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Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.( 2 John 9)The Apostle John’s ministry is a ministry of restoration. There were (and are) many whose faith in Jesus, understanding of God, prayer life, interpretation of scripture, ministry and ethics, have been corrupted and distorted by false christian teachers who have redefined what it means to know God. This is still the case today, and the need for John’s epistles is yet vital to the church. To John, the Lord’s...

In my new book, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines, , I spend most of its pages in classic apologetic defense of Mary as Mother of God, defending her immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, assumption into heaven, her Queenship, and her role in GodÂ’s plan of salvation as Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix. But perhaps my most important contributions in the book may well be how I demonstrate each of these doctrines to be crucial for our spiritual lives and even our salvation.And I should note that this applies to all of the Marian doctrines. Not...

ELCA Presiding Bishop Highlights 'Expectations' in Report to Council 10-287-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), described his hopes for the church for the next three years -- focusing on expectations -- in a report to the ELCA Church Council Nov. 13. The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. The council met here Nov. 12-14. Assemblies are held every other year; the next is Aug. 14-20, 2011, in Orlando, Fla. Hanson organized his report...

The Divine Christ and the Bible SACRED SCRIPTURE is made up of a number of books, different in many ways, but all brought together in Jesus Christ. From Genesis to the Apocalypse or the book of Revelation, Jesus Christ is the center. The story of the Bible is the story of Jesus Christ. In the old Testament we are prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is with us, in His life on earth in the Gospels, in His life in the Church in the rest of the books. To grasp then what Jesus...

Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)   Simon Greenleaf , one of the principle founders of the Harvard Law School, originally set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was certain that a careful examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel all the myths at the heart of Christianity. But this legal scholar came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and that the resurrection did in fact happen.   I n examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that...

EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST A Challenge for Skeptics [ NOTE: For a response to the book The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Prometheus, 2005) by Lowder / Price see the free 500+ page E-book This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb  (PDF) by Steve Hays, et al (c) 2006 ] A reasonable challenge to the skeptic is this: If it can be proved that Jesus really rose from the dead, will you believe in him? For if he really rose, that validates his claim to be divine and not merely human, for resurrection from...

Christ, Lunatic or God? If reason alone were all we had to establish the existence and essence of God, we might feel curiously dissatisfied. If God is a Supreme Spirit, omnipotent and of total benevolence, the origin and end of us all, why does He not speak and re-assure us? The Christian claim is that, in fact, God has spoken to mankind first in the prophets of the Old Testament and last of all through His Son made man. The historical existence of Christ is what we are now concerned with and also with His claim to be the Son...

Christ Is Necessary for You MILLIONS OF MEN have lived in this world yet only one Man could say in His own right and back up His words with proof: "Which of you can convict me of sin" (John 8:46)? Hundred of men over the ages have been teachers of their fellowmen, hundreds have pointed out the way life should be lived, hundreds have led others of their fellow beings, but not one of them dared say of himself as did this Man: "I AM the way, and the truth and the life" (John 14:6). Many claimed to be sent...

The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus   There is absolutely ho historical evidence that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had other children. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was a Virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus.The belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity (which necessarily includes her virginity after the birth of Christ) has been so deeply rooted in Catholic Tradition from the very beginning, that the Fathers of the Church instinctively and vigorously rose to its defense every time early heretics questioned it. Among the many witnesses that could be mentioned in this connection are: Origen, St....

Christ and the Christian It would be impertinent to speak of a Christian without first trying to find out about Christ. Calling someone Christian only indicates that in some fashion he resembles Christ. But Who is Christ? Why are there millions of people who call themselves Christians? Philosophers have given their name to disciples who follow their system of thought Platonists, Thomists, Kantists, Marxists. None of these, however, have attained the prodigious continued devotion that Christ inspires in His followers. Even Buddhism, which demands a total surrender to its rules, has very little to say about Buddha himself, whose image...

An Ignorant Jesus?  Rev. William Most, Ph.d              Was Jesus confused? Did He know He was Messiah? or divine? Did He know much  about the afterlife? Did He have at least one superstition? Did He have only the mentality of a Jew of the first third of the first century? -- Wild as it may seem, some prominent scholars charge Him on all the above counts, and more too.              But: What does the Church teach on these things? Pope Pius XII, in his great Encyclical on the Mystical Body, on June 29, 1943, rejected all such charges. He taught:...

And behold, I am bringing a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall perish. But I will confirm my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark: you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you; and from every living thing, from all flesh, two of everything you shall bring into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female. – Genesis 6:17-19 The Kingdom of God, composed as we...

And Abel also brought from the firstborn of his flock, and from their fat; and Yahweh had regard for Abel and for his offering. – Genesis 4:4Very soon after God had made his first promise to mankind that he would send a Deliverer, he began to advance his redemptive design along several different lines, all of which would eventually culminate in the advent and work of the promised Seed, and his gathering together in himself a multitude of people, whom he had undertaken to bring back to God. This era of redemptive history is characterized by a series of highly...

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. – Genesis 3:15 After our first father Adam had rebelled against the word of God, thereby losing all of the blessings and privileges of the glorious state into which he had been created, and inheriting instead a most fearful curse, the promise of death, and an expectation of the terrible wrath of God; instead of receiving only the judgment which he deserved, he was immediately comforted with a promise so rich in...

In the past several weeks I have been learning a lot about who Jesus is by preaching through Colossians. This is obviously quite important for believers, as we are always in the need of theological reform. But this is even more necessary in light of the fact that we live in a culture that portrays Jesus in many different ways. Though he is mentioned frequently, Jesus is rarely portrayed correctly. I heard recently of several congressmen portraying Jesus as a community organizer. This was no doubt in effort to bolster their candidate’s resume. The Bible is just too specific for...

This is the second in the series; and if you haven’t already read the one on Creation, I would encourage you to do so before moving on to this post. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he placed the man whom he had formed. – Genesis 2:8 Immediately after his account of God’s creation of the world, Moses goes on to describe the creature in whom would be centered God’s design for creation, namely, the man whom he had formed; and likewise he describes the place in which the fulfillment of this...

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth....And God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. – Genesis 1:1,3 When Jesus offered up for all believers his high-priestly prayer in their behalf, he summed up the essence of his request thus: “Father, I desire that those whom you have given me might be with me, where I am, in order that they might behold my glory, which you gave me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). From which circumstance we may learn that the very essence of what Jesus died...

When Paul wrote that Jesus emptied himself and became a servant and yet he was God, in what ways did he retain or not retain his powers of being God? by R. C. Sproul     The concept of "emptying" was a raging controversy in the nineteenth century, and elements of it remain today. The Greek word used by Paul in the second chapter of Philippians, kenosis, is translated as "emptying" in most Bible versions. The question is, Of what did Jesus, in his human (incarnate) state, empty himself?      The popular view in certain circles in the nineteenth century was...

Code: ZE02120223Date: 2002-12-02Is It Arrogant to Say Christ Is the Only Savior? Asks Cardinal RatzingerPoints to the Missteps of RelativismMURCIA, Spain, DEC. 2, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Is it pretentious for Christians to proclaim Christ as the only Savior of mankind? Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger posed that question Saturday, and in his response clarified the very meaning of the Christian mission. The cardinal was addressing the congress on "Christ: Way, Truth and Life," which brought together world-renowned theologians at the Catholic University of St. Anthony. "Isn't it arrogant to speak of truth in matters of religion to the point of affirming that truth,...