Studies on the Fringe of Christianity
The other day, someone I know was relating something that happened in a department store parking lot. He was waiting as an automobile backed out and left a parking space, but before he could drive his car into the space himself, another vehicle approaching from the other direction zipped into it. Sound familiar? When things …
This article is not a discourse on the whole book of Job in the Bible, but only concerns the second half of chapter 4, where one of Job’s friends explains a dream he once had. The friend believes it is divine wisdom from God, and we will examine the dream to see if that is …
The Ten Commandments are ten principles given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai after the enslaved Israelites were delivered out of Egypt. These ten major rules were written upon two tablets of stone and called the Decalogue,1 but best known as the Ten Commandments. These commandments are listed in the Bible in two forms, …
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 …
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, …
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, …
All of the pastors that I’ve ever heard giving a sermon on Genesis chapter 6, started with Genesis 6:5. When I asked why they skipped the first four verses, I usually got one of three answers: (1) “they aren’t important to the story,” (2) “they are too complicated for the congregation to understand,” or (3) …
The story of Jesus writing in the dust has always had a bit of mystery associated with it, because nowhere in the Bible does it state exactly what he wrote. We do know what it was about, so there have been many suggestions, both reasonable and unreasonable, as to his exact communication on that day. …
Does the Bible really convey a message about hemorrhoids? Yes, it does. But first, for the sake of accuracy, let’s read a brief description of this affliction, for it is necessary for the story about to be told. Hemorrhoids (or piles) are enlarged veins of the anus and rectum. They affect about 75 percent of …