Exploring the Bible

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The Jerusalem Council

February 23, 2026

The First Crisis: Inside the Jerusalem Council It is easy to romanticize the early church. We often imagine a utopia of perfect harmony, where the apostles held hands and everyone agreed on everything. But if we peel back the pages of Acts 15 , we find something very different. We find a church on the brink of a civil war. Roughly 15 to 20 years after the resurrection of Jesus (around 48–50 AD), the Christian movement faced an identity crisis that threatened to tear it apart before it truly began. The issue wasn't about money or power; it was about the very definition of salvation. The resolution of this crisis is known as the Jerusalem Council . It is arguably the most important administrative meeting in the history of Christianity. If this meeting had gone differently, the faith we know today might have remained a small, obscure sect of Judaism. The drama began in Antioch, a bustling city in modern-day Turkey where the term "Christian" was first coined. The ch...

Did Jesus have Sisters?

February 20, 2026

The Silent Sisters: What Tradition Tells Us About the Women in Jesus’ Family In the study of the Holy Family, we often focus on the "Big Three": Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. If we dig a little deeper, we encounter the brothers—specifically James the Just and Jude, who authored biblical books. We know their names, their struggles with skepticism, and their eventual leadership in the early church. But there is a third group in the household of Nazareth that is almost entirely lost to history: the sisters of Jesus. The Bible confirms their existence but maintains a frustrating silence regarding their identities. In Matthew 13:56 , the townsfolk of Nazareth ask: "And are not all his sisters with us?" Mark 6:3 repeats the question: "Are not his sisters here with us?" The use of the plural "all" (Greek pasai ) implies there were at least two, and possibly more. Yet, the inspired text never names them. They are the background figures of the Gospel...

Was Saint Paul Married?

February 18, 2026

The Apostle Paul: Bachelor, Widower, or Divorcé? When we think of the Apostle Paul, we typically picture the ultimate bachelor of the Bible. He is the man who wrote, "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman" (1 Corinthians 7:1) and expressed a wish that everyone could be single like him. For centuries, the church has viewed Paul as the model of celibacy—a man so consumed by his mission that he had no time or desire for family life. But is that the whole story? There is a compelling historical case to be made that Paul, the most influential theologian in history, may have actually been a married man. While the New Testament clearly depicts him as single during his missionary journeys, several clues suggest that this singleness was a result of loss, not lack of experience. To understand Paul’s marital status, we have to look at his life before the Damascus Road. He wasn't just a generic Jewish man; he was a rising star in the religious est...

Who was Saint Paul's Sister?

February 16, 2026

The Silent Savior: Uncovering the Identity of Paul’s Sister In the tapestry of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul is often portrayed as a solitary figure. He is the rugged missionary, the prisoner writing by candlelight, the man who "suffered the loss of all things." We know about his spiritual son, Timothy, and his partners like Barnabas and Silas. But when it comes to his biological family, the text is almost completely silent. Almost. Hidden in the dramatic intrigue of the book of Acts is a brief, fascinating appearance of Paul’s immediate family. It is a single scene that reveals he was not as alone as we might think, and that his survival—and by extension, the spread of the Gospel to Rome—hinged on the loyalty of a woman we know nothing about, except that she was his sister. The year is approximately 57 AD. Paul has returned to Jerusalem, and the city is a powder keg. His presence has caused a riot in the Temple, leading to his arrest by Roman forces for his o...

Dinosaurs in the Bible?

February 13, 2026

The Missing Link? Hunting for Dinosaurs in the Text of Scripture Walk into any natural history museum, and you are immediately greeted by the kings of the ancient past: the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Triceratops, the towering Brachiosaurus. Dinosaurs capture our imagination like few other things. They are the monsters under the bed that actually existed. For many believers, however, these fossilized giants present a puzzle. We read the book of Genesis, and we see lions, cattle, and creeping things. We see birds and fish. But where are the dinosaurs? If the Bible claims to be a history of the world, why does it seem to be silent on the most impressive creatures to ever walk the earth? The answer might be simpler than we think: we are looking for the wrong word, but the right description. The first hurdle in finding dinosaurs in the Bible is linguistic. The word "dinosaur" was not coined until 1841 AD , when British anatomist Sir Richard Owen combined the Greek words dein...

What Language Did Jesus Speak?

February 11, 2026

The Language of the Lord: Did Jesus Speak Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek? When we watch movies about the life of Jesus, the dialogue is usually in English, but the "feeling" we get is that the original conversations happened in solemn, ancient Hebrew. We picture Jesus speaking the language of Moses, reciting the Psalms in the same tongue in which they were written. While Jesus certainly knew Hebrew, historical evidence and biblical clues suggest that the "soundtrack" of the Gospels was actually quite different. If you could time travel to 30 AD and walk the dusty roads of Galilee with the disciples, the language you would hear filling the air was almost certainly Aramaic . Furthermore, if Jesus sat down to write a contract or negotiate a job, He likely would have switched to Greek . Here is a look at the linguistic landscape of the Messiah’s world. For over a thousand years, Hebrew was the language of Israel. However, the turning point occurred in 586 BC, when th...