Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 07071 The word legalism gets used in at least two quite different ways in contemporary Christianity. Sometimes it means what it should mean: the error of trying to earn righteousness before God through law-keeping, or of adding human rules to Scripture and binding consciences where God has not. Other times it is used as…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8003 In art and popular culture, angels are often depicted as feminine or at least androgynous figures. You will find plenty of female angels in paintings, films, and novels. But what does the Bible actually say? Are there female angels in Scripture, or is this another area where tradition has departed from the text?…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09111 We live in a consumer culture. Everything is evaluated by what it does for us, how it makes us feel, whether it meets our needs. And tragically, this mindset has infiltrated the church. Religious consumerism treats Christianity as a product to be selected, evaluated, and consumed according to personal preference rather than as…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8043 The name Beelzebub, or more accurately Beelzebul, is one of the more arresting titles applied to Satan in the Gospels, and its appearance in the controversy over Jesus’ exorcisms reveals both the depth of the Pharisees’ hostility and the extraordinary accusation they were prepared to make. Tracing the name back to its origins…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 8040 The Gospels record numerous occasions when Jesus cast out demons, but the accounts rarely tell us what happened to those spirits afterwards. The question is worth pressing, because the answer touches on important truths about the nature of spiritual beings, their relationship to the physical world, and the particular danger that an empty…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8036 Few questions at the intersection of theology and pastoral care carry higher stakes than this one. The way a minister or counsellor approaches the relationship between demonic activity and mental illness will shape the care they offer, and it could either help or significantly harm the people they are trying to serve. Both…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8037 The phrase “unclean spirit” appears throughout the Synoptic Gospels and the book of Acts, and understanding it requires attention to more than just the Greek vocabulary. The designation is theologically rich, connecting to deeply embedded categories in Israel’s religious life and revealing something specific about the character of the beings it describes. The…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8039 The question arises from one specific and remarkable incident in the Gospel accounts, and it is worth examining that incident carefully rather than building sweeping conclusions from it. What the Gadarene account tells us is both more and less than might be expected. The Gadarene Incident The account appears in all three Synoptic…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 7102 Jesus said He came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Paul wrote that Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6). But what does “ransom” actually mean? The word conjures images of kidnapping and hostage negotiations. Is that what the Bible is teaching? Were we…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 3064 The traditional answer is Friday, which is why we call it “Good Friday.” But some have challenged this, arguing for Wednesday or Thursday instead. The debate centres on how we understand Jesus’ statement that He would be “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Let us examine…