CHRISTIANITY

  THE PARABLE OF THE TWO SONS 28“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 21:28-32 COMMENTARY Our 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 illus

  THE BATTLE AGAINST SIN Jesus 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 con

  HIS SWEAT WAS LIKE DROPS OF BLOOD The 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 EVENT The 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. CONSIDERATIONS Various explanations have been given throughout history about this detail.

  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 h

  DINOSAURS AND CHRISTIANITY Frequently 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 SAYS The 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 Mid

  WHY GOD CREATED THE PLANETS In the Bible we have written that God created ‘Heavens and Earth’ - השמים ואת הארץ ( 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

  THE PARABLE OF THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT 21Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24When he began to settle one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29So his fellow servant fell down

  PERSONAL SINFULNESS AND THE UNBELIEVER Since the Reformation, the principle of universal sin in humanity has displaced the idea of considering the effect of personal sinfulness among the unconverted. Many times we may have listened that there is no point in warning people of their everyday sins if they are in a lost condition regardless, due to original sin, but instead we only should speak to them of Jesus and procure their conversion. Even though the whole human race is in a legal state of sin from birth, Paul says that this condition we acquired by being descendants from Adam (Ro 5:12) gets manifested through our everyday acts of sinfulness, and they will be counted in our judgement day: “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30sland

  WHERE TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED IN MY NAME, THERE I AM AMONG THEM 15“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven . 19Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.                           20For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” MATTHEW 18:15-20 COMMENTARY This is the confirmation of the promise our Lord Jesus made initially to Sim

  THE ‘Q’ DOCUMENT With Source Criticism, it came in the beginning of the 20 th century, based on the ideas of Anglican bishop Herbert Marsh (1757-1839), the idea that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were made up from Mark’s shorter narrative and a bogus document that nobody had ever seen, nicknamed ‘Q’. (1) Until then, the popular opinion was the traditional belief that Matthew and John were the original documents, written under the supervision of these apostles, and that Matthew guided Mark, and John, Luke into writing their own narrative, as it was taught by the first Christians for centuries (2), which gave in itself authority to the narrative of the four gospels, as genuine apostolic records. This, however, was later challenged by Reformed Christianity and adopted later by Catholics and Orthodox as valid hypothesis, as this tradition had no real hard evidence of any kind. THE HYPOTHESIS In short, the hypothesis of source ‘Q’, says that the anonymous gospels attributed to

  THE WOMAN WHO DRIED JESUS FEET WITH HER HAIR The story of a woman who anointed Jesus with an expensive perfume is well known by Christians. What is disputed, is the identity of this lady, who is mentioned in the four gospels but with certain variants that have made scholars wonder whether these are all a same event, or two different ones are being described by the evangelists. THE EVENT A single story of this event is narrated by Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36-50, and John 12:1-8. THE MAIN DETAILS PLACE: In Matthew, Mark and John, the event takes in Bethany, on the south-east of Jerusalem. Luke does not mention the place, but it is assumed to be Nain, on the North-West of Judah (Luke 7:11). HOUSE: Matthew and Mark report the event at Simon ‘The Leper’’ house. Luke mentions Simon The Pharisee. John does not specify. PERSON: Matthew and Mark report ‘a woman’ as the one who anointed Jesus. Luke mentions a woman of ‘sinful life’. John expressly mentions