A friend of mine, Heather, asked me this question the other day. I love these kind of questions because often it is hard to wrap our mind around things that happened in ancient history, especially Biblical things. Q: “What happened to Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30? Is there a gap in the

As we were studying the kingdom of heaven/kingdom of God, a friend brought up this difficult saying of Jesus during our Bible study. I believe deeply in contexual understanding and so wanted to look closely at the context (including other occurences) of this saying in Scripture. It always amazes me

A friend asked me me today, “How do you renconcile Matt 5:17-19 in regards to all the Levitical laws and OT teachings of ritualistic behavior?” The first thing we should do is look at the Scripture in context: Matthew 5:17-20(TNIV) 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or

  I was asked some time ago about Gnosticism. If you recall, Pastor Phil has even mentioned Gnostic thought in some of his sermons from the book of Hebrews. So, what is Gnosticism? What about those “lost Gospels” we hear about on TV? Let’s take a look:    Gnosticism is modern term

A friend emailed me the following question. Maybe you have the same struggle. Let’s look closer at what God wants for us: “I’ve always struggled with this verse: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you

A friend of mine went to a Bible study this week and contacted me with this question: “….we read a good amount of Romans. We ended up discussing how we are saved by faith alone, but I couldn’t help but disagree. James 2:24 clearly says we are not saved by works alone, and Matthew 7