Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7105 Some people wonder whether they can be a Christian whilst having doubts about the resurrection. Perhaps they are attracted to Jesus’ teachings and moral example but struggle to believe that He literally rose from the dead. Is the resurrection really essential, or is it an optional extra that we can affirm or not…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 7066 Few theological debates have generated as much heat within conservative evangelicalism as the question of whether genuine saving faith necessarily includes acknowledgment of Christ’s lordship. On one side stands the position that a Jesus who is not received as Lord has not truly been received at all. On the other stands the concern…
Reading Time: 2 minutesQuestion 60097 Few events in the Old Testament have attracted more attempts at naturalistic explanation than the parting of the waters at the Exodus. Wind setdown models, tsunami hypotheses, and mistranslation theories arguing that Yam Suph means “Sea of Reeds” and therefore refers to a shallow marsh that dried up in a strong wind: these…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10202 One of the most common objections to the pretribulational Rapture is the claim that the “last trumpet” of 1 Corinthians 15:52 must be the same as the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15. If both are called “last,” the argument runs, they must refer to the same event, which would place the Rapture at…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07072 Sanctification is one of those theological terms that gets used in different ways without people always realising it, which can produce genuine confusion about what the Christian life actually involves and what the New Testament expects of believers. The distinction between definitive and progressive sanctification is not academic hairsplitting but a genuinely important…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07075 The word “gospel” appears so frequently in Christian conversation that it can begin to lose its force through familiarity. But the gospel is not a general category of good religious news or a vague sense of divine goodwill toward humanity. It has a specific content, and that content can be stated with considerable…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion Q04014 Few questions in Pneumatology generate more confusion or more heat. The baptism of the Holy Spirit has been claimed as the defining subsequent experience of the Christian life by some traditions, treated with suspicion by others, and misunderstood by many who hold it as central to their spirituality. What Scripture actually teaches is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10109 The idea that heaven might be boring is remarkably common, and it is rooted in a picture of the afterlife that owes far more to medieval art and popular caricature than to anything Scripture actually describes. Clouds, harps, white robes, and an eternity of singing the same hymn on repeat: this is the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 04038 Being ‘drunk in the Spirit’ is a phrase used within certain charismatic and neo-charismatic circles to describe a state of apparent spiritual intoxication, characterised by uncontrollable laughter, staggering, slurred speech, and behaviour that mimics physical drunkenness. The phenomenon gained global prominence during the so-called ‘Toronto Blessing’ of 1994 and continues to feature in…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 4077 The laying on of hands appears several times in Acts in connection with the Spirit’s reception, and it has been the subject of theological debate ever since. In some instances, the Spirit is received through the apostles’ laying on of hands; in others, the Spirit comes before any such action. Understanding what the…