When we come to the end of Mark 16, in most English translations of the Bible there are brackets that include something like, "some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9-20" which presents a question for those who are reading their Bibles and who hold it to be inerrant (without error in the original manuscript) clear and trustworthy. Perhaps you might think somet...

Jesus is reigning. He is king. In order to reign as king he must be alive. Verse 34, "David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." Imagine a kingdom where there was a king who reigned as a tyrant for many long years. He had no patience or mercy for anyone who crosse...

Verse 32 says, "This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses." The disciples all saw the risen Jesus as did more than 500 other people. Tim Keller wrote, "Even if you propose the highly unlikely idea that one or two of Jesus's disciples did get the idea that he was raised from the dead on their own, they would never have gotten a movement of other Jews to be...

If the whole plan was of God for the crucifixion and the resurrection, it makes sense that the Bible is unified in the story of redemption-- of it's promise and fulfillment. In verse 25, Peter quotes Psalm 16, which is seen as fulfilled in Jesus. David, as a picture of what the Messiah would be was dead and had been for a long time. Death held him in the tomb and it was...

"God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it." It is impossible for Jesus to be held in the grip of death. The same word for "pangs" here is used elsewhere of labor pains. Labor pains on a pregnant woman indicates that there is going to be a baby born. Pregnancy by it's very definition is not permanent. Jesus is un...

Part 2 of our Easter series of posts about the truth of the resurrection: I heard a speaker say recently that it was not as if the disciples were sitting around on Saturday night after Jesus died on Friday having a party saying, "I can't wait until tomorrow!" The disciples, though Jesus had clearly taught of his coming death and resurrection, didn't "get it" until he ap...

Over the next few days we're going to walk through Acts 2 to see how this first sermon by Peter speaks so clearly about the resurrection and why it is essential to Christianity. To do so, each point will fill out the acronym "R.A.I.S.E.D."...

A few years ago I asked a friend about some good research on Pontius Pilate and the events surrounding the crucifixion of Christ and he recommended Pontius Pilate: A Novel by Paul L. Maier. He explained his unique recommendation by telling me that Dr. Maier was a top-notch historian who wrote a historical novel about Pontius Pilate in order to help people understand the h...

Concerning serving others,the over arching question we could ask ourselves is about our understanding of how the gospel informs our service of others; "Do I see the gospel as both the remedy for my sin of selfishness and the motivation for Christlike service?" When we see the gospel as the solution for our sin and the motivation for serving others we can then ask ourselv...

Jonathan Dodson: "Contextualization is the intentional process of communicating the historic gospel and teachings of Jesus in contemporary cultural forms. [3] This may result in churches gathering in white tents or rodeo arenas, to hear how the grace rebuffs bootstrap religion among country folk in rural areas of Texas (also known as Cowboy churches). Alternatively, it may...