Bill Pratt | April 21, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt Re-post from April 12, 2009 We celebrate Easter because it commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Jesus was killed by crucifixion on a Friday and then actually came back to life on the following Sunday. Some may ask, “So what?” Why is it important that Jesus rose from the [...]
Category: Resurrection |
21 Comments »
Tags: 1 Corinthians, apostle Paul, Christianity, death, Easter, Jesus, life after death, Resurrection
Bill Pratt | August 26, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt One of the most compelling apologetic arguments for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus is the fact that most of his closest followers were martyred for their beliefs. Since these followers would have had first-hand knowledge of whether he actually did come back from the dead, their willingness to be [...]
Category: Historical Christ, Resurrection |
22 Comments »
Tags: Apostle (Christian), apostle Andrew, Apostle deaths, apostle John, apostle Paul, apostle Peter, Martyr, resurrection of Jesus
Bill Pratt | January 20, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt We pick up from part 1 of this post to see why Paul could not have invented a version of Christianity foreign to Jesus’ teachings. McFarland continues making his case: The point is this: the key teachings of the Gospel (Jesus is the sinless Son of God; He died for our [...]
Category: Church History |
1 Comment »
Tags: Alex McFarland, apostle Paul, apostle Peter, Christianity, early Christianity, early church, Jesus Christ, New Testament, Southern Evangelical Seminary
Bill Pratt | January 18, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Recently I’ve run across people who believe that the apostle Paul effectively hijacked Jesus’ teachings and invented most of what we today call Christianity. Even though this seems to be a view with few advocates, it is still an important charge that is being made. How do we answer this question? [...]
Category: Church History |
2 Comments »
Tags: Alex McFarland, apostle Paul, Christianity, early Christianity, early church, Jesus Christ, New Testament, Southern Evangelical Seminary
Bill Pratt | January 13, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt So we’ve seen that the Bible does teach that some sins are more serious than others and that some virtues are greater than others. There is a moral law hierarchy. But what does this practically mean? First, let’s look at debates over public policy. When determining where to focus your efforts [...]
Category: Abortion, Faith and Works, Morality, Sin, Theology |
9 Comments »
Tags: Abortion, adultery, apostle Paul, Christianity, global warming, gossip, heavenly rewards, moral hierarchy, moral law, Morality, rewards, Sin
Bill Pratt | January 11, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In a sense, yes, but in another sense, no. Evangelicals often point out that all sins will send you to hell, that God demands moral perfection, so whether you steal a stick of chewing gum or murder your spouse, both sins will equally damn you. This is really just a way [...]
Category: Morality, Sin, Theology |
5 Comments »
Tags: adultery, apostle John, apostle Paul, Christianity, Evangelism, greater sin, lesser sin, Matt. 22, moral hierarchy, moral law, Morality, punishment, Sin, Theology
Bill Pratt | October 17, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt I’ve touched on this topic before, but it continues to interest me, so I thought I would cover some new ground on this important section of the New Testament. Context, when reading any passage of the Bible, is crucial to understanding it. When we look at the context of Romans 9-11, [...]
Category: Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Difficult Bible Passages, Salvation, Theology |
5 Comments »
Tags: apostle Paul, Bible Interpretation, Christianity, Israel, justification by faith, Romans, Romans 9, Romans 9-11, Salvation, Theology
Bill Pratt | September 12, 2009
Post Author: Bill Pratt To be honest, we just don’t know. Let’s take a brief look at the evidence we have. First, we will summarize the evidence external to the actual words of Hebrews. According to D. Edmond Hiebert, there were three early church traditions about authorship. The tradition from Alexandria, Egypt held that the [...]
Category: Books of the Bible |
2 Comments »
Tags: apologetics, apostle Paul, authorship of Hebrews, Book of Hebrews, Christian apologetics, Christianity, Hebrews
Bill Pratt | May 25, 2009
Many Christians are shocked when they read Romans 9:13: “Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” Since when does the God of love hate people? This verse, coupled with the rest of Romans 9, has led many to believe that God does not love all people, at least with regard [...]
Category: Books of the Bible, Salvation |
21 Comments »
Tags: apostle Paul, Christianity, election, Esau, God, Israel, Jacob, Malachi 1, Religion, Romans 9, Salvation
Bill Pratt | March 2, 2009
In this series of posts, we have shown that the NT writers claimed to be eyewitnesses or associates of eyewitnesses; we have shown that we have multiple witnesses, and we have shown that the eyewitnesses were trustworthy. How? They included embarrassing details about themselves and difficult details about their subject of worship, Jesus; their accounts [...]
Category: Islam, New Testament Reliability |
10 Comments »
Tags: 9/11, apologetics, apostle Paul, apostle Peter, apostles, Christianity, Chuck Colson, Islam, John Dean, New Testament, New Testament Reliability, Quran, religious fanatics, Resurrection, Richard Nixon, Watergate