While the early decades of the church’s history were hardly easy, they were nevertheless filled with optimism: Jesus was risen, the Spirit at work in and through the community of faith, and the body of Christ was growing as the gospel spread across the Mediterranean world. Local opposition – even to the point of violence...
Tag: understanding Christianity
Understanding the Bible 44: The Apocalypse – Starring Christopher Walken, Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
No biblical book inspires a broader spectrum of interpretation than the book of Revelation. Filled with symbols that range from multi-headed dragon to streets of gold, from doomsday battles and the mark of the beast to the New Jerusalem, the Apocalypse (literally the “revealing”) is meant to guide the church in the last act of...
Understanding the Bible 41: What Must I Do to Be Saved? Or Why We Are All Semi-Pelagianists at Heart
Every philosophical and religious tradition has a view on the requirements of membership – what it takes to belong to the community of “salvation.” In early Judaism, for example, membership within “true Israel” belonged to those who were at least: descended from Abraham, circumcised (men), obedient to the food laws and observant of the Sabbath. For...