From Persecution to Empire
The third century was a tumultuous time for the Roman Empire. 30 emperors reigned during this century, but few died peacefully. Most were victims of bloody coups which triggered further…
Musical Emergency
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has been held annually since 1982. According to the contest's website, this upside-down award goes to the author who pens the most "atrocious opening sentence to the…
The Presence of God
In this series of blogs, we've set out to answer tricky questions raised by the ongoing conflict in Israel. The large majority of Israel's population are, of course, ethnically Jewish.…
Not Of This World
In 1961, archeologists were excavating an ancient theater in the city of Caesarea, along the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Caesarea became the capital of the Roman province of Judea in…
Suffering, Sacrifice and Salvation
Yogi Berra, baseball Hall of Famer and master of malaprop, once quipped, "the future ain't what it used to be." Over the last several weeks, we've examined some of the…
The Priests of Baal
Elijah is regarded as perhaps the greatest of all the prophets in ancient Israel. He prophesied during the reign of king Ahab. The Bible does not paint a flattering portrait…
What’s New is Old
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel. It's a valuable experience to walk in the Holy Land and see the places where much of the Biblical…
The Righteousness of God
We are finally at the point where we are prepared to directly examine those spectacular passages of the Bible where the Apostle Paul writes about justification "by faith, not by…
The Law of the Spirit of Life
We're still working on the Roman road to salvation and finding that the road is in pretty poor condition. Let's keep patching things up, filling the potholes and sealing the…
No Condemnation in the Messiah
We've been doing some road repair recently. Specifically, the Roman Road to Salvation has some deep potholes that need fixing. Our understanding of Romans 6:23 was one of the areas…