The European Enlightenment(s) posed as world-expanding, mind-expanding movements. They promised to free us from the shackles of a benighted, narrow view of the world. Ironically, however, the Enlightenments did just the opposite. Whether through rationalism (what the human intellect cannot comprehend cannot . . . Continue reading →
We look in faith to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus as past events and saving truths but what about his disciples who were living at the time? How did they cope with what occurred? Jesus had told them on more than one occasion that he would die and rise again on the third day, e.g., Matt hew 16:21. The sobering fact is that not one of them seems to have been prepared for either. On Passover night in the upper room, he had told them he was about to leave them but that he would see them again and replace their sorrow with a joy that would remain (John 16:22). When they all left for the Mount of Olives he said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee” (Mk 14:27-28; 50; Jn 16: 32). When he was arrested “they all left him and fled.” Continue reading →