Who is Jesus?
Christians take their name from Jesus Christ. According to World Population Review, there are 2.38 billion Christian adherents across the globe. However, there is also a large portion of the world’s population who know little to nothing about Jesus. Research by Baxter in 2007 found that during that year, 30 million people would die without having heard about Jesus.
Beholding beauty
I’m walking along a remote beach in Hermanus, South Africa. There’s not a single other footprint in the sand. I take off my shoes and let my feet sink deep into the warm, fine powder. Bliss. My friend, a local who drove me here, takes one look at my face and asks with undeniable pride, “What do you think?” But I can’t answer....
Faith’s destiny in the 21st century
British physicist and author Paul Davies predicts a future in which the need for spiritual guidance will be stronger than ever, but, at the same time, believes that “any religion that refuses to embrace scientific discovery is unlikely to survive to the 22nd century”.
Incognito faith and the failures of political correctness
John the Baptist's call—"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near"—succeeded in bringing Jews "from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan" to the desert where the prophet preached, to confess their sins and be baptised. Two thousand years later, the exhortation to "repent" is buried under a mountain of pejorative associations.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity, and Jesus of Nazareth
“I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth... The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul... the cross as the distinguishing mark of the...
A visit to Narnia
On the 22nd of November 1963, global attention was captured by the tragic assassination of American President J.F. Kennedy. On the same day, the death of one of the most influential Christians of the 20th century, the British writer and apologist C.S.Lewis, went almost unnoticed.
How Jesus used the Hebrew Scriptures
When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.
Stones speak to those willing to listen
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.
Picturing heaven
What do you imagine heaven will be like? American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov famously said, “For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” Although I love Jesus, I think I am a bit afraid of getting bored there too. There’s a prevailing picture of heaven as being some sort of suspended animation, which may play into this.
Is everything God does for our absolute good?
In a world dominated by artificiality and instant gratification, we are becoming masters at controlling our circumstances and environment.
Forgiveness heals the one who forgives
Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis
Old Testament and New Testament | The unity of Scripture
The Bible has 66 books written by different authors over about 1,500 years. Is there a common theme, a leitmotif? If so, which is it? Is there an Old Testament God and a New Testament God?
Camping at the end of the world
I still remember May 21, 2011, like it was yesterday. Thousands of kilometres away in Boulder, USA, an evangelist named Harold Camping, president of the popular ministry Family Radio, was in the news spotlight. He had predicted that on May 21, more than 200 million Christians all around the world would be raptured away to heaven and that five months later, the world would end.
Mistakes in identifying errors in the Bible
Are there errors in the Bible? If so, what kind of errors and how do they affect its inspired character? Are there contradictions between the authors of the Bible? How are these explained?
There are hidden gospels that expose religious manipulation. True or false?
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.