Bill Pratt | December 24, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt According to church historian John Hannah, there were four major Protestant streams that developed during the Reformation in the 16th century: Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism. Each of these streams placed great stress on the idea of salvation by faith alone, yet they did not all agree on what infant baptism [...]
Bill Pratt | December 20, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt The Book of Revelation, according to some Christians, teaches a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth after his second coming (see Rev. 20). This will then be followed by the creation of a new heaven and new earth. This view is known today as premillenialism. But there are other Christians, [...]
Bill Pratt | November 29, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In the most recent edition of the Christian Research Journal, Jay W. Richards addressed this topic. The verses that have led some to make the claim that the early church was communist are Acts 4:32-35. But is that the correct interpretation of these verses? If so, is communism the ideal for [...]
Bill Pratt | October 25, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In the early centuries of Christianity, believers were mostly without complete written copies of the New Testament as we know it today. They may have possessed portions of it, but most Christians were taught doctrine orally. In order to focus on and remember what was important, the early church composed several [...]
Bill Pratt | June 29, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Archaeologists reported on June 22, 2010 that they found images of the apostles Andrew and John that date to the 4th century. Here is an excerpt from the article at CNN.com. The oldest known image of the apostles Andrew and John have been discovered in catacombs under the city of Rome, [...]
Bill Pratt | May 22, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt I ran across a fascinating article about a small group of Christians who have preserved the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke. Here is a an excerpt: The Aramaic language of the earliest Christians lives on in the church services of a tiny village on the Turkish Cypriot side of the Mediterranean [...]
Bill Pratt | April 29, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In A.D. 325, an ecumenical council of Christian bishops gathered to discuss a theological issue that was tearing apart the unity of the church. A common misconception about this council was that the argument was over whether Jesus was God or man. In fact, this idea has become so popular that [...]
Bill Pratt | April 14, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In studying church history, I’ve been looking at the period often called the Enlightenment. During this time, a movement swept through Europe which attempted to throw off the authority of divine revelation and place man on his rightful throne as the center of all knowledge and wisdom. Historian Clyde Manschreck suggested [...]
Bill Pratt | April 2, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt This question first came to a dramatic head in the church in the fifth and sixth centuries. There were four main protagonists. Augustine of Hippo argued that salvation is totally and causatively of God’s grace. A contemporary of Augustine, Pelagius, argued that salvation is totally and causatively of man’s free will. [...]
Bill Pratt | March 22, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In parts one, two, and three of this series of posts, we discussed the writings of Josephus and Tacitus, who are both non-Christians. They each provide historical confirmation of key components of the history recorded in the New Testament. Before ending this series, I want to look at one more writer [...]
