Christian worldview

Christian worldview refers to a collection of distinctively Christian philosophical and religious beliefs. The term is typically used in one of three ways:

1. A set of worldviews voiced by those identifying themselves as Christian;


2. Common elements of worldviews predominant among those identifying themselves as Christian;
3. The concept of a single "Christian worldview" on a range of issues.

There are some rather startling statistics, based upon the following definition of "worldview," including a firm belief in six specific religious views.

1. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life;

2. God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today;

3. salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned;

4. Satan is real;

5. a Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with otherpeople; and

6. the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.

Based upon the above definition, Barna and other polling organizations have observered a decline in Christian beliefs. A recent study indicates that only 4% of American adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making -- while at the same time "spirituality" has been on the rise.

More...

Thessalonica

Thessalonica or Thessaloniki (Greek: Θεσσαλονίκη), is Greece's second-largest city and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia.

Thessalonica had a Jewish colony, established during the first century, and was an early centre of Christianity. On his second missionary journey, Paul of Tarsus preached in the city's synagogue, the chief synagogue of the Jews in that part of Thessaloniki, and laid the foundations of a church. Opposition against him from the Jews drove him from the city, and he fled to Veroia. Paul wrote two of his epistles to the Christian community at Thessalonica, the First Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Paul's teaching about the end of the world is expressed most clearly in his letters to the Christians at Thessalonica. Heavily persecuted, it appears that they had written asking him first about those who had died already, and, secondly, when they should expect the end. Paul regarded the age as passing and, in such difficult times, he therefore encouraged marriage as a means of happiness. He assures them that the dead will rise first and be followed by those left alive (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

This suggests an imminence of the end but he is unspecific about times and seasons, and encourages his hearers to expect a delay. The form of the end will be a battle between Jesus and the Man of Lawlessness (3ff) whose conclusion is the triumph of Christ.

More...

Historicity of the Bible

Introduction

All historians of the ancient Near East are confronted with the question of the historicity (historical actuality) of the account of the Bible. The text provides a powerful and evocative account of two states, the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah, and their contact with a range of neighbouring peoples, from their formation to their disappearance, in the eighth and sixth centuries. It also presents a reconstruction of the earlier histories of the region, supposedly from the time of the Creation of the World, and a Universal deluge, down to the supposed creation of a unified state at the time of the monarchs, David and Solomon. There are thousands of works examining the historical nature or otherwise of this material, examining whether or not it is possible to depend upon this material for historical reconstructions of these areas in these periods, and to attempt to identify which passages of the Biblical account are most reliable.

These views range from those which adopt an almost complete paraphrase of the Biblical material, to those who advocate its almost complete rejection as having almost no historically useful information at all. Those involved in this analysis have often been engaged in bitter disputes, which cannot, by the nature of the Biblical record be resolved from within the Biblical tradition.

More...

Christian eschatology

In Christian theology, Christian eschatology is the study of its religious beliefs concerning all future and final events (End Times), as well as the ultimate purpose(s) of the world (i.e., mortal life), of mankind, and the Church. Where eschatology refers to doctrine that represents a history of inquiry into the concept of the destiny of all things, in Christian context, this inquiry is vested in the prophesied purposes of God as documented in the Bible.

Introduction

The "last things" are important issues to Christian faith, although eschatology is a relatively recent development as a formal division of Christian theology.

Epistle to the Romans 8:19-25:

¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

More...