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Search by subject, then refine by approach. A prophecy study may also be apologetic or discerning because subject tells you what it examines, while approach tells you how it examines it.
16 results for “Christian doctrine”
Clear searchWhy the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God
Not Three Gods Why the Trinity is not polytheism—and why Christians confess one God The Trinity is often rejected before it is accurately defined. “The Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God,” the objection runs. “That makes three…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…Christ and the Church. The resulting history is neither simple nor flattering. Some early Christian writers defended essential truths: Jesus is Israel's Messiah, the law cannot justify, Gentiles are full heirs in Christ, and the Old Testament finds its goal in Him. Yet those trut…
Read article →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
Is the Beatific Vision the Whole Christian Hope? Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation The beatific vision is the Christian teaching that the redeemed will see God and find their perfect happines…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
…ent comes. The future of Israel is therefore not a specialised controversy at the edge of Christian doctrine. It tests how we understand the faithfulness of the God upon whose promises the Church itself depends. The opposing case deserves to be stated fairly Most thoughtful super…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world To many Jewish people, Christianity appears thoroughly foreign. Its historic centres became Rome, Constantinople, Canterbury, Geneva, and countless cities far from Jerusalem. Its Scriptures have been used to justi…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
Every Christian Should Believe in the Rapture The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing The rapture is often treated as though it were an eccentric event invented by dispensationalists…
Read article →Divine judgement, the character of God, and the promise of escape
…pe The claim that the Church is not appointed to wrath is sometimes answered too quickly. Christians plainly suffer. Jesus promised tribulation in the world. The apostles endured imprisonment, violence, loss, and martyrdom. Across the world, believers still suffer precisely becau…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…n precisely the direction of the attitude Paul forbids. The passage does not accuse every Christian who interprets the Church as Israel of personal arrogance. It does establish that the metaphor was designed to prevent Gentile believers from treating Jewish exclusion as proof of…
Read article →How an openly transmitted text survived copying, criticism, and centuries of examination
…How an openly transmitted text survived copying, criticism, and centuries of examination Christians sometimes hear a sweeping objection: the Bible may once have contained God's word, but generations of copying changed it so thoroughly that nobody can now know what it originally…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…final abomination before his decreed destruction. The pronoun alone should not carry the doctrine. Hebrew can resume a more distant subject, and covenant language understandably attracts a messianic interpretation. The cumulative context is stronger than the grammar by itself: a…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…the date of a system's formulation does not determine whether its interpretation is true. Christian theology repeatedly developed more precise vocabulary when questions forced believers to bring biblical truths into a coherent account. Later systematisation can clarify Scripture…
Read article →What the historical evidence proves—and what it does not
…roves—and what it does not The historical objection is often stated in absolute terms: no Christian taught the rapture before John Nelson Darby devised it in the nineteenth century. The conclusion then follows that pretribulationism cannot be apostolic. Two questions are being co…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…roof. Neither is it a decisive refutation of imminency. Expectancy without prediction The doctrine has often been damaged by date-setting. Predictions have failed, charts have been treated as revelation, and excitement has sometimes become irresponsibility. None of that is requir…
Read article →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
…emain with Him for ever. His concern is pastoral. Some Thessalonian believers feared that Christians who had died would miss the Lord's coming. Paul assures them that the dead will be raised and that the whole company will be reunited in Christ's presence. He concludes, “Wherefor…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…aders assume the answer is obvious. The New Testament applies the language of election to Christians, so the elect in Matthew 24 must be the Church. If they are gathered after the Tribulation, the passage appears to place the rapture there as well. The first premise is possible.…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:50-54). The question is not whether Christians should believe in that gathering. The question is where it belongs within the wider prophetic programme. Pretribulationism gains its strength from several strands which converge.…
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