Early Christianity
Second Temple backgrounds, apostolic communities, and the early church.
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Many Christians open their Bibles and move directly from Malachi to Matthew as though nothing happened in between. But nearly four centuries separate the last prophets of the Old Testament from the birth of Jesus. Often called the “silent years” — however they were anything but silent. This period was one of the most important…
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Why Some Modern Christian Thinking Still Echoes an Ancient Heresy “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NASB95) Most Christians have never heard of Marcion. When his name does surface, it is usually in a church history class as an ancient heretic whose ideas were rightly rejected nearly two…
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One of the greatest dangers facing the modern church is not atheism. It is not secularism. It is not even outright unbelief. It is the ancient temptation to seek secret knowledge. And sadly, it’s more often than not because someone or a group is chasing spiritual dopamine than it is heart felt devotion. Because the…
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Many Christians imagine Jesus being born into a thriving Jewish nation that simply happened to be occupied by Rome. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus was born into a culture fighting for survival. By the time He arrived in Bethlehem, Israel had endured centuries of conquest, foreign rule, cultural pressure, and religious compromise.…
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If we are going to read Scripture as it was written, we have to start with a simple question: What did the original audience assume was true about the world? Not what they were taught later. Not what theology systems eventually said. But what was simply… obvious to them. Because every text is written into…
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Recovering the Apostolic Baseline Beneath the Letters One of the quietest mistakes modern Christianity makes is assuming that Paul’s letters contain the whole of his teaching. They do not. They presuppose it. Paul’s epistles were never written to function as comprehensive manuals of Christian belief or practice. They are situational interventions—corrective, clarifying, pastoral—addressed to communities…
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Paul’s scattered congregations help explain his extensive correspondence. They do not prove that other apostles had no reason to write.
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One of the most common modern objections to Luke’s historical credibility does not begin with archaeology, dating, or genre. It begins with a feeling. Acts feels too tidy. In Acts, the early Christian movement appears deliberative and ultimately unified. Disputes arise, councils convene, arguments are heard, and decisions are rendered. The church moves forward. By…
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How Narrative Theology, Authority, and the Talmidim Model Converge The New Testament gives us no gap between Jesus’ ministry and the apostolic church. The same discipleship logic that shaped Jesus’ call to follow Him becomes, in Acts, the organizing principle of early Christian communities. Nowhere is that continuity clearer than in Acts 15. This chapter—often…
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A Manual for Allegiance, Not a Treatise on Belief If we want to know how the apostles actually formed churches, not merely what they believed, few documents are as illuminating as the Didache. Often titled The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations, the Didache is a brief, anonymous work, likely…
Restoring Apostolic Faith 