Studies on the Fringe of Christianity
Samson was the 15th and most famous judge of Israel and reigned for two decades, some 3,000 years ago. Judges were people that served roles as military leaders in times of crisis, before an Israelite monarchy was established.1 He never did completely free his people from Philistine bondage, but did provide some relief. Samson gave …
Chances are that most people have not read or heard about the story in Ezekiel, chapter 23. This is one of those “X-rated” chapters of the Bible, which may be occasionally referred to, but never read in church. It is a dire but foretelling story showing that God has a great deal of patience and …
I’m often asked if I believe demons are real and if so, can they really live within people and take control away from them. I always answer, “Yes. Demons are real and the Bible gives evidence of people being controlled by them.” There are several instances in the Holy Bible relating to how Jesus cast …
Jesus died– the veil was torn– there was an earthquake– and immediate resurrection of saints! The remarkable events recorded in some verses of Matthew 27, which occurred at the very moment of Jesus’ death on the cross, have been passionately debated for years. Scholars are ‘all over the map,’ so to speak, about what is …
Chapter 5 of the book of Matthew starts off with Jesus listing the Beatitudes, given in the Sermon on the Mount. These items are the characteristics of true believers. Immediately following these blessings, Jesus gives what is called the Similitudes about salt and light, which describe the functions of our Christian character. This study will …
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 …
A Study of Daniel Chapter 3 Most times that I’ve brought up the story in the Book of Daniel about the three Hebrew boys being thrown into the fiery furnace, people respond to the event as being mostly just a child’s Bible story. It is a good story with life applications for youngsters trying to …
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, …
The answer to the title of this essay is, yes! Jesus was dead for a full three days and three nights, and that fact can be established from Jesus’ own words. The Bible tells the story of a time the Pharisees, who had accused Jesus of collusion with the devil, asked him for a sign …
The Bible scholar Robert Baker Girdlestone was accurate when he stated, “The difficulty of the translator usually begins with the name of God . . . it has caused perplexity, if not dissension, in the case of many new translations.”1 This dilemma is caused by many problems inherent to the Hebrew language and the facts …