Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3052 You may have heard the phrase ‘the historical Jesus’ and wondered what it means. Is it different from the Jesus we read about in the Gospels? The term comes from academic scholarship and refers to attempts to reconstruct who Jesus was using historical-critical methods. For Bible-believing Christians, there is only one Jesus, the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3053 Every religion has its founder or key figure. Buddhism has the Buddha, Islam has Muhammad, Hinduism has its gurus and avatars. So what makes Jesus different? Is he simply one religious teacher among many, or is there something utterly unique about him? The answer matters enormously, because if Jesus is just another voice…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3054 Some groups, notably the Jehovah’s Witnesses, teach that Jesus is actually the archangel Michael. They argue that Jesus is a created being, the first and greatest of God’s creations, but not truly God in the fullest sense. This teaching strikes at the very heart of who Jesus is. If he is merely an…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3056 Genealogies can seem like the driest parts of the Bible. Lists of names, one after another, with difficult pronunciations and unfamiliar figures. Many readers skip straight past them. But the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are far more significant than they first appear. They are not mere record-keeping. They are theological…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3055 When you read Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel, you encounter something puzzling. Both give genealogies of Jesus, but they are different. Matthew traces the line from Abraham through David to Joseph. Luke traces the line from Jesus back through David to Adam. But the differences go beyond direction. Even within the section from…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3057 Jesus was a master storyteller. When crowds gathered to hear him, he often taught through parables: short, vivid stories drawn from everyday life. The sower and the seed, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the talents, the pearl of great price. These images have shaped the imagination of the world for two thousand…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3058 The Gospels tell us about Jesus’ birth, his presentation at the Temple, the visit of the Magi, the flight to Egypt, and his family’s return to Nazareth. Then there is silence. Luke alone records a brief glimpse of Jesus at age twelve in the Temple. After that, nothing until his baptism at around…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3059 Every few years, some book or documentary claims to have discovered evidence that Jesus was married. Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code popularised the idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children. In 2012, a fragment called the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” made headlines before being exposed as a modern forgery….
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 3044 When we read the Gospels, we encounter the title ‘Son of David’ applied to Jesus with striking frequency. The blind call out to Him using this name. The crowds shout it during His triumphal entry. Matthew opens his entire Gospel by declaring Jesus to be “the son of David, the son of Abraham”…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3045 We use the word ‘Christ’ so frequently that it can almost seem like Jesus’ surname. But ‘Christ’ is not a name – it is a title, and one loaded with meaning. Understanding what ‘Messiah’ and ‘Christ’ actually signify helps us grasp who Jesus claimed to be and what He came to accomplish. The…