Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 10070 The 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7 and 14 are 144,000 Jewish evangelists who will preach the gospel during the tribulation period. They are not a symbolic number representing all believers, nor are they an elite group within Christianity. Rather, they are a specific number of Jewish men from the twelve tribes of Israel…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10064 Whilst Scripture is clear that hell is a place of conscious, eternal punishment for all who reject Christ, it also indicates that the degree of punishment will vary according to the light received and the sins committed. God’s perfect justice means that punishment will be precisely proportionate to guilt. The Reality of Hell…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09002 The word “church” is one of the most familiar in the Christian vocabulary, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. In popular usage it refers to a building, a denomination, or a vague spiritual community. The New Testament has something far more precise in mind. Understanding what the church actually is,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09045 The phrase “Messianic Jew” describes a Jewish person who has come to faith in Jesus (Yeshua) as the promised Messiah of Israel. This is not a modern invention or a fringe movement. It is, in fact, the oldest form of Christianity there is. Every apostle was a Messianic Jew. The entire early church…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09090 The idea of formal church membership strikes some believers as an unnecessary bureaucratic addition to what should be a simple, Spirit-led community. Others regard it as so obviously biblical that the question itself seems odd. The reality is that the New Testament does not contain the phrase “church membership,” does not describe a…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09087 The letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 make it unmistakably clear that Jesus evaluates local congregations and that His assessment is not always favourable. The church at Ephesus had abandoned its first love. Sardis had a reputation for being alive but was dead. Laodicea was lukewarm, on the verge of being…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09072 Public marches and demonstrations that carry the name of Jesus raise genuine questions about Christian witness, the nature of the church’s mission, and the practical realities of who is leading and what is being communicated. The “March for Jesus” movement, which began in London in 1987 and grew into a global phenomenon through…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09086 Christians frequently speak of “the church” as though the word refers to a single, self-evident reality, yet the New Testament uses ekklesia in ways that point to two distinguishable dimensions of that reality. Understanding the relationship between the universal church and the local church is essential for grasping what it means to belong…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09071 Ecumenism is the movement toward greater unity and cooperation among Christian churches and denominations. It has taken many forms over the past century, from informal local partnerships to vast institutional structures like the World Council of Churches. For evangelical Christians, the question is not whether unity matters, because Jesus Himself prayed for it…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09069 The spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the body of Christ, but the history of the church, from the New Testament onwards, is littered with examples of gifts being exercised in ways that damage rather than edify. The potential for misuse does not invalidate the gifts…