will conclude with an assessment of Jesus' practice and teaching on the Sabbath.

On the basis of ancient, hidden non-canonical gospels, some commercial and half-learned scholars propagate sensational discoveries, which are in fact both old and novel speculations arising from the Bible’s silence on some aspects of Jesus’s life.

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

On May 23, 2012, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of a 1.5 cm piece of clay, which represents the oldest extra-biblical attestation of the town of Bethlehem. Eli Shukron, the coordinator of the excavation work, believes that we are dealing with a bulla from the 7th-8th centuries B.C., probably used for sealing a document or object.

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.

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.

Virtually every civilization has been characterised by religious beliefs about the end of all things, not least about the timing and the conditions that precede the end, and signs of its imminence. There are many differences between these beliefs across civilisations, but many similarities too.

“We need a bigger vision in prayer. We need God’s vision! Let’s keep praying and daring to ask for more—for God’s glory, that the gospel may go into all the world, into all nations, that Jesus may come!”

One of today's dilemmas disputes, dialectically, the complex reality of the Bible and the secular way of looking at the "terror of history": Is God a source of morality superior to humanism, or not?