Thoughts Across The Bow

  Defending an Orthodox Reading of Matthew 8:5-13: In Matthew 8:5-13, Jesus heals a Centurion’s servant and in the process it reveals his authority. Matthew’s overall intent is to communicate the spiritual truth of Jesus’ active authority and the Centurion’s faith. However, modern Liberal scholars utilizing Critical Theory, now claim to have discovered a more accurate interpretation and argue that the Centurion was in a pederastic relationship (sexual “boy-love”) with his servant. Their argument for this interpretation is complex, “exploratory” in nature, and operates on several assumptions. The argument of this paper rejects this pederastic interpretation and advocates for a plain reading of this text. In a simplistic form the pederastic argument flows in this manner:   The Centurion was in a pederastic relationship with his servant due to the following reasons: -           Matthew refers to the servant using the Greek word...

Jesus’ Sinlessness:  The biblical record consistently claims that Jesus is sinless, perfect, and Holy. Jesus’s perfection is a foundational Christian doctrine. This post will attempt to strictly utilize biblical evidence to support Jesus’ sinlessness. Not only did the New Testament authors believe that Jesus was perfect, but so did multiple other characters in Jesus’s historical account (such as Pilate’s wife and Judas).  At the beginning of Jesus’s ministry John the Baptist saw Jesus and stated the following, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). John was invoking the symbolism of Jesus being the Passover Lamb, without blemish, that is sacrificed, and the lamb’s blood was put on the doorposts so the “destroyer” would not strike down God’s chosen people (Exod. 12:5, 7, 21-26). Jesus is the true Passover Lamb who brings about a greater exodus, freeing us from the slavery of sin. Jesus as the Lamb of God without blemish or spot is a recurri...

Can God Make a Rock so Big…? I remember when I first had this question brought to my attention.   I was sitting in a coffee shop a block from my college campus.   I had just talked with my roommate who had just wrecked on his bicycle going to meet a girl and his face looked like he had just lost a fight with a bear (apparently his face absorbed most of the impact generated by his flailing body).   My friend Sean put the question out there, “Can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it?”   I felt a lot like my friend’s face looked, the mass and gravity of the question registered with me.   I had just finished my first philosophy class and all I could muster at the time was, “Can a car be too fast, can you have too much fun, or can a girl be too pretty?”   My distraction highlighted the contradiction apparent in the question, but this was not a satisfactory answer in my mind.   I logged the question for another day. Philosophers an...