CHRISTIANITY

CHRIST THE POWER AND THE WISDOM OF GOD. When St Paul explained the basis of his evangelistic work among the gentiles to the congregation of Corinth, he said in his first canonical letter:“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”1Corinthians 1:17Here Paul was making clear not that baptism was not important for salvation (Mk 16:16; Ac 2:38), but that without personal faith, baptism had no effect in a human, and therefore his first responsibility was to convert people, by preaching the message of Jesus to the world. Baptism would follow naturally as it was the apostolic practice. (Ac 2:41; 8:36-38).But St Paul also said something else. He said that Lord Jesus did not send him to preach with human argumentation, but with the power of God. Paul many times used human reasoning and rhetoric in his preaching to Jews and Gentiles (Ac 17:2, 17; 28:23), something that it was also encou…

MANY ARE CALLED BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN1And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ 5But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, …

MI CARGA ES LIGERA25 En aquel tiempo, hablando Jesús, dijo: Te alabo, Padre, Señor del cielo y de la tierra, porque ocultaste estas cosas a sabios e inteligentes, y las revelaste a los niños. 26 Sí, Padre, porque así fue de tu agrado. 27 Todas las cosas me han sido entregadas por mi Padre; y nadie conoce al Hijo, sino el Padre, ni nadie conoce al Padre, sino el Hijo, y aquel a quien el Hijo se lo quiera revelar. 28 Venid a mí, todos los que estáis cansados y cargados, y yo os haré descansar. 29 Tomad mi yugo sobre vosotros y aprended de mí, que soy manso y humilde de corazón, y HALLAREIS DESCANSO PARA VUESTRAS ALMAS. 30 Porque mi yugo es fácil y mi carga ligera.MATEO 11:25-30COMENTARIOEl Señor Jesús hizo esta reflexión en voz alta para nuestro beneficio, después de que los discípulos de Juan el Bautista le preguntaran si Él era el Mesías y confrontara a sus oyentes acerca de su visión del ministerio de Juan y la posición de los demás sobre Él mismo.Muchos tuvieron problemas para ident…

THE MILLENNIUM OF THE REIGN OF JESUSThe biblical doctrine of Millennialism has been vastly discussed through the centuries since the concept was introduced to Christianity through the book of Revelation 20:1-10.Many reputable fathers and later theologians have held different interpretations of this millennial reign of Jesus, as the passage calls it (Rv 20:4), some considering it literal (Ireneaus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Papias)(1); while others took it on a symbolic level (2).Today there are four main theories of how this Millennium is understood by Christians from all denominations around the world:1 – Dispensational Pre-MillennialismConsiders that Jesus will return to rapture his Church (Dead and living) prior to the period of the Great Tribulation and will return with his saints to rule for 1000 years over the nations on Earth, before the Great Judgement. They have a literal view on eschatology, and it is primarily held among American modern evangelicals and Pentecostals around t…

THE PARABLE OF THE TWO SONS28“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. 30And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.MATTHEW 21:28-32COMMENTARYOur Lord Jesus told this parable to the pharisees who asked Him under whose authority He performed his ministry (Mt 21:23-27). Since the pharisees refused to answer to Jesus what they thought of John the Baptist, He illustrated in this parabl…

THE BATTLE AGAINST SINJesus came to Earth to free humanity from the power of sin. The sinful condition of inheritance we received from Adam’s fall, but also from the consequences of our own faults, since all of them only guide us to eternal death as punishment (1Jn 3:8; Ro 6:23; Ga 5:19-21).However, once we repent of our godless living, surrender ourselves to God through Jesus and get baptized, we are consider to have been adopted by God as children, and become part of the Assembly of the Redeemed, the Church (Ac 2:38; Mk 16:16; Jn 1:12), and we are supposed to live in holiness as new creatures in Christ (1Pe 2:24; Ro 6:11; 1Co 6:20); but from apostolic times, in practice, we still fall into sin and sometimes in a big way, like adultery (1Co 5:1), drunkenness and irreverence (1Co 11:21), deceit and avarice (Jd 1:12), doubt, discrimination, racism, envy and all kind of rampant wickedness (Jm 1:6, 9-11, 19-21). Sinfulness of all kinds were a reality in the first Christian congregations.…

HIS SWEAT WAS LIKE DROPS OF BLOODThe gospel of Luke mentions Lord Jesus sweating ‘like clots of blood’ during this last night at Gethsemane before his arrest and crucifixion (Luke 22:44). Many things have been said since the early times of Christianity about this event, with different ideas about in what consisted this phenomenon exactly, but none of them have found final unanimous agreement in the Christian world.THE EVENTThe four canonical gospels mention that Jesus went to pray in the early morning after finishing the last supper with his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, where he agonized over his coming death (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42; Lk 22:39-46; Jn 18:1-11). However, only the account of Luke mentions that in the middle of this anguished and insistent agony, Jesus sweated ‘like clots of blood’ ( καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἱδρὼς αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος ), that fell on the ground.CONSIDERATIONSVarious explanations have been given throughout history about this detail.Verses 43 and 44 a…

PARABLE OF THE DISCONTENT SERVANTS 1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius a for the day and sent them into his vineyard.3“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went.“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’8“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’9“The workers who were hired about five i…

DINOSAURS AND CHRISTIANITYFrequently we hear this question since most people know that traditional Christianity rejects the theory of evolution. This however is a matter totally independent from evolutive theories, the same as the existence of all forms of lives that ever existed on the planet. WHAT THE BIBLE SAYSThe Bible does not talk specifically about dinosaurs, but speaks that God is the creator of all living things on the planet (Gn 1:24-25; Ps 146:6), which included ‘Hatanninim’ ( התנינם ), which comes from the Hebrew ‘Tannin’ ( תני – Monsters )(Gn 1:21), which applies in Hebrew to all kind of animals who are fearsome, big and grotesque to any standards, even to primitive people, so much from land as from water or air. The Scripture also speaks of Leviathan ( לויתן )(Job 41:1)and Behemot ( בהמות )(Job 40:15), which even though it has been taken by some as being the Crocodile and the Hippopotamus, there is little probability these two animals existed in the Middle East around th…

WHY GOD CREATED THE PLANETSIn the Bible we have written that God created ‘Heavens and Earth’ - השמיםואתהארץ (Gn 1:1).The Scripture states that this happened ‘in the beginning’ – בראשית, clarifying thus, that before this act of creation, there was no other creation before it, at least in the same terms the audience of the narrative (Humanity) can relate to, meaning the physical world as we know it on Earth. Then it proceeds to recount this process step by step, where the Sun, Moon and the Stars are mentioned (Gn 1:16; Ps 8:3; Dt 4:19) implying that they were part of this material creation, with the whole narrative centered in relation to the planet Earth and humanity (Gn 1:14). In simple words, God created the whole of the material world for the benefit of Humanity.With humanity’s fall into sinfulness, apostle Paul tells us that the whole of this creation also was subjected to corruption:“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in…