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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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? [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
