Author: S&P

Hosanna is often translated “Please Save Us.”  It is a Greek word “ὡσαννά” that most scholars believe is the transliteration of two Hebrew words- יָשַׁע- “yasha” which means “to save or deliver” and אָנּאָ – “anna” which means “please, I beseech.” Other scholars believe its Hebrew roots come from a different verb tense of “yasha” הוֹשַׁ֣ע which means to cause or to bring about salvation. In t...

Every year, my calendar reminds me that it is almost Palm Sunday. For many people, this day is the unofficial beginning of Spring Break, but it has a deeper significance for Christians.     What is Palm Sunday? On Palm Sunday, Christian churches often give the congregation palm branches to re-create the celebration of Christ’s final arrival in Jerusalem because his followers used pa...

We know from John 3 that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish ruling council, who came to Jesus at night with a question. He received an answer that generations of Christians would hide in their hearts. Nicodemus’ Secret Conversation with Jesus In John 3, Nicodemus concedes that God must have sent Jesus because of all the miraculous signs he performed. Jesus gets to the heart of the ma...

The Bible is clear that Mary’s unique position as the mother of Jesus did not give her any more access to God than another believer in Christ is given. Therefore, Mary is not worthy of receiving prayers from Christians. Jesus addressed this in Luke 11 by emphasizing that it’s more blessed to be a follower of Christ than to be the mother of Christ. Mary, Mother of Jesus Christians have always been ...

What is Original Sin? Biblical Meaning and Consequences of Ancestral Sin Original sin, also described as ancestral sin, is a Christian view of the nature of sin in which humanity has existed since the fall of man. Original sin arose from Adam and Eve‘s transgression in Eden, the sin of disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Original sin ca...

Evangelical Christians have spent a lot of time talking about the doctrine of hell. One question weighs particularly heavily: Why, if there is a hell, is it forever? The idea of eternal hell weighs heavily on the heart, as we think of those we know and love apart from Christ. Sometimes a devilish desire to condemn (“You will not surely die”) is behind a denial of future judgment, but sometimes the...

Temptation is the intentional enticement of a person, by some bait—usually pride, always self-gratifying—to disobey God’s revealed Word. The predicate may be demonic or fleshly, but the object is always the distortion of God’s world and the defiance of God’s mission in the world. Temptation and Original Sin Temptation is as old as, well, the Garden of Eden. The devil, in the form of the serpent, t...

The Pentateuch, or books of Moses, are the first five books found in the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five books ascribed to Moses have a peculiar place in the structure of the Bible, and an order which is undeniably the order of the experience of the people of God in all ages.   The Name “Pentateuch” The term “Pentateu...