There is no com­plete agree­ment among schol­ars regard­ing these groups of Jew­ish fol­low­ers of Jesus. From the Church fathers we can gather some ideas regard­ing their beliefs and prac­tices. It appears that the early Jew­ish believ­ers were known by both these names, but from the third cen­tury they became two dis­tinct groups, with the Nazarenes adopt­ing a more ortho­dox doc­trine, but the Ebion­ites either adopted or retained a quite non-orthodox one.

Let’s con­sider some of these quotes. (more…)

Share and Enjoy

Jesus said the fol­low­ing in Matthew:

Matthew 22:32 “I am the God of Abra­ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, BUT OF THE LIVING”.

Did he mean that they were alive? To under­stand what he said, we need to con­sider Jew­ish thought. (more…)

Share and Enjoy

Another inter­est­ing issue came up. Ignatius in the early sec­ond cen­tury calls Jesus Christ “our God”:

“…accord­ing to the love of Jesus Christ our God”

“…I also salute in the name of Almighty God, and of Jesus Christ His Son…” (more…)

Share and Enjoy

In the pre­vi­ous post we men­tioned that in a for­eign land there was no need for sac­ri­fices. One could sim­ply repent and pray towards Jerusalem and the Tem­ple. But what if the Tem­ple no longer existed? Was repen­tance and prayer still accepted by God?

This is the pas­sage in ques­tion, Solomon’s prayer at the ded­i­ca­tion of the Temple:

2 Chron­i­cles 6:
34 “When Your peo­ple go out to bat­tle against their ene­mies, by what­ever way You shall send them, and they pray to You toward this city which You have cho­sen and the house which I have built for Your name,
35 then hear from heaven their prayer and their sup­pli­ca­tion, and main­tain their cause.
36 “When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that they take them away cap­tive to a land far off or near,
37 if they take thought in the land where they are taken cap­tive, and repent and make sup­pli­ca­tion to You in the land of their cap­tiv­ity, say­ing, ‘We have sinned, we have com­mit­ted iniq­uity and have acted wickedly’;
38 if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their cap­tiv­ity, where they have been taken cap­tive, and pray toward their land which You have given to their fathers and the city which You have cho­sen, and toward the house which I have built for Your name,
39 then hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, their prayer and sup­pli­ca­tions, and main­tain their cause and for­give Your peo­ple who have sinned against You.

This is all good, but what could be done if there was no Tem­ple and no sac­ri­fices, like dur­ing the Baby­lon­ian cap­tiv­ity? (more…)

Share and Enjoy

This sub­ject came up on a reli­gious forum, I thought I share the answer with you.

Chris­tians tra­di­tion­ally believe that one becomes saved when hear­ing the gospel about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. Many even believe that one needs to pray to Jesus to save him/her. Oth­ers believe that one also needs to be bap­tised by water and/or Spirit.

Hebrews 6 men­tions the fun­da­men­tal teachings:

Hebrews 6:
1 There­fore let us go on toward per­fec­tion, leav­ing behind the basic teach­ing about Christ, and not lay­ing again the foun­da­tion: repen­tance from dead works and faith toward God, 2 instruc­tion about bap­tisms, lay­ing on of hands, res­ur­rec­tion of the dead, and eter­nal judgment.

Some trans­la­tions have “of the Christ”, not “about Christ”, for these were the things Jesus him­self taught.

Check again the fun­da­men­tals and answer the question:

At what point can one be con­sid­ered “saved”?

Let us inves­ti­gate it. (more…)

Share and Enjoy