Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1048. If you open your Bible to the end of Mark’s Gospel, you will likely find a note indicating that Mark’s longer ending does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. Some Bibles place these verses in brackets. Others include them with a footnote explaining the uncertainty. This raises an obvious pastoral question about Mark’s…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11101 This question generates more anxiety in Christian circles than it should. Some believers feel guilty for taking medication, as though reliance on a prescription is a failure of faith. Others have been told, sometimes by well-meaning pastors and sometimes by manipulative ones, that true Christians should trust God for healing and that taking…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11023 The Great Commission is the final instruction Jesus gave to His followers before ascending to heaven, and it defines the church’s mission until He returns. It is not one task among many. It is the task, the overarching purpose for which the church exists between the ascension and the Rapture. Understanding it properly…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10121 Of all the terms the New Testament uses for the place of final punishment, Gehenna is the most vivid and the most disturbing. It is the word Jesus used most frequently when warning about the ultimate fate of the wicked, and its background in both geography and history gives it a force that…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10100 The lake of fire is one of the most terrifying images in all of Scripture—the final destination of Satan, his demons, and all human beings who die without faith in Jesus. It is explicitly identified as “the second death” and represents God’s final and eternal judgement upon sin. While many attempt to soften…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09031 Church planting is the intentional establishment of new local congregations where none existed before, or where existing churches are insufficient to reach the people in a given area. It is one of the primary strategies by which the gospel has advanced throughout history, and it has clear precedent in the New Testament itself,…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09094 The phrase “breaking bread” appears at several key points in the New Testament, and its interpretation has significant implications for how churches understand and practise the Lord’s Supper. Was the early church observing a brief, formal ordinance of bread and wine, or were they sharing a full communal meal in which the bread…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09005 Christians who agree that believers should be baptised sometimes disagree about how it should be done. Should the person be fully immersed in water, or is pouring or sprinkling equally valid? The question is not trivial, because the mode of baptism is connected to the meaning of baptism, and the meaning is not…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08052 When Christians talk about demonic activity, terms like “possession,” “oppression,” and “influence” are used regularly, sometimes interchangeably and often without much precision. Understanding what Scripture actually describes, and what distinctions are warranted by the biblical text, matters enormously for pastoral care. A person struggling with spiritual attack needs accurate diagnosis, not borrowed terminology…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08071 Exorcism is a word that evokes strong reactions. For some, it conjures images from horror films and sensationalised media. For others, particularly in Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, it describes a regular feature of Christian ministry. For many in mainstream evangelical churches, it occupies an uncomfortable middle ground: something they believe happened in the…