Why Does John 1 Lack The Definite Article?

A  little Greek

Why Does John 1 Lack The Definite Article? 

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Revisiting Gary Habermas’ 12 Facts About The Resurrection of Jesus

https://chab123.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/revisiting-gary-habermas-12-facts-about-the-resurrection-of-jesus-2/

Did Jesus Really Descend into Hell?

https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/did-jesus-really-descend-into-hell/

All Is Found In Christ

http://www.mikeleake.net/2018/08/all-is-found-in-christ.html

What We Know about Arius and His Heresy

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/brandondsmith/2017/09/know-arius-heresy/

Jesus Commands: Worship Me

Who or what do you worship?

Yourself?

The idea of having a perfect partner?

Money?

Success?

Power?

Happiness?

Jesus commands us to worship only God:

Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Luke 4:8)

As John Piper puts it:

Everyone in the world worships something. From the most religious to the most secular, all people value something high enough to build their lives around it. It may be God, or it may be money. But what makes it worship is the driving power of some cherished treasure that shapes our emotions and will and thought and behavior. Into this universal experience of worship Jesus demanded, “Worship [God] in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). In other words, bring your experience of worship into conformity with what is true about God, and let your spirit be authentically awakened and moved by that truth . . . worship now happens through Jesus because he himself is God. He is not simply the mediator of worship between us and the Father; he is also the one to be worshiped.(What Jesus Demands from the World)

Why should we worship Jesus?

Continue: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2018/05/jesus-commands-worship-me/

Does Isaiah 53 Refer To The Messiah, Israel, or Someone Else?

“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” – Isaiah 53

This passage is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful prophetic texts about the crucifixion of Jesus. So many of the descriptions of the servant in this passage correspond to the information about Jesus we get from the New Testament. In fact, most Christians just take it for granted that this text predicted the death and resurrection of the Messiah and wonder how anyone could deny it. Yet, people do. Adherents to Judaism, for example, try to avoid concluding that Jesus fulfilled this passage by saying that the text isn’t even about the Messiah at all, but rather, the text is prophesying something that Israel will do. If that’s the case, then Isaiah 53 cannot be used as Old Testament proof that Jesus was and is the Messiah that they are longing for.

However, there are several reasons to doubt that this text is referring to the nation of Israel, and that it is, in fact, referring to the Messiah.

Read more: Does Isaiah 53 Refer To The Messiah, Israel, or Someone Else?