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It is not an uncommon thing in today’s church that I hear a pastor’s use of scripture or reference be outside the actual context. If I have a relationship with them, I do what the modern culture deems appropriate—send an Email. Not because I am offended. Not because I want to be “that guy.” But
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Textual criticism isn’t about criticizing the Bible in a hostile way. It’s about reconstructing the earliest text of Scripture as accurately as humanly possible. That’s it. It deals with this unavoidable fact: • We don’t have the original manuscripts (the autographs) written by Paul, John, Moses, etc. • What we do have are thousands of handwritten
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Before the Filters For the first three centuries, Christians didn’t talk about “getting saved” the way most sermons do now. There was no sinner’s prayer, no courtroom where you were declared innocent and then sent home unchanged. The gospel was not a legal loophole—it was an invitation to be remade. Salvation meant being healed, adopted,
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Why the Bible Feels Silent for So Many—And How to Hear It Again Most people don’t walk away from Scripture because they hate it. They walk away because it never seems to answer the questions they’re asking. But what if the problem isn’t the Bible? What if it’s the questions we inherited? Scripture Shows Us
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People assume if you’re serious about theology, Augustine is somewhere near the top of your bookshelf. He’s not on mine. Not because he was evil, though I do believe he always had one foot in Gnostic beliefs and one foot in the Church. Not because he didn’t love Christ, I believe some part of him
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Social media has become the perfect pulpit for anyone convinced they were born to teach the faith—whether they’ve opened a theology book or not. Many, in ignorance mixed with arrogance, loudly proclaim that they do not need early church fathers nor any commentary external to the bible. They claim to have received all that they need
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If the apostles walked into most modern churches this Sunday, they wouldn’t recognize much. Not the architecture, not the schedule, not the sermons. Maybe not even the gospel. They’d recognize the name of Jesus—but they’d wonder who all these well-dressed spectators were, why no one was breaking bread together, and why half the congregation thinks
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Precepts and presuppositions—few things weigh heavier on the conscience of anyone who tries to read honestly. We all have them; it’s nearly impossible to be human and not. Every experience, sermon, or inherited belief becomes a lens we don’t realize we’re wearing. Yet when reading most literature, we at least try to set those lenses
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The deeper you study theology, the harder it gets to keep simple faith. Not because truth destroys belief, but because it refuses to play by its rules. Every serious student of Scripture eventually reaches that moment—the slow, quiet crisis where the text stops cooperating with Sunday’s assumptions. Manuscripts disagree. Traditions diverge. Doctrines shift depending on
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There are moments in Scripture where small details carry large implications. Acts 2 is one of them. For generations, preachers have pictured the apostles still huddled in the same upper room where they prayed after the Ascension. It’s a familiar scene—intimate, dramatic, cinematic—but inaccurate. Where the Scene Actually Unfolds Acts 1:13 explicitly mentions the upper room; Acts
Restoring Apostolic Faith 