Did Jesus have facial hair? Unequivocally yes: Jesus had facial hair because the Bible says that he did. Isaiah 50:6 mentions Jesus’s beard when it describes his suffering thusly: “I offered my back to those who attacked, my jaws to those who tore out my beard; I did not hide my face from insults and…
Lately I have been thinking a lot about 2 Corinthians 3:17, and especially about what this verse teaches us regarding the identity of Jesus. As I see it, the wording of this verse has serious implications relating to the deity of Christ. With that in mind, I would like to ask two Christological questions in…
Those of us who speak English are blessed with hundreds of Bible translations in our language. Most of the time, these various Bible versions say basically the same thing: they differ slightly in wording, but not actually in substance. That said, a while back I noticed a significant difference between the major Bible versions at…
Without putting too fine a point on things, cessationism is the idea that God allowed certain miraculous gifts to take place during biblical times, but these supernatural occurrences no longer take place in the modern church. In my experience, most cessationists do not believe that all miracles have ceased: if we pray for a sick…
With Christ’s help we must capture even the “little” sins in our life, so that our sanctification may be complete and the harvest may come to maturity. Go find your little foxes. Happy hunting!
A few days ago I posted an article defending Paul’s statement in Titus 2:13 that Jesus is “the great God” against Unitarian objections. In that article, I demonstrated that the Granville Sharp Construction (GSC) can co-exist with Anaphora—and thus Paul can call Jesus “the great God” while simultaneously referring back to his opening description of…
The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is God; one of the clearest scriptures on this point is Titus 2:13, which describes him as “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (ESV). Nevertheless those who deny the deity of Jesus (e.g., Unitarians, JWs) maintain that this verse doesn’t call Jesus God at all. Such people say…
I often see well-meaning Christians mention the Hebrew word Elohim (אלהים) in relation to the doctrine of the Trinity. Because the word Elohim is plural, our Trinitarian friends suggest that this Hebrew term proves that God is more than one person. The problem with this claim is that it overlooks the way that plural nouns…
It’s the Christmas season; during this time of year we typically hear about the Nativity story more than usual. All Christians know the story of Jesus’ birth, at least in broad strokes. The angel Gabriel comes to the virgin Mary to tell her that she will have a baby. Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem…
I just wanted to drop a quick note about a cool connection between the creation of humanity and the salvation of humanity. In Genesis 2—when God created Adam—scripture says, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living…
Lectionary 