First-century Judaism was a complex web of authority structures. Pharisees were the popular leaders of the people, while Sadducees controlled the temple, and both groups populated the Sanhedrin—the ruling council—along with various elders, priests, and scribes...

Depending on the kind of change at hand, many people don't embrace change well—especially when it has to do with something as unsettling as changing one's own status in relation to God. People can be slow to change or they can be stubborn about changing—they can...

A foundational teaching of the New Testament concerns the dual nature of Jesus Christ: He was both God and man, both divine and human. When Jesus manifests strong emotions His humanity is often cited—"Jesus is human like us." Yet many of those emotions—love, anger,...

Hebrews 4:12 says "the Word is . . . a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." If that is true about the written Word of God, it is equally true about the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. On numerous occasions, the four Gospels give evidence...

Pontius Pilate was a weak and immoral bureaucrat appointed by Rome to be their representative ruler over Judea. Pilate had one mission from Rome: Maintain pax Romana, the Roman peace. And he was given authority by Rome to do what needed to be done to...