The three Synoptic Gospels each record the voice from heaven using different wording.
Ehrman summarises the differences:
Mt 3:17 – “This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight.” The voice seems to be addressing the people around Jesus, or possibly John the Baptist.
Mk 1:11 – “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.” Here the voice addresses Jesus directly.
Lk 3:22 – “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.” …
‘There are’ (writes J.A. Kirk) ‘a number of diverse, but intimately related, models or paradigms of mission. Each is vitally important. By stressing one more than the others, different groups of Christians have tended to see them as alternatives. Ideally, there is no choice. The Christian community’s vocation is to ensure that each is fully implemented in its overall life.
‘(1) The care of the environment. This means encouraging a wise and sustainable use of the natural order created by God, by engaging in the numerous aspects of conservation and the elimination of pollution.…
In The Contemporary Christian (356-374), John Stott outlines a Christological approach to mission under the following headings:
1. The incarnation of Christ – the model for mission
In some ways, the incarnation was a ‘mission’ like that the Apollo space flight to the moon was a ‘mission’. Each was a daring journey between two completely different places and situations. But the Apollo astronauts had to bring everything needful with them, whereas Jesus brought nothing but himself. …
John Stott remarks that mission is at the heart each of the five parts of the Bible.
1. The God of the Old Testament is a missionary God, calling one family in order to bless all the families of the earth (Gen 12:1-4).
…‘The tragedy of the Old Testament is that Israel kept forgetting the universal scope of God’s promises. They overlooked the fact that God had chosen one family in order to bless all families.
Why plant churches? Tony Merida answers:
Does naming imply authority?
‘No!’
Walton (NIVAC):
…‘We would be mistaken to think that Adam names Eve here. He rather indicated what category she belongs in. When Adam named the animals in 2.19-20, a different vocabulary and syntax are used. Adam there was carrying out his function to ruling in that whatever he called a creature, that was its name.
1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as the weaker partners and show them honor as fellow heirs of the grace of life. In this way nothing will hinder your prayers.
This expression tends to raise eyebrows nowadays.
According to Hillyer, this does not refer to ‘physical strength, not to intellectual powers, moral courage, or spiritual standards.’
So what does it refer to?
Several older commentators (including, Calvin, Leighton, JFB) do not discuss it: presumably, they thought that its meaning was self-evident and indisputable.…
Ruth 3:6 [Ruth] went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had instructed her to do. 3:7 When Boaz had finished his meal and was feeling satisfied, he lay down to sleep at the far end of the grain heap. Then Ruth crept up quietly, uncovered his legs, and lay down beside him. 3:8 In the middle of the night he was startled and turned over. Now he saw a woman lying beside him!…
It was J.N. Darby who in 1830 first articulated the idea that in the end times the church will be secretly taken up to heaven, leaving behind a sinful and godless world.
The key text is 1 Thessalonians 4:17 –
‘Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.’
The Thessalonian believers had been troubled that in the time between Paul’s evangelistic activity among them (in AD 49) and the time that this letter was written (up to two years later), some of their number had died. …
Was Joanna (mentioned in the Gospels) the same person as Junia (mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:7)?
Let’s look at each of them separately, and then see if the accounts (almost literally) add up.
Joanna
Joanna was one of the women who had been healed by Jesus, and travelled with him and the Twelve, providing for them out of their own means (Lk 8:1-3).
She was the wife of Cuza, Herod’s ‘household manager’. She is therefore likely to have been a woman of some means and influence.…
