They came in White Vans

“You guys wanna play some soccer?” I asked. They were standing around in groups of two, five, eight. Four of them said yes; three girls and a boy. Well, they were young women and men. Well, they were teenagers; that category between categories. Gracie, Chloe, and Taylor. I forget the third girl’s name. They came and played some pick-up soccer with us on the field which makes up part of the large front yard of our church, which used to be a horse farm. We’ve been playing on Thursday afternoons for the last few weeks, thanks to the initiative of the...

Phil Cotnoir

7 Things You Should Know About Repentance

Dan Stegeman

Christianity Unity: It’s the Gospel All the Way Down

Wyatt Graham

Hold Together, Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Christians

Wyatt Graham

Satan Is Our Enemy. The Gospel Is Our Cause.

Wyatt Graham

The First Implication of the Gospel

Darryl Dash

Jesus has established unity between previously divided factions. Our job is to maintain it.

The First Implication of the Gospel

Darryl Dash

Does Matthew Get Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Virgin Birth Wrong?

George Sinclair

Another classic, skeptical challenge to the biblical stories of the birth of Jesus goes something like this. “You cannot trust Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus because he gets the key Old Testament text wrong (Matthew 1:23). He quotes Isaiah 7:14, saying it is a prophecy that one day a virgin will give birth. There are two problems with this. First, in the original language, Isaiah is referring to a “young maiden” not a virgin. Second, the text is really about the birth of King Hezekiah, not Jesus. So Matthew misreads the verse and quotes the verse out of context...

Does Matthew Get Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Virgin Birth Wrong?

George Sinclair

Why Does Matthew Skip Three Names in the Genealogy of Jesus?

Wyatt Graham

Matthew writes that “from David to the deportation to Babylon” there were “fourteen generations” (Matt 1:17). Yet First Chronicles lists seventeen generations between David and the deportation (1 Chron 3:10–15). Was Matthew wrong? Three generations removed Before answering that question, we should define what the problem is (or appears to be). In his genealogy, Matthew skips the three offspring that follow Joram (Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah; 1 Chron 3:11–12). The Gospel writer simply says: “Joram fathered Uzziah” (Matt 1:8). Uzziah is another name for Azariah, the fourth generation from Joram (1 Chron 3:12; 2 Kgs 15:30). Matthew skips three names...

Why Does Matthew Skip Three Names in the Genealogy of Jesus?

Wyatt Graham

In Or Out? (Or Who Is a Real Christian And Who Is Not?)

Paul Carter

It matters whether you are in or out. It matters for you and it matters for the rest of us. No one wants to be one of those people who presumed themselves in when in fact they were out. Those people – despite their sincere protestations – will hear from Jesus the scariest words in all the Bible: ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:23 ESV) The Bible takes this matter very seriously. The entire book of 1 John in the New Testament was written to address the confusion and concern that was generated...