When I was a teen, I went to a church in a Seattle suburb. Another church down the street had a split over doctrine. They were Seventh-Day Adventists.
The beatitudes is the name given to a portion of Jesus’ teaching that talks about being blessed. They are a section of the Sermon on the Mount, considered by many – both religious people and non-religious alike – to be some of the most profound words in history.
Matthew asked: Is God happy with his people having Christmas trees and celebrating Christmas? I suppose the answer to your question is, like so many other answers, "it depends." I don't think God cares one way or another about trees being used for such things.
There are a lot of Bible verses about love. Some tell us what God is like: God is love. Some tell us what to do: love your enemies. There's a verse about love that's very precious to me, and I'd like to spend a few minutes on it:
In another article I outline the questions that God asked Job. In response, M Johnson wanted to know how many questions Job asked God. Well...not nearly as many. Here's the much-shorter list.
The Bible talks a lot about names. In the NIV, the Hebrew and Greek words for "name" appear 944 times. That's a bunch! I get a lot of questions about Bible names. Many people are confused about how "name" is used in the Bible. It's used in more than one way, so some explanation would be helpful. The simplest way the Bible uses "name" is like this:
We have very little information about Paradise. We only find the word paradeisos in three passages in the Bible:
At first glance, God in the Old Testament seems harsh, and perhaps callous. God in the New Testament seems loving, and gentle. With respect, this is a simple misunderstanding. It's also not new...this has been a common misunderstanding since at least the turn of the first century AD.
Many skeptics of Christianity believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. Some claim that nobody believed He was God until long, long after His death. Others argue that Jesus' own words show that He believed Himself to be simply a man, or only the Son of God and not God Himself. Still others claim that Jesus' divinity was created by the apostle Paul, and that his teaching and Jesus' teaching are in conflict. From Jehovah's Witnesses to Muslims to atheists, a whole bunch of people deny that Jesus is God.
God told Noah to build a big boat. This boat - an ark, which means "vessel" - had to be big enough to save Noah, and his family, and two of each kind of animal from a big flood. How big was Noah's ark?
Are dogs and cats mentioned in the Bible? The Hebrew word for dog (keleb) and the Greek word for dog (kyon) appear a number of times in the Bible:
It's clear from simply reading the New Testament that baptism by the Holy Spirit is not just for the apostles (Jesus' first disciples). To see this, we only need to go to the most famous verse in the whole Bible, and read it in context. It is, of course, John 3:16. It's important to read the whole section in John 3.
