By Dr. Don Bierle, FaithSearch President

On resurrection Sunday morning, Mary Magdalen was at the tomb mourning the death of Jesus and seeking to discover where His body had been taken (John 20:11-16). Two angels asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” Then she sought Jesus’ body from a person she mistook for the gardener. It was really the resurrected Jesus who asked her again, “Woman, why are you weeping?” (v. 15).

Lutheran commentator Lenski clearly saw the irony in this: 

Indeed, why does she weep? – when we should all have had cause to weep to all eternity if what she wept for had been given her, the dead body of her Lord!* 

Two Tests of Faith

By Dr. Don Bierle, FaithSearch President

In the last issue of this newsletter, I emphasized the perfection of Jesus – “For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 1:15; 2:9). While the fact that Jesus is fully God is the truth most frequently denied by cults and false teachers, there is also an opposite heresy concerning Jesus. “Docetism” states that Jesus was not a man in reality, but only in appearance. This is similar to so-called “theophanies” where angels appeared in the form of men. Docetism is a denial of the true humanity of Jesus Christ, claiming He is only a spirit being feigning flesh.

Really?!

By Dr. Don Bierle, FaithSearch President

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God…” (Luke 1:35-38).

Jesus is “the image of the invisible God… For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 1:15; 2:9). 

Thanksgiving Anticipates Advent

Thanksgiving may come first in our calendar today, but Christmas gives it its fullest meaning. Therefore, it is appropriate that Christians gathering for Thanksgiving would anticipate celebrating the advent of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Churches and Christian families do so with a centuries-old Christian tradition called the Advent wreath. It consists of a wreath with four candles in a circle around a fifth larger candle in the center. One candle is lit each week of Advent (this year on December 1, 8, 15, and 22), symbolizing the lighted path which leads to the ultimate spiritual light of the world. The birth of the Savior Jesus Christ is represented by the fifth candle, which is lit on Christmas eve.

By Dr. Don Bierle, FaithSearch President

Two and one-half years into His public ministry, Jesus took His apostles on a northern retreat to Caesarea Philippi, at the base of the nearly-10,000-foot-high Mount Hermon (Matthew 16:13ff.). Surprisingly, that late in His ministry the question was still, “Who is this Son of Man” (John 12:34). Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples’ answer revealed that people were still confused about Jesus’ identity (Matthew 16:14). 

To avoid the popular, Jewish, firm commitment to a political and nationalistic Messianic hope, Jesus avoided wide-spread use of the title of “Messiah” (or Christ) and “Son of David.” These titles would tend to stoke insurrection against Rome by the masses, as illustrated by their response at the feeding of the 5,000: “This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world… they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king…” (John 6:14-15).