Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11021 Missions is not a department of the church’s work. It is the heartbeat of what the church exists to do. From the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 to the vision of every tribe and tongue gathered before the throne in Revelation 7, the Bible tells the story of a God who pursues…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11019 The word “disciple” appears far more often in the New Testament than the word “Christian.” That alone should tell us something about what the early church understood the normal Christian life to look like. Discipleship is not an advanced course for the especially committed. It is the basic shape of what it means…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11020 Jesus did not command His followers to make converts. He commanded them to make disciples. The distinction matters enormously, because it shapes how we understand the church’s mission and what success looks like. A convert has made a decision. A disciple is being transformed. The Great Commission calls us to the longer, harder,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11062 Singleness in the church can be a profoundly isolating experience. Much of church culture is oriented around couples and families, and single Christians often feel marginalised, pitied, or treated as though something is incomplete about their lives. For those who desire marriage, the longing is real and the waiting is hard. Scripture does…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 12027 The claim that gender is a social construct, independent of biology and existing on a spectrum, has moved from academic gender theory into mainstream cultural assumption with remarkable speed. It is now treated in many Western contexts as established fact, with those who question it labelled as bigoted or scientifically illiterate. But is…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 11089 The question of what role the Mosaic law plays in the life of a Christian is not a new one. Paul spent considerable effort addressing it in his letters to Rome and Galatia, and the confusion has not diminished since. Christians who grew up in traditions that emphasise law-keeping and Christians who react…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10031 The abomination of desolation is one of the most significant prophetic markers in all of Scripture. Jesus Himself identified it as the critical warning sign for those living during the Tribulation, and He expected His hearers to understand it by reference to the prophet Daniel. The phrase links Old Testament prophecy, intertestamental history,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10027 The pre-wrath rapture view is a relatively recent entry into the eschatological debate, developed most fully by Marvin Rosenthal in his 1990 book The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church and further defended by Robert Van Kampen. It attempts to chart a middle course between pretribulationism and posttribulationism, arguing that the Rapture occurs during…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10028 The partial rapture theory is perhaps the least well-known of the major rapture positions, and it differs from the others not in its timing but in its scope. While pretribulationism, midtribulationism, posttribulationism, and the pre-wrath view all debate when the Rapture occurs, the partial rapture theory debates who is included in it. The…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10080 The impulse to calculate the date of Christ’s return is understandable. Believers long for the Lord’s coming, and prophecy gives enough detail to make the temptation to set a timetable feel almost reasonable. But date-setting is not a harmless exercise in prophetic enthusiasm. It is a practice that contradicts Scripture directly, damages the…