For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. //In the spirit of mystery–for the resurrection story is a great mystery, whether we claim to know what happened or not–I present today’s verse. I honestly don’t know what to make of it, I’ve…

Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? //Did yesterday’s post leave you thinking that women were as common as men among the leaders of the early Jesus movement? It’s hard to say. Yet…

And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him. //Today’s verse tells how, at Jesus’s crucifixion, it was his female followers who witnessed his death. All of the male disciples had run away. (John’s Gospel tells of the “beloved disciple” standing by, which…

And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. //Mark was the first Gospel written, about 70 CE. Then came Matthew, Luke, and John, probably in that order. When the Gospels are ordered chronologically, it’s…

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. //Sometimes the contradictions in scripture are subtle and other times they are direct. But sometimes they simply highlight the silliness of…

In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands. //Luke, when writing about this event in Acts 9:23-25, tells us…

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. //One of the big arguments in the early centuries of the Church was this matter of whether God would forgive. Marcion, for example, felt that the Old Testament God of hatred should be stricken from the Bible….