PreTrib PilgrimSearch the library
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.
42 results for “Christian unity”
Clear searchAn unrequited love for the historic Church
…ry later development apostolic. There is a particular accusation made against evangelical Christianity that I feel more deeply than might be expected. We are told that we are rootless individualists: Christians without a Church, readers without rulers, minds pursuing private illu…
Read article →Why 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 →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
…escribes that ability as God's gift. This corrects pride without producing false modesty. Christians need not pretend that competence does not matter. We may learn, practise, improve and take satisfaction in a task done well. But we should remember that intelligence, opportunity,…
Read article →Irenaeus of Lyons · Early Christian theology and polemic · c. 180–190
…true humanity and deity of Christ, bodily resurrection, the goodness of creation, and the unity of the Old and New Testaments. He is also an important early witness to a future earthly kingdom: his premillennial passages show that this expectation cannot simply be dismissed as a…
View recommendation →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
The Sum of These Things Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Ma…
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 →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
Have Evangelicals Become Neo-Gnostics? History, Heresy, and the Temptation of Private Christianity The accusation identifies real evangelical deformations—secret-key religion, escape rhetoric, elite conversion status, and churchless faith—but fails when it becomes a historica…
Read article →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…m it. The People of the Gospel are told to judge by what God revealed within it. Yet when Christians open the Gospel they possessed for centuries before Muhammad, they find the Son who shares the Father's glory, gives His life as a ransom, is crucified under Pontius Pilate and ri…
Read article →Two failures, two responses, and the difference between remorse and repentance
…ed to pay him thirty pieces of silver. From that point forward, Judas looked for an opportunity to betray Jesus. His actions were deliberate. He negotiated the price, watched for the proper moment, led an armed company to Jesus, and identified Him with a kiss. His outward display…
Read article →What the Father's love for the Son reveals about God
…ion to love and freely express it when He creates. That answer should be taken seriously. Christianity does not need to prove the Trinity by defining love in a way which makes every alternative logically impossible. The biblical case is stronger than that. Jesus does not leave us…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…revealed by what it does when the beloved is undeserving and the cost is real. Islam and Christianity both speak of divine mercy, forgiveness and love. A fair comparison cannot begin by pretending that the Qur'an presents Allah as merciless or that Muslims worship a deity who ne…
Read article →Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints
When Do Persecuted Christians Receive Rest? Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints In his presentation Why I Reject a Pre-tribulation Rapture, Michael Brown identifies 2 The…
Read article →Origen, Arius and the line between Creator and creation
…Origen’s difficult position helps us distinguish what Scripture teaches from the language Christians gradually developed to defend it. Primary passages: John 1:1–3; John 5:17–23; John 8:54–59; John 17:5; Colossians 1:15–17; Hebrews 1:1–12; Isaiah 44:6, 24 --- In the previous stud…
Read article →The glory philosophy could not contain
…r an objection. It should enlarge our worship. The Incarnation is not merely a difficulty Christianity can survive; it is glory Christianity alone can proclaim. The Maker entered His creation. The eternal Son made our nature His own. The One whom the heaven of heavens cannot cont…
Read article →The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels
…Prophet The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels Islam honours Jesus in ways which Christians should acknowledge accurately. The Qur'an calls Him the Messiah, describes Him as a word from God, affirms His virgin birth and attributes extraordinary signs to Him by God's perm…
Read article →A response to Michael Horton on the land promise, Amos 9, and the people of God
…and the nations receive blessing through the people with whom God has identified Himself. Christians from the nations are children of Abraham by faith. They share in spiritual blessings mediated through Israel's Messiah. But Scripture does not therefore require them to describe t…
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 →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
…cultural vacuum. It appeared in a world alive with biblical names, Jewish interpretation, Christian preaching, sectarian disagreement, devotional legend and stories carried across languages by travellers, merchants, clergy and ordinary believers. That observation does not disprov…
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 →Constantine, Arius, the Trinity, the biblical canon—and the myths that refuse to die
…The Council of Nicaea has become a screen upon which almost every conspiracy about early Christianity is projected. Constantine invented the Trinity. Jesus was voted into deity. Paganism defeated biblical Christianity. The emperor chose the books of the Bible. Reincarnation was…
Read article →Why the distinction matters when we speak about Jesus
…confessed that He knew all things. He suffered, bled and died, although God is immortal. Christians rightly believe all these things because Scripture plainly teaches them. The difficulty begins when we try to explain how they can all be true of the same Christ. It is common to…
Read article →Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation
Is the Qur'an a Miracle? Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation Christians are frequently placed on the defensive. Has the Bible been corrupted? Did Jesus really claim to be God? Was He actually crucified? Has the doctrine of the Trinity compromised mono…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…xpressly records that God heard Ishmael, protected him and promised to make him fruitful. Christians have no reason to erase what Scripture affirms. But blessing is not the same as covenant election. God named the covenant heir before he was born. He repeated that choice after hi…
Read article →Four popular claims tested in context
…that the coming of Muhammad was written in the Torah and the Gospel possessed by Jews and Christians: "Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them" (Surah 7:157, Pickth…
Read article →Simon Greenleaf · Legal examination of testimony · 1846
…rdinary variation found among independent witnesses, and to questions of character, opportunity, motive, corroboration, and the cost of maintaining their testimony. It remains a stimulating contribution to the cumulative case for the trustworthiness of the Gospels. This is a work…
View recommendation →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…ore not that the word seed is incapable of having a collective meaning. He identifies the unity and goal of Abraham's promised family in one representative Heir. The promises converge upon Christ, the particular descendant through whom blessing reaches both Israel and the nations…
Read article →The olive tree, the natural branches, and the limits of the metaphor
…ning to "their own olive tree." The metaphor teaches participation without appropriation, unity without erasure, and mercy without boasting. Paul is speaking directly to Gentiles Romans 9-11 addresses the problem created by Israel's unbelief. If Israel received the covenants and…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…istinctions which the Fathers did not formulate. Yet the underlying enquiry is not novel. Christians long before Darby were already correlating these passages and finding a future final week, a personal Antichrist, a temple crisis, a divided period, and Christ's return at its con…
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 →Why the Son assumed a complete human nature, not merely a body
…hy the Son assumed a complete human nature, not merely a body Why this is useful to know: Christians rightly confess that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Yet if “flesh” is imagined as a human body animated directly by the divine Word, Jesus can become less than fully human in…
Read article →Eustathius of Antioch, the human soul of Christ and the pictures created by our words
…rument through which God acted? The problem is not confined to careless modern preaching. Christians were struggling with its underlying questions in the early fourth century, even as they defended the eternal deity of the Son. Eustathius of Antioch saw one danger with unusual cl…
Read article →What 'yea and Amen' in Christ means for Israel and the covenants
…ise is certain in the divine purpose fulfilled through Christ, but it does not make every Christian Noah or give every believer the sign and historical commission given to him. God promised that Sarah would bear Isaac, that David would have an enduring royal house, that Mary woul…
Read article →Abraham, Lot, divine wrath, and a pattern that must be used carefully
…saster, and the consequences of other people's sin. Scripture never promises believers immunity from every earthly calamity. Abraham's appeal concerns God's punitive judgement of Sodom as Sodom. God does not condemn the righteous as wicked when He executes that particular wrath.…
Read article →Fulfilment in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, and Israel's future mercy
…on may enlarge the company of the blessed without requiring Israel's exclusion. Spiritual unity may coexist with distinctions which the New Testament itself continues to make. The question is therefore not whether the promises are fulfilled in Christ. They are. The question is wh…
Read article →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…nd sacrificial blessings to believers who approach God through Christ. Jewish and Gentile Christians therefore enjoy genuine new-covenant forgiveness, the indwelling Spirit, and direct access to God. These are not borrowed blessings of uncertain ownership. They were secured for u…
Read article →A response to Hank Hanegraaff on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation
…on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation In an article published by the Christian Research Institute, Hank Hanegraaff argues that the pretribulation rapture has no biblical basis. He presents it as a system in which God has two unrelated peoples and destinies, C…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…ecy to the faithfulness of God Has the Church replaced Israel in the purpose of God? Some Christians answer yes, although they may prefer words such as fulfilled, transformed, or expanded. They believe that Israel's promises have reached their true meaning in Christ and now belon…
Read article →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…. Across cultures and religions, people have reported visions, overwhelming sensations of unity, encounters with spiritual beings, the loss of their ordinary sense of self, and feelings of being absorbed into a greater reality. Such experiences may be beautiful, terrifying, or ap…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…nt of prophetic promise. The temple was rebuilt, Jerusalem was restored, and a Jewish community again lived in the land. Any interpretation which ignores that return is incomplete. It did not exhaust the wider prophetic picture. Many Israelites remained dispersed. The Davidic Kin…
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
…the prophets, the teaching of Jesus, Acts, Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, and the history of Christian interpretation, the cumulative answer is no. God has judged Israel severely. The nation remains largely in unbelief and cannot inherit saving blessing apart from Jesus Christ. Yet…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…theology" is a useful popular label, but it can also conceal important differences. Many Christians accused of teaching that the Church replaced Israel would reject that wording. They believe that the Church is the fulfilment, continuation, or expansion of Israel rather than its…
Read article →Governmental restraint, the final ten kings, and the preparation of the temple
…; its displacement can allow power to be reorganised and concentrated in his hands. Early Christian writers recognised this possibility, and Daniel and Revelation supply a political setting worth examining alongside it. The temple raises a related question of preparation. Antichr…
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