Page 3 - Beeson Divinity News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

25.0 I will never forget the day I stood on the ruins of a third-century synagogue in Capernaum, just a stone’s throw from the beautiful blue waters of the Sea of Galilee. I was leading a tour of Christian pilgrims. Our guide called our attention to Matthew 23:3, a verse I had read hundreds of times but which now suddenly jumped off the page: “You must be careful to do everything [the teachers of the law and Pharisees] tell you.” I was shocked. How could Jesus have recommended the teachings of the Pharisees when he warned against their hypocrisy in the same verse (“But do not do what ...

God’s Blessing to the Church In the “new heaven” and “new earth,” God will give the blessing of his presence to all those who have faithfully followed the Lamb despite the hardship this has entailed (Rev. 21:1–8; cf. Isa. 65:17; 66:22). John’s description of this new universe recalls the accounts of creation and of life in the garden in Genesis 1–3, where God spoke directly with the first man and woman (Gen. 2:16–17; Gen. 3:9–19), walked among them (Gen. 3:8), and provided for their every need (Gen. 2:9, 16, 18–25; Gen. 3:21). 1 The most important blessing of the church...

How Discipleship Yields Restoration Transformation by the Spirit The Acts of the Apostles is basically an account of how the Holy Spirit, the powerful and personal presence of God, transforms the earliest followers of Jesus into the restored people of God, the beginnings of God’s new creation. “You will receive power,” Jesus tells his disciples at the story’s beginning, “when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Luke (the author of Acts) then describes how the Spirit gui...