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Did you ever wonder why twelve apostles and only twelve? Good rule of thumb for future reference? Numbers in the Bible (especially the number twelve) are almost never a coincidence.Let's start at the very beginning.“And when day was come, he called unto him his disciples; and he chose twelve of them (whom also he named apostles): Simon, whom he [later] surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John [the sons of Zebedee], Philip and Bartholomew [Bar Tolomais, that is, our own Nathanael], …

Large portions of those sacred books can, at times, seem like little more than a series of unpleasant encounters with the existing religious authorities—not most people’s idea of inspirational reading. To the casual student, Jesus almost seems to be deliberately antagonizing them, arranging times and circumstances for his miracles that were certain to provoke not just debate but opposition.In Luke’s Gospel, our Lord chooses the twelve apostles, then sets out immediately on a veritable crime wave …

And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impedimentand begged him to lay his hand on him.He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s earsand, spitting, touched his tongue;then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)And immediately the man’s ears were opened,his speech impediment was removed,and he spoke plainly. - Mark 7:31-37Before Jesus did any teaching at all, he did miracles.Isaiah had promised …

All of the evidence from the first few centuries of Christian writers either explicitly points to a threefold structure (one bishop, assisted by elders and deacons) in the early Church or is too vague to draw any reliable conclusions (usually because the author wasn’t directly writing about church governance). Sometimes, the evidence is murkier than we would like. But other times, we get a good look at a local church, and we invariably find that it’s governed by a single bishop, assisted by elde …

St. Justin Martyr’s First Apology dates to around 160. In the text we find Justin offering an explanation and a defense to the pagan emperor. That includes a description of what the Christians of his day thought about baptism:I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertak …