Many times in Matthew and many times in the book of John, you can find Jesus saying truly I tell you or very truly I tell you. What? Jesus is so different than us even now. To the disciples, he was a revolution that was hard to see or conceive in any way. So, Jesus again and again would say “the kingdom of heaven is like” So, here his “truly I tell you” is not so surprising. They needed to …
I have heard non Christians banding about the phrase ‘special seat reserved in hell’ for someone they are unhappy with. It reminds me of Dante’s Inferno and places of deeper Hell that he described. The Bible says in Romans: 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[a] says the Lord. At base, God does not deny the human need for retribution. He simply refers to …
Grace and peace are common greetings or closings in New Testament Epistles. Whether the writer is Paul, John or Peter, you can see them use it here. Let’s consider this. I have written in a different post that Jesus was filled with grace and truth. I might be prone if ending with a summary like the apostles did, to say, “grace and truth” to you. To me, the New Testament is written with grace and truth. They speak truth to …
Have you noticed that Jesus is a bad compromiser? So, we should be too? Lets pause and think on that. Why does Jesus not compromise? He is filled with spirit and truth. We are compromised with subjectivity even when we are quoting the Bible. Now, by personality I am quite black and white. I have put my foot down too many times when I was trapped in my own biased judgment. God sees this and frowns. It is quite rare …
“Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man” These words recorded in Luke 5:8 are spoken by Simon, who Jesus later named Peter. Theologically, we can understand these words as Peter knowing he was afraid he would dirty Jesus as Peter knew he himself was not sinless. We can further see this as indicating we are all Peter before Christ, unworthy of forgiveness. We could nit pick on Peter and tell him Jesus could never be dragged into …
