Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8023 Prayer is one of the defining marks of the Christian life, and questions about its proper object are of the highest importance. The idea of praying to angels surfaces in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox devotional practice, in certain streams of charismatic Christianity, and in the wider spirituality market that borrows freely from…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8027 The connection between prayer and angelic activity is one of the more striking and less-often-discussed features of biblical teaching on both subjects. People pray, and God responds. But Scripture indicates that part of how God responds involves the dispatch of angelic beings, which means the ministry of angels and the practice of prayer…
Reading Time: 2 minutesQuestion 8025 The idea that people become angels when they die is deeply embedded in popular culture and in a great deal of casual Christian conversation. When a child dies, grieving parents are sometimes told that God needed another angel. When a believer passes away, someone will often say they have their wings now. However…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8028 The idea that angels might be present when God’s people gather for worship sounds either startling or sentimental depending on one’s assumptions. Scripture is less ambiguous than either reaction might suggest. Several biblical texts indicate that the gathered church exists in a context that is far more populated than what is visible to…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7097 The word “atonement” is one of those theological terms that gets used frequently in church but may not be well understood. Yet it describes something absolutely essential to the Christian faith: how sinful human beings can be reconciled to a holy God. Understanding the atonement helps us grasp what Jesus accomplished on the…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 7099 This question gets to the heart of the Gospel. If God is all-powerful and merciful, why couldn’t He simply forgive our sins without requiring the death of His Son? Couldn’t an omnipotent God just declare us forgiven and be done with it? The cross seems so brutal, so extreme. Was it really necessary?…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 7100 What exactly happened when Jesus died on the cross? Christians have always agreed that the cross is central to salvation, but they have understood its meaning in different ways throughout history. Various “theories of the atonement” have been proposed, each highlighting a different aspect of what Jesus accomplished. Some of these theories are…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7101 These two words, propitiation and expiation, are among the most important in Christian theology, yet they are rarely heard outside theological discussion. Modern Bible translations sometimes avoid them altogether, substituting simpler but less precise language. Yet understanding what these words mean unlocks the heart of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. They describe…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 7107 This phrase appears throughout the New Testament and is confessed in the great creeds of the Church. But what does it actually mean? Is it describing a physical location? A position of authority? Something else entirely? Let’s look at what Scripture tells us about this glorious truth concerning our Lord Jesus. The Biblical…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 07059 The word “apostasy” comes from the Greek apostasia, meaning a departure, a standing away from. In Christian theology it refers to a decisive, final abandonment of the faith, not a season of backsliding or spiritual coldness, but a definitive renunciation of Christ. The question of whether a genuine, truly converted believer can commit…