The history of the church in the first century is both well-hidden and well-studied, and no narrative is guaranteed to be true. The period demands our attention because what really happened then is absolutely crucial to our understanding of both Jesus and the subsequent 2000-plus years of those who would follow him.
We don’t know when Jesus was born, but we do know when he died. His birth was linked to existing pagan festivals celebrating the winter solstice, but his death can be dated relatively specifically, and occurred during the Passover Festival, Jerusalem, early April in year 30.
My initial intent in writing this column was to look at how the early church lost the message of Jesus, but both the pandemic and climate change seemed more urgent, demanding immediate attention. Then I realized that lurking behind all of them was the dark but pervasive shadow of society’s rich and powerful, those who expand and protect their interests at any cost.
The plan appears to have been carried out by a group of eight people, three of whom were brothers. The attack seems to have been developed in Belgium in …
In this column, I turn to the Fourth Gospel to complete our journey through the New Testament. Our purpose has been to see what the New Testament really says …
Matthew is the first gospel writer to narrate an appearance of the risen Christ to anyone. This aspect of the developing Christian story does not begin until the middle …
In Matthew’s story of the Passion of Jesus, based as it is on Mark’s original written passion narrative, we can discover by a close analysis the outline of a …
When the Transfiguration experience was over, Matthew tells us that Jesus and his disciples came down from that mountain. It had been a transformative experience for the disciples, Matthew …
In this episode Jesus asks: “Can one read the signs correctly? Does a clear sunset today anticipate fair weather tomorrow? Do dark clouds announce the presence of a storm? …
They came mostly from the West Coast, although one was a Methodist minister from Chesterfield, Virginia. They represented the vast array of the traditions in American Christianity. Two were …