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Four times, the book of Revelation identifies its author as “John” (1:1, 4, 9; 22:8). This was an extremely popular name at the time. In fact,John was fifth most common among names for Jewish men in Palestine in this period.The fact that John does not further identify himself (e.g., as John Mark, John son of Zebedee, or John of Jerusalem) shows that he must have been well known to his audience. He only says that he is “your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdo …

Original sin introduced disharmony into the world on three levels. On each level, there is an effect on the relational aspects of human existence. The first level of disharmony is between the human race and God—demonstrated by Adam hiding from his Creator. On the second level, human beings are out of harmony with each other, beginning with the primary unity between husbands and wives. Adam blames Eve, and woman will now suffer male dominance that God did not intend. And finally, the human …

  By its nature, prophecy can be difficult to interpret. It uses many symbols, and these can be taken in more than one way.The key to understanding biblical prophecy is to determine itsliteralsense—that is, what it meant in itsoriginalcontext, what the prophet was trying to communicate to his audience for their benefit. Normally Old Testament prophecies have their primary fulfillment within the generation to which they were given or within a few generations. However, they can have ad …

The Nature of Faith: Trust in Relationships In general, faith can be understood as the acceptance of something as true based on the trustworthiness of the one revealing it. Any kind of deep friendship requires a trust between friends. Otherwise, the relationship will remain superficial, without any deep intimacy and communication of what is most important to both. In true friendship, each person speaks from the heart, revealing what is of deep significance. To accept as true what a frien …

Faith and Reason: Both Come from God Both the truths of faith and truths of reason come ultimately from God, who is the truth. The Catechism, citing the first and second Vatican Councils, puts the point as follows: “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.” …