Let me share a few thoughts on Peter’s vision of a great sheet descend­ing with all kinds of ani­mals in it. Did the vision meant the abro­ga­tion of the food laws as tra­di­tional Chris­t­ian the­olo­gians claim? Or per­haps the pas­sage was meant to com­mu­ni­cate a dif­fer­ent idea. (more…)

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How often has the above chap­ter been used as proof text that the law (par­tic­u­larly the food laws) is abro­gated? Does it really teach that keep­ing the laws of God isn’t nec­es­sary? Well, if these laws are abro­gated, then one can be faith­ful, while dis­obey­ing the food laws. But does this pas­sage really teach that these laws are abro­gated? We must con­duct a care­ful inves­ti­ga­tion to find out. (more…)

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In Ch. 1 and 2 Paul estab­lishes that the gen­eral con­di­tion of mankind — both Jews and Gen­tiles — is pretty bleak. There is a hor­ri­ble sin prob­lem in both camps (we have seen ear­lier that the lan­guage of the Bible is not all-inclusive). He then concludes:

Rom 3:19 Now we know that what­ever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law [i.e. Jews], so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held account­able to God. 20 For no human being will be jus­ti­fied in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowl­edge of sin. (more…)

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The idea of some kind of sin nature — along with many other ideas — was devel­oped through­out the lat­ter part of the early cen­turies. Spare me from dig­ging out the “when”, you can find plenty of info on Google if you dig hard enough.

The Jew­FAQ has a very good arti­cle about what Jews think about human nature. Here is the link, read “The Dual Nature” portion:

http://www.jewfaq.org/human.htm (more…)

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In Joshua 2 we read about the har­lot of Jerico, Rahab. She secretly receives two Israelite spies into her house and when the sol­diers of the city come to search for them she lies to save their lives. (more…)

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