Let's dive deep into life and its complexities
If the discussion about the “bread of life” discourse is already challenging enough, this next discussion is the equivalent of “hold my beer.” That is, the debate over justification by faith versus justification by works (or sometimes defined as works of the Law). The “works” position is often the most contentious part of the debate, as…
One of the most hotly debated topics between Catholic Christians and Protestants is the Bread of Life discourse in John 6:1-71. At the center of this is John 6:51-58, in which Jesus repeatedly emphasizes, both literally and metaphorically, that he is the bread of life. However, the situation gets dicey as Jesus includes this to…
If there is one word that encompasses much of Catholic Christian theology and its two wings of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, it is koinonia. Although a seemingly bizarre, broad sounding word at first – and not nearly as common as the English words, Gospel, Confession, Liturgy, and Eucharist, when describing Catholic Mass or Sacraments…
Of the four Gospel authors, who appears to be the most concerned with Jewish history and Jesus’ links to the Old Testament / Hebrew Scripture? Who makes a point of including numerous references to the OT prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, a birth narrative that remarkably resembles Moses’ birth, and phenomenal events – signs from the…
Borrowing from the old adage, “all roads lead to Rome”, it appears that all ancient Mediterranean cities led to Christianity. Even despite Christianity being a minor movement in the first century, the sophisticated (for ancient times), Roman-designed travel routes throughout the Mediterranean and Asia Minor allowed early Christians to mingle with other cultures and gain…
Ezekiel As a combination prophet and priest who lived in the thick of the exile, and whose allegorically vivid words not only resemble how earlier prophets expressed themselves, but also have a priestly authority to them (Boadt et al. 338, 339), Ezekiel is credited for writing one of the most detailed accounts of the exile….
Studying Deuteronomy is like watching a time travel movie, or other mind-bending story, where it is hard to tell whether the protagonist is still in the past, or was always in the present, or is in a perpetual loop of appearing in the past, yet still in the present, yet actually in the past, and…
What images come to mind when thinking of the word prophecy? The numerous fantasy movies featuring bearded, pointy-hat wearing wizards peering through a crystal ball and warning of impending doom? Or documentaries about Nostradamus? Or the now debunked predictions about the world ending in 2012, according to the ancient Mayan clock? Regardless of how prophecy…
In the world of theological conversations, the word “God” is the de facto, universal name to describe the supreme Source of Judeo-Christian belief. Yet the etymology of God, just in the Jewish tradition alone, comes from a variety of sources. Further, various names ascribed to God are clearly used in the Torah – which begs…
To understand the Jewish interpretation of the flood story and how it differs from Christianity’s overarching doctrine of Original Sin (beginning with Genesis), three components help piece together the Jewish interpretation puzzle: the sources used to build the narrative about sin, the challenges with defining sin in the Jewish sense versus the Christian understanding, and…