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.
48 results for “Christian witness”
Clear searchHow Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
Your Party Is Not Your Church How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal Political parties do not merely ask for our votes. Increasingly, they offer an entire identity. Each side s…
Read article →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 →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
…s 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 recent invention. Read Irenaeus as an early witness, not as an auth…
View recommendation →Hippolytus · Exposition, prophecy, and polemic · early third century
…her the writings offer a high view of Scripture, vigorous rebuttal, a clear premillennial witness, and repeated concern that Christian belief should issue in faithful and holy living. Treat Hippolytus as an important early witness rather than an authority whose every conclusion i…
View recommendation →Tertullian · Apologetic, doctrinal, and practical treatises · c. 197–220
…His Apology and related appeals confront Roman governors with the injustice of condemning Christians without hearing their case, while his doctrinal works answer opponents with close argument and a profound regard for Scripture. He can also be searching on the practical demands o…
View recommendation →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
…itially realise. Both were personally chosen to accompany Jesus. Both heard His teaching, witnessed His miracles, and shared in the life of the disciples. Both were warned that they would fail Him. Both acted against light they had received. Neither man could claim ignorance of w…
Read article →Origen, Arius and the line between Creator and creation
…of Christ from television shows and documentaries, Muslims, Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses—and, if you have children, they may encounter them too, perhaps even through teachers or classmates. Understanding why Scripture identifies Jesus as the eternal Creator helps us pr…
Read article →How the Law reaches its goal and appointed end in Christ
…aw reaches its goal and appointed end in Christ Few sentences have carried more weight in Christian discussions of the Law than Romans 10:4: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." —Romans 10:4 Does Paul mean that Christ terminated the La…
Read article →Faith, assurance, and the unseen reality of God
…. There can grow within us a recognition that is difficult to convey to someone who knows Christianity principally as a subject of debate. God is no longer merely a proposition under consideration. We have come to trust Him. That does not mean every Christian must have a dramatic…
Read article →The peace Christ gives in a troubled world
…s and be in them. He would teach them, bring Christ's words to their remembrance and bear witness to Christ. The peace remains Christ's gift, but it is known and enjoyed through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does not draw attention away from Christ. He makes Christ…
Read article →Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ
The Earth's Great Sabbath Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ The Christian hope for creation rests neither in human effort nor in escape from the material world. The creation groans for the return of its rightful King, the revelation of the sons of God, a…
Read article →How the Lord knows His own—and how their lives bear His name
…rturned. From the human point of view, the situation looked unstable. People who spoke as Christians were leading others away from truth. Some who had appeared to believe were being shaken. Then comes Paul's nevertheless. The error is real. Its effects are grievous. Human profess…
Read article →Simon Greenleaf · Legal examination of testimony · 1846
Greenleaf's work is worthwhile because it asks readers to take the four Gospel witnesses seriously as testimony rather than dismissing them by prejudice or accepting them without examination. His legal approach draws attention to the difference between contradiction an…
View recommendation →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 →An 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 →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 →Isaiah, John, and the Divine Identity of Jesus Christ
…erlooked superior Isaiah 43 moves into the language of a courtroom. The nations and their witnesses are summoned; Israel must bear witness to what YHWH has declared and accomplished. “Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and…
Read article →The incarnation, the limits of created perspective and the love philosophy could not imagine
…A conversation with my son brought the strangeness of the incarnation freshly before me. Christians have heard the words so often that we can cease to feel their force. God became man. The Word was made flesh. The One who made the world entered it, accepted the limitations of a…
Read article →Jesus and the fountain of living water
…system." He does not send the thirsty to a place, a ritual, a priesthood or a technique. Christian truth matters, Christian fellowship matters and Christ commands His people to be baptised and to remember Him together. Yet none of these is the fountain. They have life only becau…
Read article →The Gospel, Human Perception, and the Illuminating Work of the Holy Spirit
…nd some of it while misunderstanding the rest? Did our words awaken a familiar picture of Christianity assembled from school lessons, political arguments, religious hypocrisy, painful experiences, and things Christians themselves should never have taught? The question is not whet…
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 →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 →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…g theatre, however vivid, can sit in judgement upon the Son of God. Christ and the larger witness of Scripture must interpret the experience; the experience must never be allowed to rewrite Christ. What is a near-death experience? The term covers a family of intense experiences r…
Read article →The Venerable Bede · Ecclesiastical and national history · 731
…of churches could be. It is both a major historical source and a vivid encounter with the Christian memory of early England. Bede is a primary witness with theological, ecclesiastical, regional, and political commitments; he is not a detached modern historian. His miracle account…
View recommendation →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 →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 →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 →The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an
Did Jesus Really Die? The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an Christianity and Islam cannot both be correct about the death of Jesus. The Gospel declares that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, was buried and rose bodily from the dead. His…
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 Messiah cut off before the Temple fell
…s not possess. But they do not remove the problem. Daniel 9 existed within Judaism before Christianity. Its prophecy places the cutting off of an anointed figure before the destruction of the city and sanctuary. Jesus appeared during the Second Temple period, was recognised as th…
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 →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 →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…guity is real, but it cannot decide the identity of the one being named. English-speaking Christians, Muslims and Hindus may all use the word God while intending radically different conceptions of the divine. Arabic-speaking Christians and Muslims both use Allah. A common noun do…
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 →Conditional blessing, irrevocable promise, and fulfilment in Christ
…ess, or detached from Christ. The law remains holy, just, and good; it reveals sin, bears witness to God's righteousness, and finds its goal in the Messiah (Romans 3:21; 7:7-12). Nor does the passing of the Mosaic administration cancel promises which preceded it. Paul argues that…
Read article →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…ent of that reception in John 6 is faith—not the physical mechanism of a sacrament. Early Christian witnesses including Tertullian and Augustine reached the same conclusion from the text. Their testimony is not offered as an infallible authority alongside Scripture. It demonstrat…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…seasons remain in the Father's authority and immediately commissioned His disciples to be witnesses (Acts 1:7-8). Uncertainty about the date became a reason for useful service. The proper posture is therefore: expect Christ without naming a date; observe the age without forcing e…
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 →Seth D. Postell, Eitan Bar & Erez Soref · Messianic biblical theology · 2017
…nact. The authors read its narratives, patterns, promises, and commandments as a coherent witness whose goal is found in Yeshua. Their Jewish and Israeli setting makes the discussion especially valuable, while the book's clarity opens questions about law, grace, Messiah, and Chri…
View recommendation →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…many false prophets are gone out into the world.” —1 John 4:1 Ecstasy is not exclusively Christian Certain features appear repeatedly in accounts of spiritual ecstasy: a diminished awareness of the body, the weakening of the distinction between self and world, extraordinary ligh…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…tion before me for ever." —Jeremiah 31:36 The sun, moon, stars, sea, and heavens serve as witnesses to God's commitment. Israel's sin is not ignored; the same chapter speaks of uprooting and affliction. Yet the nation will not cease to exist before God. Jeremiah 33 repeats the ap…
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 →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…d saving work within history? --- More than twenty years ago, during the early part of my Christian walk, one sentence in Scripture troubled me: “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” — Psalm 2:7; Acts 13:33 Acts appeared to connect this “begetting” with Christ’s resur…
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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