“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet 3:18). Most Christians don’t understand grace. Grace is not unmerited favor. You can’t grow in unmerited favor, you either have it or you don’t. Grace is the special influence of God upon a person.. You can grow in the…
You are born alone, and you die alone. Yet, how we fight against this reality. Before you begin a deeper walk with God, know that that walk will be a lonely one. The closer you get to God, the further you'll be from people. Leonard Ravenhill said it well: Great eagles fly alone; great lions…
Before we talk about Gnosticism, we must define it. But defining Gnosticism has become one of the leading problems in the field. Whole books have been dedicated to the subject (See books by Karen L. King and Michael Allen Williams). The problem is that Western scholars see religion as something dealing with beliefs. So, naturally,…
The four gospels of the New Testament were originally written anonymously. They were only later given the names: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Scholars do not believe that these are eyewitness accounts. And the gospel of Thomas, which is not included in the New Testament, maybe the oldest of all of them (60 CE). The…
This is the oldest creed of Christianity. It is recorded in the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (15:3-8). For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the [Jewish] scriptures And that he was buried and that…
Chapter 17. Philo's Account of the Ascetics of Egypt. 1. It is also said that Philo in the reign of Claudius became acquainted at Rome with Peter, who was then preaching there. Nor is this indeed improbable, for the work of which we have spoken, and which was composed by him some years later, clearly…