Two great mysteries in Christ From Genesis to Revelation, there is one thought that runs through the Bible, that God has a plan. Not only does this plan include man, but man plays a key role in it, being of critical importance in God’s plan. (“Man” represents both male and female, see Adam, man and woman.) The end of man, as revealed in the Bible, including the Gospels, the apostolic epistles, and finally the book… Read More »Friends of the Bridegroom
The book of Job in the Bible is especially meaningful when read in conjunction with the Gospels. Here, two different stages in the plan and heart of God’s salvation are stated, and in between is inserted the entire history of Israel, the age of the Law. Although the book of Job comes after the books of the law in the Bible, the events in the book took place in a time before the law was… Read More »Job and people of the heavenly kingdom
None of the books in the Bible were written because something happened by chance first, and God found it interesting enough to record it and put it in the Bible. All of them were done according to God’s plan. God’s plan was that man, who was temporarily smaller than the angels, would receive the life of the Son of God in Jesus Christ and become sons of God to glorify God, the Creator of all… Read More »Job and his friends
What does it really mean to believe in Jesus Christ and be a Christian? What is the point of believing anyway, when everyone has one life to live and expects death, a common end? Why does God care so much about whether we believe or not? There is a common misconception behind these questions: that faith is a subjective idea that originates in a person’s mind, which is human, and therefore, its meaning is found only in… Read More »God’s Plan and the History of Man
On a rare slow Friday, I found myself in a musing of the Monty Hall problem. You know the famous brainteaser, a probability puzzle in which you are a player in the game of guessing in order to win a prize. There are three doors closed, and behind each door is either a goat or a car, and whatever you have picked will be the prize for you. Of course, you want the car, not… Read More »Bayesian probability and the Monty Hall problem
Ecclesiastes is a very peculiar book in the Bible. Some more sensitive Christians may even feel a little awkward reading Ecclesiastes due to its apparent pessimism and negativity. The reason for this feeling is often because we do not realize that God’s revelation has a historical order, a hierarchy, and a structure. If we mistakenly think of the whole Bible as a series of flat, side-by-side books, thinking that these volumes present independent, parallel lessons… Read More »Ecclesiastes
Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. After the Lord’s death, his body would remain for only three days, after which he would rise again, but God the Father still carefully arranged the burial of His Son so that he would be buried in a new tomb purchased in advance by a rich man. Jesus would take a new spiritual body after his resurrection and ascend to heaven after witnessing on earth for nearly 40… Read More »Resurrection
That night of the Last Supper, Jesus was sold, went through a sequence of swift trials and was condemned to death on the cross. Faced with death, Jesus himself said that the time had come for the Son to glorify the Father (John 17:1). The Lord knew what was going to happen and knew what it all meant. Concerning the death of the Lord: The disciples said, “You must not die.” (But they did not… Read More »Crucifixion
After the Last Supper, Jesus entered the final temptation he had to face, Gethsemane. Death was ahead, and Jesus had to pass through it. It was the necessary way to establish a new relationship between God and man. The trial that the Lord passed through in the face of death is definitely not the test of death that we usually imagine. Countless people have died in this world, and many have even shown fearlessness in… Read More »Gethsemane
On the 10th day of the first month of the Jewish calendar, Jesus entered into Jerusalem, as the Lamb of God needed to be selected and examined, according to the Old Testament (Exodus 12:3), for the sacrifice made on the 14th day of the month (Exodus 12:6). The importance of this last week of time Jesus spent on earth with his disciples before he was betrayed and crucified surpasses the rest of all human history… Read More »The Last Supper and the death of Jesus