Studying the Person and work of Jesus Christ—His deity, humanity, virgin birth, sinless life, atoning death, resurrection, ascension, and future return.
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 3013 1 John 2:1 is one of those verses that manages to be both deeply pastoral and precisely theological in the same breath: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 2013 The phrase ‘eternal generation of the Son’ appears in no single verse of Scripture in those exact words, and that immediately raises a legitimate question: is this a doctrine the church developed to explain what Scripture teaches, or is it an addition that goes beyond what Scripture says? The answer matters, because the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 02030 James 1:13 states it plainly: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” That sounds straightforward enough. Yet the same New Testament that gives us that verse also tells us that Jesus was tempted…
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 3078 Revelation 13:8 is one of those verses that stops you in your tracks when you read it carefully. Depending on which translation you pick up, it can sound as though Jesus was actually crucified before the world was even made. That’s a staggering claim — and it raises real questions about what John…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 13011 Gnosticism was not a single, tidy system but a collection of interconnected religious ideas that shared enough common assumptions to pose a recognisable and serious threat to the apostolic gospel. Its appeal lay in what it claimed to offer: a deeper, hidden knowledge of spiritual reality available to those initiated into it. In…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 03084 The question is partly historical and partly a matter of honest comparison, and both dimensions deserve a direct response. But behind it lies a theological concern that is even more important than either: what exactly did Jesus submit Himself to, and how seriously should we take it? The answer to that question is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 03085 The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus, apart from the resurrection, that appears in all four Gospels. Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:1-15 each record it, with John providing the most developed theological reflection on its significance. That level of independent attestation across all four…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 03082 The Gospels record Jesus displaying clear anger on more than one occasion. The cleansing of the temple is the most dramatic instance, but it is not the only one. The question of whether that anger was sinful cuts to something important about the nature of sin itself, and about what genuine, unsullied human…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 03081 At first glance, Jesus cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit looks like an overreaction to a piece of vegetation. It is one of those Gospel episodes that, taken in isolation, sits awkwardly. But when it is read in context and against the background of how the fig tree functions throughout the…