Christian Thoughts

  That Paul “stayed and worked with them [ viz Aquila and Priscilla] for by occupation they were tent-makers” (Acts 18:3) is an unassuming informational fact which certain Christian factions find rather  appealing .   Their liberal extrapolation of this particular verse has imaginatively led to various scenarios being mooted (and even embraced in some circles) based on the supposition that tent-making can prove to be quite lucrative.   The following serve as possible illustrative examples: ●        buoyed by the prospect of tent-making, a free-spirited missionary may be encouraged to venture abroad for some self-styled ministry there without church covering ●        a pastor need only minister to his flock on week-ends if he is pre-occupied with tent-making during week-days to procure income for living expenses ●        a church ought to found some form of tent-making side-business with the objective of ensuring a stable stream of revenue for funding overseas outreach or even ch

  Scoffers take delight in ridiculing the Bible for its astonishing narration of the great flood which prompted Noah, on God’s direction, to build an ark after the Lord had decided that “I Myself am bringing flood-waters on the earth to destroy … all flesh” (Genesis 6:17).   Unfortunately, even Christians have been known to subscribe to the local-flood hypothesis so as to avoid being labelled as gullible in accepting with blind faith that this well-known flood had actually covered the entire world.   Staunch believers in the historical occurrence of the world-wide flood invariably turn to the following (or related) verses as the basis for their conviction: (a)      according to the Lord ’s pre-flood decree, “everything that is on the earth shall die” (Genesis 6:17) (b)      after the onset of the flood which in due course covered the mountains, “all flesh died that moved on the earth” (Genesis 7:21) (c)      the authoritative conclusion states that “He destroyed all living t

  Revelation is the principal book in the Bible outlining what will happen during the so-called last days but it has to be pointed out that there are OT books containing end-times prophecies as well.   How should this particular NT book (with specific focus on one subject matter) be viewed in relation to those OT prophets who likewise discussed the end times (albeit among the various other themes also running throughout their respective books)?   Genesis discloses to humankind what occurred at the very beginning.   For completeness, the Bible has additionally incorporated Revelation to foretell how all proceedings will come to a climax.   Since sin tainted what God created at the outset, believers may feel defeatist had not the Almighty provided the re-assuring pronouncement that He has in place an outside-the-box plan to be implemented at the end: “the first heaven and the first earth will pass away” and there will be “a new heaven and a new earth” where “there shall be no more de

   The starting premise is that God’s love and compassion for the human beings whom He created (in His own image) are unmistakably evident throughout scriptures.  However, there is no doubt that God is at the same time holy and just, and these attributes cannot be overlooked by the generations of sinners who took on the fallen nature of Adam and Eve after the couple succumbed to temptation and disobeyed His explicit prohibition.  How then will God deal with those who sinned — from birth as pointed out in Psalm 51:5 and Psalm 58:3 — when He epitomises love and compassion on the one hand but on the other hand He is holy and just as well?   Even before Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, the plan had already been set in motion for the woman’s Seed to play a crucial role in the ensuant “enmity between you [ viz the tempter] and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed” (Genesis 3:15).   The Seed disclosed by God in the protoevangelium is none other than “… the Ma

Although the Hebrews had been enslaved by Pharoah for many decades, by no means were they impoverished when Moses eventually led them out of Egypt after the  punitive   series of ten plagues unleashed by God against the deified monarch and the pagan inhabitants.  What items of value did they leave with when evacuating en masse from the land of their bondage?  First of all, there was the divinely-facilitated plunder where the Hebrews “asked from the Egyptians for articles of silver, articles of gold and clothing” (Exodus 12:35) which were readily granted because the bereaved natives  were only too eager “to send them [ viz  Hebrews] out of the land in haste ” (Exodus 12:33) given the wide-scale tragedy where earlier  at midnight, as forewarned by Moses,  their first-born had been stricken by what  Exodus 12:23 cryptically calls the destroyer (or, more colloquially, angel of death).   Secondly, Exodus 12:37 records that there were “about six hundred thousand men on foot (besides childre