In its early years, Christianity Today ran a series entitled ‘Bible Text of the Month’. These comprised pithy extracts from classic sources (Fathers, Puritan, and others).
Here are links to those I was able to track down. Full access requires a subscription to CT.
Mt 1:22f, Mt 5:3, Mt 5:4, Mt 5:5, Mt 5:6, Mt 5:7, Mt 5:8, Mt 5:10-12, Mt 6:33, Mt 28:18-20
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1 Corinthians 3:15 – ‘If someone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as through fire.’
Does this verse support the doctrine of purgatory?
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
…1030 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
2:1 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
Who is this judgemental person?
Some think that Paul is directly addressing some in the Roman church:
…‘When Paul’s letter was read in the Roman church, no doubt many heads nodded as he condemned idol worshippers, homosexual practices, and violent people. But what surprise his listeners must have felt when he turned on them and said in effect, “You have no excuse.
17:20 “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, 17:21 that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 17:22 The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one—17:23 I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.…
16:5 But now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking me, ‘Where are you going?’
Some scholars think they have detected a contradiction between Jesus’ words recorded here and those recorded in Jn 13:36 and Jn 14:5.
Did the disciples ask Jesus where he was going, or did they not?
Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted) writes:
…‘One of my favorite apparent discrepancies—I read John for years without realizing how strange this one is—comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John.
John 15:26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.”
A long doctrinal debate about the ‘procession of the Holy Spirit’ has centred on this expression. The idea of the Holy .Spirit’s ‘procession’ from the Father was understood in ontological terms. To the basic formula the Western church added the ‘filioque’ (‘and the Son’) clause, and this was a point of division between the Eastern and Western branches of the church. …
While worship (latreia) belongs to God alone, Mary is reverenced and honoured as ‘the most exalted among God’s creatures’.
To give Mary her full title: ‘Our All-Holy, immaculate, most blessed and glorified Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary.’
Theotokos (‘Mother of God’, ‘God-bearer’) was assigned to Mary by the Council of Ephesus in 431. She is venerated because of her relation to Christ. It is precisely on account of the Son that we honour the Mother. …
The Orthodox doctrine of the Eucharist differs somewhat from the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass, and even more from the Protestant doctrine of the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist/Holy Communion.
The Orthodox Study Bible outlines three interpretations of Christ’s Eucharistic words as they have been understood by the church down the ages:
(a) ‘For the first thousand years of Christian history, when the Church was visibly one and undivided, the holy gifts of the Body and Blood of Christ were received as just that: His Body and Blood.…
Urban Legends of the Old Testament: 40 Common Misconceptions. By David A Croteau and Gary E. Yates. Published by B&H Publishing Group (2019).
This book discussed 40 misinterpretations of Old Testament passages.
Here’s a list of contents. Items marked with a *star are included in my own set of ‘legends’.
*1. In the “Gap” between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, Satan Fell. This would require the reading, ‘And the earth became formless and empty’. What would then follow would be an account of re-creation. …
Luke 22:44 And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
The first thing to note is that vv43-44 are text-critically disputed. Garland, along with others, considers the debate finely balanced. I shall proceed on the assumption of their authenticity.
1. ‘Bloody sweat’ affirmed
Some old writers, and some modern apologists, eager to squeeze the last drop(!) out of this passage, take it to mean that Jesus actually sweated drops of blood.…
