Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10017 Few verses in the New Testament have sparked more debate than Romans 11:26: “And in this way all Israel will be saved.” What did Paul mean by “all Israel”? Does this refer to every individual Jew throughout history? The Church? Only the elect among ethnic Israel? Or Israel as a nation at some…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11069 The Bible contains more than three hundred commands not to fear, which might suggest that every experience of fear or anxiety is a failure of faith. That reading, however, misunderstands what those commands are actually doing, and it places an additional burden on sincere believers that they were never meant to carry. Scripture…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 07095 Shame is one of the most corrosive emotions a human being can experience. It whispers that we are fundamentally flawed, irredeemably broken, unworthy of love or acceptance. It goes deeper than guilt, which says “I did something bad.” Shame says “I am bad.” And for countless people, including many Christians, shame is a…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 8042 The name Lucifer has become one of the most recognisable titles for Satan in Christian tradition, attached particularly to his pre-fall existence as a glorious angelic being. Its origins, however, lie in a single verse in the Hebrew prophets and in a translation choice made in the Latin Vulgate that shaped centuries of…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8030 Near-death experiences have become a significant cultural phenomenon, with books, documentaries, and testimonies describing encounters with radiant beings who offer comfort, guidance, or reassurance during moments of medical crisis. The question of whether these are genuine angel encounters is not one to be dismissed with a wave of the hand, but neither is…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8019 Among the most striking descriptions in all of prophetic Scripture are the living creatures of Ezekiel’s inaugural vision and John’s throne-room vision in Revelation 4. They defy easy description, they surround the immediate presence of God, and they have provoked more theological reflection than almost any other category of angelic being. Mercifully, the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10201 Revelation is among the most misread books in the Bible, and part of the reason is that readers approach it in isolation. In fact, it is the most densely allusive book in the entire New Testament, saturated with the imagery and language of the Old Testament prophets on virtually every page. Estimates suggest…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7098 Among the various ways Christians have understood what Jesus accomplished on the cross, one stands at the centre of evangelical faith: substitutionary atonement. This doctrine teaches that Jesus died in our place, taking the punishment that our sins deserved so that we might be forgiven. While some today question or reject this understanding,…
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: 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…