You may have noticed that in English translations of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, the word “LORD” (in all capital letters) appears often. Why is this? It goes back to the Jewish reluctance to write or use the personal name of God. In Exodus 3, when God reveals Himself to Moses, Moses asks God for His name. God says to …
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he reminds the congregation that he delivered to them the Gospel which he had received (1 Corinthians 15:1-28). This message “of first importance” is “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,” and that he appeared to many, …
February 23rd is the Feast Day of St. Polycarp where his life and martyrdom is remembered. Polycarp was a friend of the Apostle John and of the early Church Father Ignatius. In fact, Polycarp was appointed as the Bishop of Smyrna by John himself. Like Ignatius and Clement of Rome, Polycarp was part of the second generation of Christians who had …
(The following is from the introduction to my edition of Tertullian’s Apology, available at Amazon) Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was a Christian writer who lived in the Roman province of Africa (Carthage) at the end of the second century and the beginning of the third century AD. We know him better as Tertullian. Possibly trained as a Roman lawyer, he would eventually …
(The following is from the introduction to my edition of Justin Martyr’s First and Second Apologies, available at Amazon) Justin Martyr (also known as Justinus) was a mid-second century Christian writer. A Greek-speaking Gentile, he was born in Flavia Neapolis (present day Nablus) in Samaria and was martyred around 165 AD in Rome. He was familiar with Greek philosophy and …
In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:1-28), he reminds the congregation that he had delivered to them what he himself had received and that this message was of “first importance.” He tells them: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance …
I want to tell you about a guy I know of. I don’t know him personally; I know of him. But, it’s a true story. This man was from a good, respectable middle-class family. His mother was a Christian, his father was not; this seems to be a fairly common pattern in our time. Often one or the other parent …
Jesus’s words as recorded in Luke 21:5-28 contain some pretty heavy stuff. Jesus is dealing with three different events in these verses: he speaks of the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, the last days, and then finally the end when he returns. We could easily get confused if we misunderstand what he’s saying and interpret these events as all occurring at …
I took this post’s picture earlier this year while in Rome. It’s a statue of the Roman emperor Nerva. You can see the copper in the statue has been tarnished with time; in addition, Nerva’s head serves as a convenient perch for the local pigeons. Nerva ruled the Roman empire from 96 to 98 AD. He ascended the throne after the …
Last week I posted a small article about the Colosseum in Rome and promised a follow-up where I talked about Tertullian and his views. Tertullian was an austere Christian writer from Carthage who lived from about 155 to 240 AD. He wrote an “Apology” around 197 AD, during the reign of the emperor Septimius Severus where he defended the Christian …