The Christian Vanguard

We read in Matthew 13:55-56 Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? Protestants will point to this verse and say that this proves that the Perpetual Virginity of Mary is false. Is that so? It is true that the most natural reading of the Greek word for "brothers" and "sisters" is read to mean blood brothers. As many good Catholics have already pointed out, while the word does encompass the blood brother understanding, it is by no means limited to it. And plenty of early church witnesses testify that they are his cousins. The early church is by no means unanimous, some think they are his blood brothers, others think they are cousins, while some others think they are St. Joseph's children from a previous marriage before he married Mary. But my point is that the early church does provide precedent for the be...

In the movie Avatar, a human soldier takes on the body of a Na'vi. He is truly human and truly Na'vi. There is not two beings, but two natures in one incarnation. In Christ, God took on a human body. There was not a human mind and a God mind in one body. But the two natures of God and Man are present in one person. Avatar is commonly translated in English as "incarnation". This is an easy and fun way to understand the hypostatic union .

There have been debates emerging about gun control after each tragic shooting that I have seen on the news. Virginia Tech, Aurora, and now Newtown (I was too young to remember the reaction after Columbine). The debate that has emerged after the Newtown shooting seems to be fiercer since many of the victims were little children, and as responsible Christian citizens, we ought to have some biblical background to the debate, so that we may safely navigate through the issue. So, what does the Bible say about gun control?

I’m sure at one point or another, Christians are going to hear that accusation that the Bible has not been accurately translated, or it has been changed or corrupted, or because we don’t have the originals, we’ll never know what it really said. This can be dealt swiftly and effectively. However, this challenged was posed to me by a Muslim man, and I think in this particular case, you can take a slightly different, and more impacting, route.