Picture this: You’re a Christian in the year 310 AD. You meet in secret. You hide your faith from neighbors. Roman soldiers could arrest you for believing in Jesus. Just a few years later, emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Within a few generations, Christianity goes from outlawed to embraced, then elevated to the empire’s official religion. What happened? And how did this dramatic shift plant seeds that eventually grew into today’s denominations?
Continue reading →
The church’s response to heresy shaped Christianity for centuries to come. False teaching didn’t wait for the church to mature. Deception appeared almost immediately after Pentecost. The apostles spent much of their time correcting errors and defending truth.
This early battle against heresy explains much about how our denominations formed. The church’s defensive strategies—some brilliant, others problematic—echo through history to today.
Understanding this struggle helps us appreciate both our theological heritage and our current divisions.
Continue reading →
Why do thousands of Christian denominations exist when Jesus started just one church? Jesus prayed for unity among His followers. He asked His Father that believers “may be one” (Jn 17:21). He wanted this unity to convince the world of His divine mission.
Yet today, Christianity fragments into countless denominations. This division confuses outsiders and weakens our witness. Instead of showing the world a united body so that “the world may believe” (Jn 17:21) we’ve often displayed the opposite. Some people reject faith entirely because Christians can’t agree among themselves.
Continue reading →
One Greek word has shaped how millions understand salvation. That word is eis. It appears over 1,700 times in the New Testament and almost always points forward—into, unto, or toward. But in Acts 2:38, some argue it means “because of.” That shift changes everything. If eis is causal, baptism follows forgiveness. If it retains its normal meaning, baptism leads to forgiveness. The difference is massive, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s an inconvenient truth for those who believe baptism has nothing to do with salvation, yet the text speaks with stubborn clarity.
Continue reading →
In the previous article, we explored the meaning of the Greek preposition eis in Acts 2:38 and found that it consistently points forward to something, never backward. According to BDAG, the leading Greek lexicon, eis in Acts 2:38 means “for forgiveness of sins, so that sins might be forgiven.”1 No major Greek lexicon defines eis as meaning “because” or pointing backward. BDAG, Mounce, Thayer, Louw-Nida, and Strong’s all agree. They show eis means into, toward, or with a view to—always pointing ahead. It speaks of direction, result, or purpose. This forward-looking sense is consistent throughout the New Testament.
Yet some scholars argue that eis can be causal, meaning “because of,” suggesting that baptism in Acts 2:38 happened because forgiveness had already taken place. In this article, we will examine those claims. In a subsequent post, we’ll evaluate the New Testament passages often used to support that view.
Continue reading →