The gospel of John repeatedly refers to Jesus as the light of the world. It says John the Baptist was sent to testify about “the light of all mankind” that was coming into the world. One of the ways it describes God sending his son into the world is by saying that light has come into the world. And most importantly, it has Jesus call himself the light of the world.
Continue reading Who is the light of the world?Tag Archives: jesus
What was in the wine Jesus was offered before he was crucified?
The Bible says shortly before the soldiers crucified Jesus, they offered him some wine, which he refused.1 But the gospels disagree on what was mixed in with that wine.
Continue reading What was in the wine Jesus was offered before he was crucified?The end of the world
This is a summary of what the Bible says will happen when the world ends. The predictions are scattered throughout various parts of the Bible, which makes it hard to tell how they’re all supposed to fit together. Some things just don’t fit together at all. But I’ve attempted to put everything in order and make a fairly coherent narrative out of it, using whatever chronology clues I could find in the Bible.
Fantastic beasts
In the end times, God will send many false Messiahs and false prophets. They will perform miracles, which can only be done with God’s help.1
Satan and his angels will lose a war in heaven. Then he will be thrown down to earth, where he will go to war against the Christians. A beast like a leopard with bear’s feet, a lion’s mouth, seven heads, and ten horns will come out of the sea. Satan will give the beast power over everyone for 3.5 years. All the people God arbitrarily decided not to save will worship the beast and Satan. The beast will speak against God and conquer his people.
Then a second beast with a lamb’s horns and a dragon’s voice will come out of the earth. It will perform great signs, confirming that its word is true. It will make a talking image of the first beast, and kill anyone who doesn’t worship the image. It will force all people to receive the mark of the number of the beast on their hands or foreheads.
An angel will preach the gospel to the world.2 Then Jesus will come on a cloud and harvest the earth. An angel will throw trillions of people into a winepress so Jesus can trample them to death, and a five-foot flood of blood will flow out of it. Seven more angels will bring seven plagues on the world. Festering sores will break out on the people who have the mark of the beast.3 The water will turn into blood and the Euphrates will dry up. The sun will scorch people, but the kingdom of the beast will be in darkness.
Then three frog-demons will perform signs, proving that God is on their side. They will gather the kings of the world for battle at Armageddon. God will send storms, giant hailstones, and an unprecedented, city-destroying earthquake that will split Babylon into three parts. All the islands and mountains will be removed.
The beast4 will be put in the Abyss and come back out. Then God will give power to the beast, which together with ten very briefly-reigning kings will burn down Babylon. With a sword from his mouth, Jesus will destroy the nations, the kings of the earth and their armies, and the beast and the false prophet5 will be thrown alive into hell.
God saves Jerusalem from himself
Satan will be locked in the Abyss for a thousand years, and God will resurrect Christian martyrs from every nation who have not worshiped the beast or received its mark,6 and bring them to Israel to reign alongside Jesus as priests. After the thousand years are over, God will bring unprecedented distress on everyone.
Continue reading The end of the worldWhen was Jesus born?
According to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod.1 Herod’s death, and therefore Jesus’s birth, was in 1 BC or earlier.
According to Luke, Jesus was born while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Quirinius became governor in AD 6, which means Jesus wasn’t born till several years after Herod died. So if Luke is right, Herod wouldn’t have even been around to try to kill Jesus, as Matthew claims he did.
Continue reading When was Jesus born?Bodies, minds, spirits, and souls
Do people have bodies, minds, spirits, and souls? Do non-human beings have those things? Are they even different things, or are some of them just different words for the same thing? To answer these questions and more, let’s try consulting the Bible…
Continue reading Bodies, minds, spirits, and soulsHow to tell if someone really believes in Jesus
If someone claims to believe in Jesus, ask them if they ever get hungry or thirsty. If they answer yes, that means they don’t actually believe in Jesus. If they answer no, you still need a little more evidence before you can conclude that they’re a believer.
Ask the alleged Christian if they obey everything Jesus commanded. Do they always give people whatever they ask for?1 Have they sold everything they owned and given the money away to the poor? Do they hate their families? Do they let criminals mistreat them as much as they want without resisting? Do they mutilate their bodies every time they do something wrong? Have they demonstrated their love for their friends by killing themselves? Anyone who claims to know Jesus but doesn’t do what he commands is a liar.
Next, ask them to show you some miracles like Jesus did. Jesus says everyone who believes in him can do all the same things he did, and more! So have them start off with some of the miracles that Jesus did, like mind reading, turning water into wine, turning a little food into a lot of food, walking on water, flying, disappearing, controlling the weather, curing every disease, and raising the dead.
Continue reading How to tell if someone really believes in JesusIs Jesus the only foundation the church can have?
It is written: Jesus Christ is the foundation that the church is built on, and no one can lay a foundation other than that one.
It is also written: Peter is the rock that Jesus built his church on.
Continue reading Is Jesus the only foundation the church can have?Is Jesus’s kingdom of this world?
After Pilate asked Jesus if he was the king of the Jews, Jesus stated that his kingdom was not of this world at all; it was “from another place”.
But Jesus contradicts this in one of his parables, in which a man tells his harvesters to pull the weeds out of his field before harvesting the wheat. This represents Jesus sending angels to weed all the evil people out of his kingdom at “the end of the age”.
If pulling the weeds out of the field represents taking the evil people out of Jesus’s kingdom, that kingdom must be represented by the field (or part of it). And what did Jesus say the field represents? The world.1 So Jesus’s kingdom must be in this world.
Continue reading Is Jesus’s kingdom of this world?Was Jesus the first to rise from the dead?
Several times in the Bible, Jesus is called the first person to rise from the dead. But he wasn’t. Not even close. According to the Bible, lots of people rose from the dead before Jesus did.
Continue reading Was Jesus the first to rise from the dead?