Studies on the Fringe of Christianity
People had only one name, during Biblical times. To distinguish between people of the same name, a description was often used. Jesus was a common Jewish name in Judea, so our Savior was called ‘The Nazarene’, after the city in which he lived.1 Likewise, the Mary of this study was from the town of Magdala2 …
I’ve tried to write this article several times, over the last couple of years, and always ended up putting it aside “until later.” Even this time I started to repeat my frustration, realizing that even a few thousand words could not explain this subject properly, but I persevered by believing what scant information I could …
The New Testament book of Ephesians was written to the Christians in Ephesus and explains what the Christian Church is and how its members should behave. Most commentators credit the apostle Paul with authorship, but there is some debate about that. And although many dates have been given, it was probably written between 60–63 A.D. …
The patriarch of the three Abrahamic religions is the prophet Abraham, from which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim a shared ancestry. This story about him begins in Mesopotamia at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1900 BC), when Abram (Abraham’s name before God changed it) was called by God to become the …
In a restaurant a few days ago, I overheard a small group of people discussing the account in the Gospels, when Jesus confronted a Canaanite woman. What really caught my attention though, was when one person said, “I don’t think Jesus should have made such a mean racist comment to someone asking him for help.” …
Do you believe in ghosts? According to the Huffington Post, nearly half of Americans do. A HuffPost poll “shows that 45 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, or that the spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations.”1 In the U.K., 52 percent of respondents indicated that they believed in ghosts, …
This article is short, but truly a study on the fringe of Christianity, something I am known to present. But it is just a study and examination of what a few others suppose. It is not suggested as doctrine or dogma — it is just something to make you think “outside of the box” and …
This article is neither a deep Bible study nor one that unveils a mysterious biblical event. It is just a reflection of my own inner thoughts about how I look at religion and Christianity and how I observe and catalog Christians in particular. First, let’s have a short overview of religious beliefs and the many …
Recently, someone asked me to explain why God cursed women with a monthly period. She was referring to women’s menstruation, including a possible combination of symptoms about a week or so before the actual flow of blood. This premenstrual assortment of problems, called premenstrual syndrome (PMS), can include such effects as bloating, headaches, and moodiness, …
Chinese officials snatched about 100 worshipers of the Early Rain Covenant Church in districts of Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan. The activity was to close down one of the country’s prominent Protestant “house churches.” The coordinated raids began on the evening of 9 December 2018 according to South China Morning Post.1 U. S. China …