Why are the women in Matthew's genealogy included?

There are ongoing disagreements about why Matthew refers to Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in Matthew 1:3-6. It's sometimes suggested that they're included because of the theme of God's acceptance of Gentiles. That theme is prominent in early Christianity, including in the gospel of Matthew, as the magi in chapter 2 illustrate. But Bathsheba apparently was Jewish. She lived in Isarael. In 2 Samuel 11:3, her father is referred to as Eliam, with no further qualifier, whereas the same verse qualifies Uriah as "the Hittite". See, also, 2 Samuel 23:34. If Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba, which would be further evidence of her Jewishness, that would help explain why Ahithophel betrayed David (because of what David did to Bathsheba). Matthew 1:16 includes Mary, who was Jewish, in a way similar to how the other women are included earlier. Furthermore, when Bathsheba is referred to in verse 6, she's identified as the wife of Uriah, not "the wife of a Hittite", "the wife of Uriah the Hittite", or some other such thing. And she's referred to as Uriah's wife in a context about giving birth to Solomon after marrying David. She wasn't Uriah's wife at the time, yet Matthew chose to mention that she had been Uriah's wife. The focus seems to be on the adulterous origins of her relationship with David, not any connection to Gentiles. Matthew probably didn't think Ruth was guilty of sexual sin, and he didn't think Mary was, so he didn't think the women had sexual sin in common. Even the women who were sexually immoral were so in significantly different ways. For example, Rahab's background as a prostitute is substantially different than conceiving the child mentioned in the genealogy by means of sexual immorality. It also seems unlikely that the women were all thought to have had a low social status independent of issues like sexual immorality (being born into a disreputable family, being of low economic status, etc.). As explained above, Matthew highlight's Bathsheba's involvement in adultery, which is distinct from the sort of social status issues I just referred to. What's the common thread with these women, then?

Christmas Resources 2025

Since Jesus' childhood spanned so many years and so many issues are involved, there's no quick and easy way to address everything. But I've put together a collection of approaches that can be taken to begin an argument for a traditional Christian view of his childhood. See here.

It's important to be knowledgeable about how much Matthew and Luke agree concerning the childhood of Jesus. They agree more than is usually suggested. See the post here for forty examples of the agreements between Matthew and Luke. For a discussion of the agreements among other early sources, go here. The post here discusses some neglected evidence related to the church of Ephesus. For some recommendations about how to argue that the early sources agree more than people often suggest, see this post.

Isaiah 9:1-7 is significant in the context of Christmas (e.g., what it tells us about Jesus' self-perception, demonstrating continuity between the accounts of his childhood and the accounts of his adulthood). Here's a collection of posts about the passage.

Here are some examples of our posts on Christmas issues, with many others available in our archives:

They Would Have Died To Pray As We Do

In addition to being grateful for prayer, we should be grateful for the types of prayer we can offer:

And when we look back, we have so much more to say than they [the pre-Christian Israelites] did, don’t we? Our past is even better than their past, because we know Jesus. They could remember what God did in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in Canaan, but we have Bethlehem and Calvary. We can pray,

Jesus, you came into our world, born in a manger.
For our sake, you were obedient to the point of death/on a cross.
You were pierced for our transgressions.
You were crushed for our iniquities.
You were wounded so that we might be healed.
You were poor so that we could become rich.
You suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
And three days later, you rose to conquer death and give us life.

The Sons of Korah couldn’t say that yet, so they said, “You restored. You forgave. You covered.” They would have died to pray the kinds of prayers we get to pray, the prayers we pray every day — in Jesus’s name.

(Marshall Segal)

How Often The Church Fathers "Demeaned" Mary

Boniface Ramsey, in his translation of the sermons of Maximus of Turin, refers to passages in which Maximus "demeans" Mary (The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], n. 1 on p. 365). Given Roman Catholicism's history of claiming that Mary is God's greatest creation, that she was sinless throughout her life, that she cooperated with Jesus' work in the world at every moment of her life, and so on, it doesn't take much to say something that demeans Mary from a Catholic perspective. For example:

Implicit Exclusions Of Baptismal Regeneration In Early Christian Literature

As I discussed in another post, we find baptismal regeneration contradicted in a large number and variety of ways in the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation. Sometimes an exclusion of baptism as a means of justification is implicit rather than explicit.

And people will often object to the use of implicit evidence. But we all rely on it. For example, we depend on implicit evidence when deciding how to translate a word in a document, basing our conclusion on what the surrounding context seems to imply. Christians have often said, rightly, that it's unreasonable for a Muslim to ask us for a passage in the gospels in which Jesus says "I am God. Worship me." or some equivalent. A term like "Trinity" doesn't have to appear in the Bible for Trinitarianism to be Biblical. Roman Catholics often use arguments from typology that aren't explicit. And so on. Advocates of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in the context of supporting that doctrine. The appeal to alleged references to baptism in terms like "water" in John 3:5 and "washing" in Titus 3:5 relies on implicit argumentation, so does their reasoning that baptismal regeneration has been in effect during certain circumstances and not in others (e.g., not being applicable during the Old Testament era and some portion or all of Jesus' public ministry), etc. Since proponents of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in their reasoning about the subject, they're not in a position to object to their opponents' use of implicit argumentation. The fact that we prefer explicit evidence doesn't mean that implicit evidence has no value. Something can be less valuable, yet still have value to some extent. The nature of life is such that evidence comes in both implicit and explicit forms, with people sometimes disagreeing about whether something is implicit or explicit, and we have to take all of the evidence into account.

How Later Church Fathers Disagree With Earlier Ones

Sometimes a disagreement is more obvious, such as the comments of a later church father who explicitly refers to his disagreement with the premillennialism of Papias or Irenaeus. Other times, the disagreement is more subtle.

For example, I've written before about how Irenaeus compares Mary's virginity to the virginity of soil that was "as yet" virgin, but would later lose its virginity. Contrast his comments with those of Maximus of Turin, who wrote more than two centuries later, after the perpetual virginity of Mary had become more popular. I'll quote Irenaeus, then quote Maximus with emphasis added to highlight a difference:

"And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil ('for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground'), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for 'all things were made by Him,' and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:21:10)

"For Adam was born of the virgin earth and Christ was begotten of the virgin Mary; the maternal soil of the one had not yet been broken by hoes, while the hidden place of the other's maternity was never violated by desire." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 50A:2, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 122)

Where Irenaeus sees a parallel, Maximus goes out of his way to describe a contrast. (And you can read my post on Irenaeus linked above for further evidence that he didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin. For more about the larger historical context surrounding Irenaeus, in which we see other opponents of the perpetual virginity of Mary in many places for hundreds of years, see here, here, and here, for example.)

How strong is the Christian argument against polygamy?

Polygamy has been getting some attention lately in response to a pastor's announcement that he's married a second wife. Ben Shapiro recently addressed the subject on one of his programs and had Matt Fradd on to discuss it with him. Both men made a Biblical case against polygamy, but far less of a case than they should have made. Their comments about the extrabiblical evidence likewise fell well short of what could have been offered. Matt was focused on church authority and didn't say much about the church fathers and other early extrabiblical sources, where there's early and widespread evidence against polygamy. The use of Roman Catholicism's authority claims is problematic, since those claims are false and end up leading Catholicism's defenders to making unverifiable appeals to doctrinal development, what ecclesiology they think would be fitting, and so forth.

Support for polygamy has been increasing substantially in recent years. More than one out of five Americans consider it morally acceptable now, which is about a tripling of its support over the past couple of decades. See Gallup's polling results on moral issues here. And here's an article on the subject published by Gallup in 2017. Support for polygamy has gone up a few more percentage points since then.

About twenty years ago, I wrote a post discussing the evidence against polygamy in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the early extrabiblical sources. I added some other posts over the years in the comments section of that thread, including some interactions with defenders of polygamy. Matthew Schultz posted an article here in 2011 that discusses how negatively polygamy is portrayed in the Bible. My initial thread on polygamy, linked above, discussed a lot of extrabiblical sources, but didn't include Minucius Felix. Here's a later post in which I cited his comments about the Christian rejection of polygamy.

More About Maximus Of Turin And Eternal Security

I've written some posts over the years about belief in eternal security before the Reformation. Contrary to what's often asserted by critics of eternal security, the concept was held in various forms by some extrabiblical sources before the Reformation, as my series linked above argues.

In one of those posts, I cited some comments the Roman Catholic scholar Brian Daley made about Maximus of Turin. Since then, I've read a collection of Maximus' sermons, and I think Daley's comments should be supplemented. While there is some material in Maximus that seems to support eternal security, there's also some that seems to go against it if taken in isolation. I think more should be said than what Daley provides, so you can scroll to the bottom of that post just linked for an update I just added.

Encouragement To Keep Writing

We should be involved in both oral and written discussions with people, and both have advantages and disadvantages. I've written before about my philosophy regarding activities like evangelism and apologetics, based partly on what Paul articulates in Colossians 4:5. Christians should be making the most of whatever opportunities they have, which obviously can't be limited to contexts involving writing. But, as I mentioned in another post, it's become common for people to make derogatory, dismissive comments about the internet (as they often have about other forms of new technology and new platforms on existing technology), and a majority of the opportunities most people have on the internet involve writing.

What originally attracted people to platforms like YouTube and Twitter?

They've changed since they originated, and we need to distinguish between what these platforms are offering today and what they offered in the past. The fact that Twitter now allows people to post larger amounts of material doesn't change the fact that you could only post smaller amounts when the platform originated. And now that people can post more, how many users make use of that feature? The large majority of users don't post anything. And among those who do post, probably the large majority of those individuals still just post brief comments, often one sentence or a fragment of a sentence, typically without any supporting arguments, documentation, etc. And when a user posts something lengthier, there will often be complaints that it's too long, even if it's only a few sentences or some other small amount. Similarly, the fact that you can get somewhat good transcripts of YouTube videos today doesn't mean that you could do so when YouTube originated or that more than a small percentage of users access that feature now that it's available.

The Popularity Of Being Overly Negative About The Internet

Since it's so popular to be highly negative about the internet, often to the point of saying nothing or far too little about the many positive aspects of it, I want to discuss the positives. I'm grateful to live at the time in history in which God has placed me, and that's partly because I consider the internet so beneficial.

What should Christians do with things like the internet and social media platforms?

More than 1500 years ago, Augustine expressed some of his reasons for preferring a written debate over an oral one:

Why is there so much neglect of the argument from prophecy?

It's widely neglected both in terms of quantity and quality. There are some pastors, apologists, and other individuals who are otherwise highly involved in relevant contexts, yet I don't recall ever seeing them argue for Christianity from the evidence for prophecy fulfillment. Or somebody will only use the argument to a ridiculously small extent. I occasionally hear people go as far as to say that they don't think there's any value to the argument from prophecy or that they think there's only some extremely small number of prophecy arguments they consider worth using. Contrast that to how prominent prophecy is in the Old Testament and how prominent appeals to fulfillment are in the New Testament and the early extrabiblical literature.

Steve Hays ebooks 6

Led by the Shepherd has led the way to a triumphant end! This is the last of Steve Hays' ebooks, and (as Steve intimated shortly before crossing the river Jordan) one of his most personally beloved. Many thanks again to Led by the Shepherd for his fine work. I trust the Lord will reward him for faithfully shepherding Steve's work to completion. And may the Lord gather and guide on the pilgrim path each who reads this ebook so we walk it to meet in the Promised Land. SDG. (Previous batch here.)

• Pilgrim through This Barren Land (epub)
• Pilgrim through This Barren Land (pdf)

By the way, the great John Hendryx over at Monergism has done beautiful editions of each of Steve's eBooks as well. Please consider supporting him if able. Monergism has done a tremendous service for the Lord and his people over many years which continues unabated today, and the newly revamped Puritan and other eBooks look better than ever. Here is the Monergism edition of Steve's latest eBook, Pilgrim through This Barren Land.

Interpretations Of Interpretations

We're often told that disagreements over how to interpret scripture suggest that we should look to extrabiblical sources to interpret scripture for us. There's some validity to that notion, as long as due weight is being assigned to the evidence scripture itself provides and the extrabiblical sources are being handled appropriately. But when you get to the extrabiblical sources, such as the church fathers, you find that they sometimes seem unclear, inconsistent, or problematic in some other way. Even where there isn't a problem, or much of a problem, with those extrabiblical sources, different people interpret them differently. It's similar to the situation with scripture. And if you look to other sources, such as scholarship, to clarify the extrabiblical sources in question, you find that there sometimes are ambiguities, disagreements, etc. among those sources as well.

Circumstances like these range across a spectrum. There's less disagreement on some issues than others. But the need for going to extrabiblical sources and how much help they provide are often overestimated.

Elsewhere, I've cited G.W.H. Lampe's comments on the many ambiguities, inconsistencies, and other problems among the patristic sources concerning baptism, the laying on of hands, and other rites. Here are some of Lampe's comments on problems in later sources commenting on the fathers:

"Many modern writers have adopted the unhappy course of trying to pick out from the vast mass of patristic literature on Baptism such texts as favour their own theories. Such methods ignore the confusion to which we have just referred. The Fathers did not try to resolve this confusion as long as the rite of initiation remained one whole, comprising both Baptism and Confirmation, for so long as that state of affairs was maintained the theological difficulties remained latent. It is not therefore surprising to find that, for example, Mason and Umberg were able to discover plenty of authority for the view that the gift of the indwelling Spirit is bestowed by means of the laying on of hands, and not by water-baptism, Wirgman was no less easily able to show that the Fathers taught that the indwelling presence of the Spirit was conferred by water-baptism and that an increase of grace was given for spiritual progress by the laying on of hands, while Thornton finds it equally possible to demonstrate that in the teaching of the Fathers the indwelling of the Spirit is regarded as being withheld until Confirmation, which he associates particularly with anointing. It is also unfortunate that some important books were written on this subject before the date and authorship of some of the relevant documents had been fairly established, and that, as a result, the picture which they present of the historical development of the doctrine of Baptism and Confirmation is distorted." (The Seal Of The Spirit [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004], 194-95)

Chromatius On Opponents Of Mary's Perpetual Virginity

Chromatius of Aquileia, who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries, wrote:

"But concerning what the evangelist said, 'And he did not know her till she brought forth a son' [Matt 1:25], several foolish people are accustomed to stir up a question, thinking that after the Lord's birth saint Mary was united with Joseph." (Thomas Scheck, trans., Chromatius Of Aquileia: Sermons And Tractates On Matthew [Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 2018], approximate Kindle location 3051)

Though Chromatius could be discussing opponents of Mary's perpetual virginity in general, he seems to be limiting his comments to the interpretation of Matthew 1:25 instead. Either way, his use of the term "several" is significant. There surely were some people who held the view in question with whom Chromatius wasn't familiar. So, the total number has to be higher than the several Chromatius refers to. And if he's only commenting on a particular interpretation of Matthew 1:25, then the total number who rejected the perpetual virginity of Mary, whether on the basis of Matthew 1:25 or on other grounds, must have been higher still. Advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary often say or suggest that only one or two individuals or some other extremely small number denied her perpetual virginity before the Reformation (only Helvidius, only Tertullian and Helvidius, etc.). Chromatius' comment suggests the number was higher.

And we have far more than Chromatius' comment to go by. See here and here, for example for discussions of the evidence that many individuals rejected Mary's perpetual virginity for hundreds of years before the Reformation, beginning in the first century and continuing into the medieval era. Rejection of her perpetual virginity seems to have been the more popular view during the earliest generations of church history.

The Wolves Complaining Of The Lambs

"But how deservedly soever we complain that the doctrine of truth was corrupted, and the whole body of Christianity sullied by numerous blemishes, still our censurers deny that this was cause sufficient for so disturbing the Church, and, in a manner, convulsing the whole world. We, indeed, are not so stupid as not to perceive how desirable it is to avoid public tumults, nor so savage as not to be touched, and even to shudder in our inmost soul, on beholding the troubled condition in which the Church now is. But with what fairness is the blame of existing commotions imputed to us, when they have not been, in the least degree, excited by us? Nay, with what face is the crime of disturbing the Church laid to our charge by the very persons who obviously are the authors of all these disturbances? This is just the case of the wolves complaining of the lambs….Nor is this calumny against us without precedent. With the very same charge which we are now forced to hear, wicked Ahab once upbraided Elijah, viz., that he was the disturber of Israel. But the holy Prophet by his reply acquitted us; 'I,' says he, 'have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed Baalim,' (I Kings 18:17, 18.) It is unfair, therefore, to load us with odium, on account of the fierce contest concerning religion which this day rages in Christendom, unless, indeed, it be thought proper first to condemn Elijah, with whom we have a common defense. His sole excuse is, that he had fought only to vindicate the glory and restore the pure worship of God, and he retorts the charge of exciting contention and disturbances upon those who stirred up tumults as a means of resisting the truth." (John Calvin)

A Response To Tony Cornell And Ben Machell Regarding The Enfield Poltergeist

Ben Machell recently published a book about the paranormal that's focused on the late paranormal researcher Tony Cornell, titled Chasing the Dark (New York, New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2025). I found Ben's book to be good for the most part and would recommend it as a resource on the paranormal and on Cornell in particular. But its material on Enfield is bad enough to warrant a response.

One Way Protestants Can Further Their Cause

When you can cite an extrabiblical pre-Reformation source or a source from the Reformation era or later in a given context, make more of an effort to cite the pre-Reformation source. If a church father or a modern theologian could be quoted on a topic, for example, quote the church father. That helps address various problems with ignorance of church history among Protestants, neglect of pre-Reformation sources, mischaracterizations of the historical credibility of Protestantism, etc. I'm not saying you should always cite the pre-Reformation source. That would be simplistic. But it can and should be done more often than it is.

The Widespread Absence Of An Early Papacy

Gavin Ortlund just put out a video that provides a good overview of a lot of the evidence against the papacy. He makes some points I didn't make in my last post, and my post covers some things not included in his video. When you think of the evidence as a whole, notice that there's such a large number and variety of contexts in which the papacy is absent among the early sources. In addition to being absent, the concept of a papacy is sometimes contradicted. I mentioned some examples in my last post. And keep in mind how important Catholics tell us the papacy is, how it's allegedly the foundation of the church, the source of Christian unity, and so on. The First Vatican Council claimed that the papacy is a clear doctrine of scripture that's always been understood by the church. In reality, the papacy isn't in scripture or the earliest extrabiblical sources, and it's sometimes contradicted by those sources.

Some Ways To Argue Against A Papacy

It's useful to think of ways to concisely address a subject. That helps when we don't have much time in a particular context or we're looking for brief way to start a conversation on the topic, for example. In a post a few years ago, I summarized nine lines of evidence to consider when evaluating the papacy:

Regarding the evidence against the papacy outside of Matthew 16, think of the many contexts in which a papacy could have been mentioned early on, but wasn't: there's no reference to a title for a papal office (in contrast to "apostle", "deacon", etc.); the qualifications for holding other offices, like apostle and elder, are mentioned in places like Acts 1 and 1 Timothy 3, whereas there's no such discussion of the qualifications for being a Pope; passages discussing the structure of the church, like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, say nothing of a papacy; the imagery used for the church in Ephesians 2 and elsewhere doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; the imagery used for the apostles in Matthew 19 and elsewhere (e.g., twelve thrones, twelve foundation stones) doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; in passages in which the apostles are anticipating their departure in some sense (Paul departing from the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, Paul and Peter anticipating their deaths in 2 Timothy and 2 Peter), there's no reference to a papal office, looking to the bishop of Rome as the foundation of the church, looking to the bishop of Rome as the center of Christian unity, or anything like that; the earliest sources to comment on the Roman church and its importance (Paul in Romans, Luke at the end of Acts, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, etc.) give a variety of non-papal reasons for the Roman church's significance; the early opponents of Christianity, including ones who addressed the religion at as much length as Trypho and Celsus did, showed no awareness of a papacy. Furthermore, passages like 1 Corinthians 12:28 (mentioning "apostles" as the first order in the church) and Galatians 2:9 (grouping Peter with other apostles and naming him second) make more sense if there was no early belief in a papacy than if there was a belief in it.

Some of the arguments don't have enough significance to use in isolation. They should be part of a cumulative case instead. But some of them could be used in isolation. You could choose one or more to start with, then move on to others if warranted.

Agnosticism On Controversial Issues Before The Reformation

Just as people are often undecided about religious issues in our day, the same was true in past generations. That category of agnosticism is often, I'd say typically, ignored in discussions of historical theology, especially pre-Reformation church history.

We'll be told that everybody before the Reformation held such-and-such a view, but the fact that some individuals were agnostic on the subject won't be mentioned. (Probably often because the person making the claim about what everybody believed isn't aware of that agnosticism.)

For example, as I've mentioned before, some individuals were agnostic about whether Mary was assumed to heaven. That agnosticism persisted even into the second millennium of church history. See, for example, the entries on Aelred of Rievaulx, Isaac of Stella, and Peter of Celle in Michael O'Carroll's Theotokos (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988).

Another example of this kind of thing is discussed in Craig Atwood's book on the Hussites, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). On page 180, he refers to some pre-Reformation Hussites who "wanted to leave up to God the question of whether the [eucharistic] bread changed or remained bread".

We see this sort of thing frequently in our day, with predestination, eschatology, church government, and whatever else. We need to keep in mind that people were sometimes agnostic on religious issues prior to the Reformation as well. People tend to focus on opposition to a belief when thinking about an alternative to the claim that everybody held that belief before the Reformation. But we need to remember that agnosticism is another category that's relevant. The people who were agnostic about the subject shouldn't be grouped with the people who affirmed the belief in question.

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 3)

Murray Wagner refers to how Petr Chelcicky "denounced the doctrine of purgatory...Chelcicky's rejection of purgatory has its precedent among the Waldenses and Lollards and is paralleled in the Taborite demand that chantries for the dead and intercessory prayers to the saints also be abolished." (Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 121-23) Wagner refers to how Chelcicky ridiculed "the veneration of saints" (127) and was "critical of prayers of intercession to the saints" (143). Craig Atwood refers to Taborite opposition to images (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 118). Katerina Hornickova writes:

In reality, the view of saints’ merits and intervention in Hussite and Utraquist teaching varied among different fractions of the religious movement, from refusal by the radicals to acceptance by conservatives....

With the influence of Matthew of Janov, and wyclifite ideas on the Hussite theologians Jacobellus of Stříbro and Nicolas of Dresden, the radical Hussite party’s view of the contemporary Catholic cultic practices of veneration of saints’ relics and images was largely negative....

[quoting Nicolas Biskupec of Pelhřimov] "from the authority of the doctors it is clear that invocations and prayers are (forms of) cult that are appropriate only for God…Therefore we do not pray and invoke the saints, nor do we seek help from them and thus impede the cult that only God deserves"...

Nicolas’ ideas were developed in the writings of Petr Chelčický (c. 1390–1460), an original thinker, close to the radicals, in his writings of 1430s-1440s. The founding ideology of what came to be the Unity of Brethren takes on a similar critical view on the cult of saints, refusing the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

Some of the more radical Hussites were premillennialists for a while (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 33).

Atwood writes that "The churches that developed out of the Hussite reforms made congregational singing a central part of worship decades before Martin Luther set Protestant doctrine to tavern tunes." (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 52)

Regarding literacy, education, and the reading of scripture: "The Czech Reformation had made lay reading of the vernacular Bible a key component of reform, but in Prague it was primarily the aristocracy and wealthy burghers who had this privilege. The Taborites extended biblical literacy to the common people. This ideal of an educated, active laity would bear rich fruit in the Unity, especially in Comenius's advocacy of universal education." (111)

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 2)

Some of the Hussites held to "an outright denial of any notion of Christ's presence in the eucharist...In time, Tabor arrived at a eucharistic position very comparable to the symbolic teaching." (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 59-60) Craig Atwood compares the Taborite view to Ulrich Zwingli's (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 252). Wagner summarizes:

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 1)

In other posts, I've discussed other groups who were forerunners of the Reformation to some extent, the Waldensians and the Lollards. I've occasionally discussed the Hussites as well, but not as much. What I want to do in this series of posts is provide more examples from the Hussite movement. Though that movement continued into the Reformation era and beyond, my focus here will be on the pre-Reformation Hussites.

Reformation Resources

Reformation Day will be celebrated at the end of the month. I've been maintaining a collection of resources on Reformation-related topics, which you can access here. I've updated that post since linking it last year. The baptismal regeneration page has been updated in multiple places. I added an entry addressing the subject of apostolic churches and the alleged problem of Protestants disagreeing with what all apostolic churches believe. I also added a link to a post on Marian apparitions. The link on the perpetual virginity of Mary and children of Joseph from a former marriage has been updated.

"Firstborn" In Luke 2:7 And The Alleged Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

From Gregory Lanier's new commentary on Luke:

"Also, because prōtotokos here [in Luke 2:7] is modified by 'her,' it registers at the human level and does not convey the transcendence of Rom 8: 29; Col 1: 15; and Heb 1: 6." (Christian Standard Commentary: Luke [B&H Publishing Group, 2025], approximate Kindle location 4693)

Luke uses "only begotten" elsewhere (7:12, 9:38). He could have used it in 2:7, which would have implied the prerogatives, honors, and such of the "firstborn" terminology without casting doubt on Mary's perpetual virginity. In a culture in which women normally have multiple children, like ancient Israel, a woman whose child is called "firstborn" is normally expected to go on to have others or thought to have had others already, and Luke's gospel refers to others if the gospel is interpreted in its most natural sense (8:19). To refer to a woman's child as "firstborn" when she may not have any other children, but is expected to have more, is different than referring to the child as "firstborn" when writing after you know there were no other children. You could do the latter, but it would be less natural. Even if a term takes on additional uses over time, you should ask what the best explanation is of how the term originated. That has implications for later usage. "Firstborn" makes the most sense as a term originating in a context involving multiple children. That likely was the original meaning and the usual meaning afterward, even though exceptions developed under some circumstances. The issue here is how we best explain the terminology, not how it might be interpreted.

Some Significant Biblical Commentaries Due Out Soon

It looks like Craig Blomberg's new commentary on Matthew should be coming out in early November. Here's the Amazon page for it. And Craig Keener's multi-volume commentary on Mark is scheduled to begin coming out in January. It looks like the first three volumes will be out that month (here, here, and here on Amazon), and the fourth and fifth are scheduled for September of next year (here and here). You can find the first three volumes offered in an electronic format and at a lower price at the publisher's web site.

New Projects From A Group That Funded Tom Schmidt's Book On Josephus And Jesus

I've written some posts that cite Tom Schmidt's recent book on Josephus and Jesus. He recently mentioned that an organization that funded his book is in the process of making a documentary about it, and they've referred to other projects they're working on. Here's something from a page at their web site about their projects:

"Other projects of ours span biblical times to well into the Christian era. They include new evidence regarding the extraordinary spread of ancient Christianity in East Asia, a new discovery of perhaps the earliest Christian artifact, new testimony concerning the famous darkness of the crucifixion, among others."

A Good Discussion Of Psalm 22 And Isaiah 53

Michael Flowers recently recorded a video with Joshua Pearsall about the two passages. They make some good points about the passages and respond to some objections raised by critics (Dan McClellan, Kipp Davis, Tovia Singer, Bart Ehrman).

Michael has also written a good article about Psalm 22:16, which I discussed in an earlier post.

You can find a listing of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy fulfillment, in canonical order, here. And here's a collection of posts on prophecy issues more broadly.

How Baptism Of Blood And Baptism Of Desire Work Against Baptismal Regeneration

Advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently allow for many exceptions to the rule of baptismal regeneration: people were justified differently during the Old Testament era, people were justified differently during part or all of Jesus' time on earth, Cornelius and those with him who were justified before baptism were exceptions to the rule, and so on. Two of the exceptions they make involve supposed other forms of baptism, such as being baptized by blood if you die as a martyr before being water baptized or being baptized by desire if you intended to get water baptized, but died before the water baptism was carried out. Much can be said about the problems with such views. John 3:5, probably the passage most prominently cited in arguments for baptismal regeneration, appeals to Nicodemus' knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures, which makes less sense if Jesus was referring to a means of justification different than that of the Old Testament era, and the passage says nothing about blood or desire. And see my post here about how unknown and contradicted baptism of blood and baptism of desire were among pre-Reformation sources. Baptism of blood was popular, but not universally accepted. Baptism of desire seems to have been initially absent, then became a minority view, then reached majority status hundreds of years into church history. That doesn't sit well with what many advocates of baptismal regeneration say about how their church is the church of the earliest centuries of Christianity, how they passed down all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, how the alleged early unpopularity of justification apart from baptism supposedly is such strong evidence against that view of justification (compare that to the early unpopularity of baptism of desire), etc.

How do we best explain what happens with the unbaptized martyr or the catechumen who dies before being baptized, for example? Instead of proposing a baptism of blood or a baptism of desire, it makes more sense to conclude that they were justified through faith without baptism. The martyr gave his life for Christ because he was already regenerated. He had no need for being regenerated in a future baptism of water or blood. Similarly, the catechumen was going through the catechetical process because he was already regenerate. Both the martyr's behavior and the catechumen's make more sense if regeneration had already occurred. As I've said before, people like Abraham, the tax collector in Luke 18, and Cornelius aren't exceptions to the rule. They are the rule. That's why Paul cites Abraham as if he's normative, Jesus speaks in Luke 18 as if what he's describing is normative, Acts 11 and 15 refer back to the events of chapter 10 as if they involve the normal means of justification, etc. Similarly, the martyrs and catechumens under consideration aren't exceptions as far as their regeneration and justification are concerned. They're further evidence for the rule. The rule is justification apart from baptism. It's the regeneration, faith, and justification the person already has that motivate the person to get baptized.

Part of what's involved here is the principle of simplicity. We prefer the simplest explanation, all other things being equal. Dividing up history as advocates of baptismal regeneration do, with different means of justification during different periods, and proposing other forms of baptism (blood, desire) not suggested by Jesus and the apostles, among other complications introduced by advocates of baptismal regeneration, doesn't provide the simplest explanation of the evidence.

Charlie Kirk and chaos

I believe what we have witnessed in Charlie Kirk's assassination by an LGBTQ+ and specifically trans-friendly killer and continue to witness in its wake is ultimately a spiritual war.

Please let me take a step or two back. Here's what I mean.

The God of the Bible is a God of order, not chaos. Arguably distinctions are necessary for there to be order. At least the God of the Bible orders creation by making distinctions.

So, for instance, God separates light from darkness, day from night, water from land. He distinguishes between the greater light (sun) to rule the day and the lesser light (moon) to rule the night.

He distinguishes between creatures of the sea, land, and air. He distinguishes among land creatures - livestock, crawling things, wild animals.

He distinguishes between humans made in his image from animals. And he distinguishes between male and female.

Such distinctions and separations help order creation. Indeed, creation started out as "formless and empty". Roughly speaking, the first 3 days of creation God forms the formless, while the last 3 days of creation God fills the empty.

However, when we blur or erase distinctions, such as when we blur or erase the distinction between male and female by saying saying men can be women and women can be men, that there are no inherent differences between male and female, then we attempt to unravel the created order. We attempt to introduce chaos into the created order. This wreaks havoc. Like intentionally slashing a knife several times across Van Gogh's Starry Night to mar it beyond recognition.

I think that may be one reason why the apostle Paul in Romans 1 uses idolatry and homosexuality as emblematic or paradigmatic examples of human rebellion, for idolatry attempts to blur or blot out the distinction between the Creator and the creature, while homosexuality attempts to blur or blot out the distinction between male and female.

As such, idolatry and homosexuality represent paradigmatic examples or perhaps even the epitome of the creature rebelling against the Creator by attempting to turn the created order into chaos.

And, not coincidentally, that's precisely what Satan and his fallen hordes would love to see happen to creation. They can't hurt God directly, but they can destroy what he has made. They can turn his entire creation including his creatures - most of all the creatures which bear his own image - into chaos. By disordering the ordered, they can unmake what God has made, they can uncreate creation.

Satan and his ilk know there's no redemption for them. Yet, if they must burn, then they want the world to burn with them. They want to take down as many as they can - deep down, down to the fiery pits of hell.

Charlie Kirk's killer is cut from the same cloth in terms of motivation and endgame. Not only him, but there seems to be a destructive and even self-destructive nihilism animating much if not most of the left today. (I won't bothsides this, which would be like comparing the LA wildfires to a solitary matchstick.)

If the killer is guilty and receives the death penalty, then I hope he repents before he is executed. If he remains impenitent at death, then he will join the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning and the primeval demons in the lake of fire.

I realize all this is at best an inchoate sketch. Nevertheless I hope it conveys something of why I think it's ultimately a spiritual war.

A Neglected Line Of Evidence For Sola Scriptura And Against Alternatives

There's some material in the New Testament that I've referred to as departure passages. They provide some evidence for sola scriptura and against alternatives to it. See here for a post about the departure material in the apostle John's writings. That post also has a link to an earlier article about departure material from Paul and Peter.

What's the significance of something like baptismal regeneration or the perpetual virginity of Mary?

I've been posting a lot on both subjects lately, but people often dismiss such issues as insignificant. A recent post I wrote about baptismal regeneration focused on one of the reasons why that issue is important. And I linked another post that discusses thirteen problems with baptismal regeneration, which provides other reasons for considering the subject significant.

Another reason for thinking more highly of these issues is how they're connected to other topics. Whatever significance the perpetual virginity of Mary has when considered in isolation, it takes on more importance when you consider how it has implications for claims about church infallibility, papal authority, the nature of extrabiblical tradition, and so on. Similarly, something like whether Mary was assumed to heaven doesn't have a lot of significance in isolation, but it becomes more significant when it's attached to other things, like papal infallibility and the infallibility of one institution or another.

There's also the issue of Biblical precedent. Many of the arguments used to underestimate the significance of baptismal regeneration could also have been used to underestimate the significance of adding circumcision as a means of justification, for example. Yet, the apostles treated the adding of circumcision as a major issue. (They also applied that reasoning more broadly, since they refer at times to the broader subject of adding "works", "conditions", etc. They didn't think circumcision was the only thing that couldn't be added.) As I've argued elsewhere, Peter probably was criticizing the concept of baptismal regeneration in 1 Peter 3, which is why he framed things so similarly to how Josephus did when addressing that sort of misconception of baptism in the context of John the Baptist.

And an issue doesn't need to have maximal significance in order to have some. I do a lot of work on Christmas issues. There's some value to knowing whether Jesus had siblings, the nature of his relationships with those siblings, and so forth. Though those aren't foundational issues or highly significant in some other way, they do have some significance. It's the type of information people often look into when studying the background of any historical figure, writing biographies, etc. It's information that tells you something about how the person's character was shaped, what experiences he had in life, how reliable certain people are (like siblings) as witnesses of his life, and so on.

I'm not trying to be exhaustive. These are just some examples of reasons why these issues are important.

Truth, Faith, And Confidence

"And faith is produced by the truth; for faith rests on things that truly are. For in things that are, as they are, we believe; and believing in things that are, as they ever are, we keep firm our confidence in them." (Irenaeus, The Demonstration Of The Apostolic Preaching 3)

Does the unbelief of Jesus' brothers support Mary's perpetual virginity?

I recently heard somebody make that claim. If Jesus' brothers grew up in the same house as Jesus, which would have included having a large amount of information about or even witnessing miracles associated with him, for example, why weren't they believers?

That's just a variation of an objection that's been raised for a long time in other contexts. See my response to Raymond Brown's formulation of it here and here and my response to Bart Ehrman's version of it here, for instance. There's no reason to think there were as many or more miracles occurring in association with Jesus in his home prior to his public ministry than during that ministry. But his brothers were unbelievers during that latter timeframe. The typical non-Christian argument pertaining to Jesus' miracles at the time wasn't that there weren't any miracles, but rather that they didn't come from God. It wasn't an absence of miracles that was motivating the unbelief.

And though children of Joseph from a previous marriage and cousins would be further removed from Jesus than children born from Mary, we'd still expect children from a previous marriage and cousins to have had a lot of contact with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Look at how often they're in close proximity to Jesus and Mary in the gospels and elsewhere. That probably occurred prior to Jesus' public ministry as well. Just as there isn't much difficulty in reconciling the unbelief of Jesus' brothers with their being step-brothers or cousins, there isn't much difficulty in reconciling their unbelief with their being brothers in the most common sense of that term.

Distancing the brothers from Jesus makes their unbelief less difficult to explain in some ways, but not in every context. If the brothers were children from a previous marriage, then they lived through the events of the infancy narratives, as Joseph and Mary did. By contrast, children later born from Mary didn't. Children from a previous marriage also would have been more mature during Jesus' childhood, more capable of handling evidential contexts like having conversations with Joseph and Mary about the relevant issues. In some ways, the unbelief of Jesus' brothers is easier to explain if they were children born from Mary after Jesus' birth or cousins born later rather than earlier.

Even if somebody concludes that a perpetual virginity scenario offers a better explanation of the brothers' unbelief, I don't think it would be much of an advantage. As I said in an earlier post, an advantage for a particular view of the brothers in one context can be accompanied by a disadvantage in another context. What we're after is the best explanation of the evidence as a whole. As the post just linked argues, the view that Mary gave birth to other children is the most efficient explanation on balance, even though it's not the best explanation of every piece of evidence. A Joseph who was older at the time of his marriage to Mary better explains his death prior to Jesus' public ministry, and the perpetual virginity view was held by more of the church fathers, for example, but the advantages of a perpetual virginity view are accompanied by more numerous and weightier disadvantages.

External Evidence For Jesus' "I Am" Statements

It's become popular to reject the historicity of Jesus' "I am" statements in the gospel of John ("I am the light of the world", etc.). Much of the evidence for their historicity has been neglected, including a lot of external evidence.

I've argued for the historicity of the statements in previous posts, like here. One of the lines of evidence I've brought up is the history of interpretation, including how Irenaeus and some earlier sources he cited interpreted the passages. I've also argued for similar material in the Synoptics and for far more agreement in general between the Synoptics and John than is typically acknowledged. See my collection of posts on the topic here, which I've been periodically updating over the years.

Slouching Toward The Minimal

"And I recall times of them wanting to do something I disapproved of. They would ask, 'What's wrong with it?' With this text in my mind, I would say, 'Don't ask about your music, your movies, your parties, your habits, 'What's wrong with it?' Ask instead, 'Does it help me run the race? Does it help me to run with all my focus and energy and love for Jesus? Does it help me to be the best Christ-exalting marathon runner I can be?'' Don't set your sights on the minimal standard of avoiding cheating. Set your sights on the maximal standard: 'How can I be the most devoted, Christ-exalting runner possible?' So, the main point of this text is this: Run! Get rid of all the sins that you can. Get rid of all the weights and hindrances that you can. Take hold of the marathon of your life, and don't just set the pitifully low standard that asks, 'What's against the rules?' But rather: 'How can I train, and eat, and think, and dress to be the best runner possible? How can I live my life and finish my course with maximal, Christ-exalting faith and sacrificial love?'" (John Piper)

Baptismal Regeneration As A Gateway To Other Forms Of Justification Through Works

Adding baptism to faith makes it easier to add other things. Just as many ancient sources viewed baptism as a means of obtaining things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit, many ancient sources also saw other rites as a means of obtaining those things (prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, foot washing, the eucharist, etc.). See here for a discussion of many examples. It's probably not merely a coincidence that such views of justification through works (or sacraments, rites, or whatever other term you want to use) became popular around the same time. Since baptism predates these other rites in the context of Christianity, is a valid part of the Christian life, and is one that occurs early on, and the other rites I'm referring to were often closely associated with baptism, a misunderstanding of baptism probably was more responsible than anything else for the misunderstanding of these rites in general.

And if you're going to add works at the start of the Christian life, why not add them later as well? It's probably not just a coincidence that the large majority of people who have accepted baptismal regeneration have also rejected eternal security. They don't just add works in the context of what you could call initiatory rites or initiatory sacraments, but also in other contexts, making other works a means of justification as well.

My point isn't that adding baptism always leads to the adding of one or more other works. It doesn't. And my point isn't that the adding of baptism is the only factor that facilitates the adding of other works when others are added. Rather, my point is that the adding of baptism has a lot of potential, among other factors, for facilitating the addition of other works and that it seems to have often had that sort of facilitating role.

Many people acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, but think or act as if it's an error that doesn't have much significance. One way to appreciate the significance of it is to think of it as the sort of gateway I've described above. If adding a work to the gospel doesn't concern you much, though it should, you ought to also consider how the adding of that work facilitates the adding of more.

For an overview of some of the other problems with baptismal regeneration, see here.

The Evidence From Origen Against Prayer To Saints And Angels

The mainstream view during the Biblical era and among the earliest extrabiblical sources was that we should pray only to God, not to saints and angels. See my collection of articles arguing for that conclusion, along with discussions of ongoing opposition to praying to saints and angels in later generations of pre-Reformation church history, here.

Origen is an important extrabiblical source on the topic. He's significant for more than one reason. He wrote a lot of material that's extant. He wrote an entire treatise on prayer. He addressed prayer many times in other contexts. The subject of who we should pray to came up a lot in his response to Celsus, a second-century pagan who consulted one or more Jewish sources when studying Christianity. So, Origen's treatise against Celsus reflects how a variety of sources perceived Christian views of prayer at the time.

I've written too many posts about Origen's material on prayer for me to link all of them here. You can use something like a Google search to find the relevant posts or see our collections of posts under post labels like Origen and Prayer. The post here goes into a lot of depth in response to some common arguments about Origen put forward by advocates of praying to saints and angels. And here's one about some material in Origen's Homilies On Ezekiel that's sometimes misused to make it appear that Origen supported prayer to angels. There are many other relevant posts in our archives, including some in comments sections of threads and in posts that don't have the Origen label, for example. If you're interested in an issue related to Origen and praying to saints and angels, there's a good chance you can find some relevant material somewhere in our archives.

It's important to go into discussions of this topic with some distinctions in mind. Supporters of praying to saints and angels will often change the subject, as if support for other prayer practices implies support for praying to saints and angels when it actually doesn't. They'll bring up passages in Origen about whether angels pray with us, even though that's a distinct issue from whether we should pray to angels. Or whether saints in heaven pray for us will be cited, as if it implies support for praying to those saints, which it doesn't. You have to be careful to consistently maintain such distinctions. Otherwise, your thinking about these issues and the discussions you have about them will go off track.

What if the brothers of Jesus were younger cousins?

My last post discussed some evidence for the consistency and historicity of what the New Testament reports about the siblings of Jesus. That material is relevant to the issue of whether Mary was a perpetual virgin, but that wasn't the focus of my last post. I do want to focus on it here and expand on what I said earlier.

Some Agreements Among The New Testament Documents About Jesus' Siblings

I've been discussing the perpetual virginity of Mary in some of my recent posts, and one of the issues I've brought up is how often Jesus' brothers are referred to as being together (Matthew 12:46, John 2:12, 7:3, 7:10, Acts 1:14). I think they probably were Jesus' youngest siblings, born well after him (with his sisters and any brothers who didn't survive born earlier), and were still living in the same house after Jesus left. They probably were in their teens to twenties at the time of Jesus' public ministry, with the oldest brother (likely James) having taken over the leadership role Jesus had in the home after Joseph's death. Since Jesus' brothers were still in the same house, they often did things together. The sisters of Jesus are consistently not mentioned in these contexts, even though they are mentioned elsewhere (Matthew 13:56, Mark 6:3). They probably had moved out of the house, whereas Jesus' brothers were still there.

But whatever reason you'd propose for why they're together so often, and whatever view you hold of the perpetual virginity of Mary, the fact remains that the brothers are often referred to as being active together. Later on, the brothers are referred to as being active individually, later in Acts and in Galatians and the letters of James and Jude. The contrast between their acting together earlier and acting individually later can be seen within a single author in the case of Luke. He refers to the brothers' acting together (Luke 8:19, Acts 1:14), but refers to James' acting individually in later passages in Acts. This is another line of evidence for the historicity of the gospels and other parts of the New Testament. The gospels and the opening of Acts all agree that the brothers were active together, with the sisters not being mentioned in those contexts, and the parts of the New Testament discussing later history agree in portraying the brothers as being active in a more individual manner.

One way to appreciate the value of such agreements is to think of how easily the sources could have disagreed. Why agree that Jesus had any brothers? Or more than one? Or that they acted together so often during the timeframe the gospels and Acts 1 cover? Or that they were more individually active later? The sources could easily have been less harmonious and probably would have been if the New Testament were as unhistorical as critics sometimes suggest.

Encouragement Coexisting With Discouragement

Paul refers to how opposites often coexist, such as joy and sorrow existing together (2 Corinthians 6:10, 7:4). If you do something good, and it gets a bad response or less of a good response than it should, that's discouraging. But there's a sense in which that poor response should be encouraging, if it reflects how much the work you've done is needed. When there's a widespread problem, you typically won't see a major change for the better as a result of the work of one person. Usually, any improvement that occurs as a result of one person's work, especially in the short term, will be of a lesser nature. It's important to judge your work (and the work of others) objectively. If you've done something that should get a particular type of positive response, that's a different issue than whether it will get that response. If there's a problem you're addressing, how surprised should you be if the people perpetuating the problem (e.g., through their apathy) don't respond well when you try to solve that problem? If your work passes the test of being objectively valuable, the poor response to that work should remind you of the fact that your work is needed and perhaps even needed more than you previously realized. That should encourage us, though I'm not denying that the situation is simultaneously discouraging in other ways. It's a mixed situation. The point I'm making here is that we shouldn't think of it as solely discouraging.

The Suspicious Early Silence About Later Marian Dogmas

In a recent post, I discussed some of the evidence against concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, and assumption. Something to keep in mind when issues like those come up is that the lack of reference to those beliefs among the earliest sources carries some evidential weight against them. Think of the writings of Luke, for example. He wrote the longest gospel we have, said the most about Mary among the earliest Christians, and gave us our earliest church history. That church history doesn't end until the early 60s. Not only does he say nothing of concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, assumption, praying to individuals like Mary, venerating images of such people, etc., but he even repeatedly uses language that most naturally suggests that he opposed some of those concepts. See here for a discussion of some examples. Or see here for many other examples of early opposition to later Marian beliefs and practices. My main point here, though, is that we should keep in mind that there's a double problem for the advocate of something like a modern Roman Catholic or modern Eastern Orthodox view of Mary. There's a suspicious lack of reference to their view, a view they claim to be so important, accompanied by so many apparent contradictions of it. And that's in a context in which they claim to belong to the one true church founded by Jesus, passing on all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, providing unity, providing doctrinal clarity, etc.

Baptismal real presence?

We're frequently told that we should hold a highly efficacious view of baptism or the eucharist because the church fathers and other pre-Reformation sources often expressed such a view. As I've mentioned before, we also find other views among the pre-Reformation sources, so we need to take those other views into account as well. Another problem with appeals to highly efficacious language in these sources is that they also used such language in many other contexts, including contexts in which modern proponents of a highly efficacious view of baptism or the eucharist don't hold such an efficacious view of those other things. See the many examples discussed in my post here on pre-Reformation views of initiatory rites. That post cites a book by G.W.H. Lampe, and here are some other comments he made in that same book:

He [Melito of Sardis] strongly emphasizes the theory of the Spirit's presence in the [baptismal] water, which, though quite unscriptural, becomes a commonplace in the Fathers and is developed by some ancient authors into a doctrine approximating to that of a 'Real Presence' of the Spirit in the font....

Again, on the other hand, the doctrine of a sort of 'Real Presence' of the Spirit in the water of Baptism is clearly expressed in the Homily on the Blessing of Jacob [attributed to Hippolytus]...

Zeno of Verona describes the baptismal water as 'aqua viva Spiritu sancto et igne dulcissimo temperata', and Gaudentius connects the miracle of Cana with the presence of the Spirit in the water and its reception by the baptized. These are, no doubt, expressions of pious rhetoric, but Cyril has a genuine doctrine of the Spirit's 'real presence' in the water, a theory amounting almost to a conception of the transubstantiation of water into Spirit, John of Damascus explains that the Spirit comes upon the water through epiclesis, and we must not ignore the significance of the common practice of dipping torches into the font

(The Seal Of The Spirit [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004], 115, 144, 211-12)

An Easy Way To Date Opposition To Mary's Perpetual Virginity Before Helvidius

Advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary sometimes acknowledge that there was opposition to the concept before Helvidius. They'll sometimes acknowledge that Tertullian didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin, for example. However, some of them claim that Helvidius was the first source we know of who held that view. What I want to do in this post is discuss a line of evidence that can be brought up against that claim, some evidence that they'll likely accept more easily than they'd accept an argument that somebody like Luke or Irenaeus denied Mary's perpetual virginity.

Are Protestants underestimating Mary?

Ben Merritt of Cleave to Antiquity recently produced a video in which he interviewed an eyewitness of the Zeitoun Marian apparitions and concluded that he accepts the apparitions as appearances of Mary. In the comments section, Sean Luke of Anglican Aesthetics said that he holds a similar view. Other commenters also said that they're Protestant and accept the apparitions as appearances of Mary. In another recent video, Myles Christian of Canon & Creed provided "a historical survey of giants in Protestant history who held Mary in high esteem". He cites their belief in concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, her becoming sinless after conception, and her assumption. Elsewhere in the video, he refers to a problem with Protestants "overcorrecting" errors about Mary. He asks at another point, "Are we possibly missing something that they [earlier Protestants] saw from scripture?" One portion of the video refers to an argument for Mary's assumption based on fetal microchimerism, but doesn't explain how it allegedly leads to the conclusion that Mary was assumed. He ends the video by commenting, "But if men like the reformers, who were radically committed to sola scriptura, sola fide, and the purity of the gospel, if they could hold Mary in high esteem without compromising their convictions, then maybe we can too."

Consider The Birds

"For, when the dawn brings forth the breaking day, do we not see the smallest birds in the tiny bedchambers of their nests first proceed to sound forth with manifold loveliness and to do this assiduously, so that they may delight their Creator with sweetness, since they are unable to do so with language?...For the innocent bird charms its shepherd with sweetness since it cannot do so with words. For the birds also have their shepherd, as the Lord says: Consider the birds of heaven, that they neither spin nor reap, and your Father, who is in heaven, feeds them. [Matthew 6:26] But with what food are the birds fed? With the meanest and most earthly. The birds, therefore, give thanks for mean food, but you are fed with the costliest dishes and are ungrateful. What human being, then, would not blush to end the day without praying the Psalms, when the birds themselves burst out with the sweetness of the Psalter in order to give pleasure, and who would not, with the loveliness of verses, sound forth the glory of Him whose praise the birds pronounce in delightful song? Imitate, then, the smallest birds, brother, by giving thanks to the Creator morning and evening." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 73:4-5, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 179-80)

The Importance Of The Wind In John 3

There are a lot of problems with using John 3:5 to support baptismal regeneration. I've written about those problems in many posts over the years. I'll briefly summarize some of the points I've made before, then move on to what I want to focus on in this post, verse 8.

Jesus' rebuke of Nicodemus for not understanding what he's saying (3:10) makes more sense if he's referring to something that can be more easily derived from the Old Testament than baptismal regeneration can be. He goes on to refer to justification through faith a few times (verses 15-18), without any reference to baptism, which also makes more sense if baptismal regeneration isn't involved. The other New Testament passage that uses the born again language, 1 Peter 1:23-25, associates that language with a response to preaching, which is a prebaptismal context. See my discussion of justification apart from baptism in 1 Peter here. For a discussion of how the preaching context of justification is problematic for baptismal regeneration, see my post on Galatians 3 here. In the timeframe after Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, the fourth gospel and the other gospels give us several examples of people being justified apart from baptism, including in contexts that seem to be normative rather than exceptional, and there aren't any examples of people being justified at the time of baptism. See my post here on the double healing phenomenon, for example. The evidence for justification apart from baptism in the gospels is such that advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently concede the point and claim that baptismal regeneration didn't go into effect until after the crucifixion or at some other later stage. That creates problems for their view of John 3:5, which uses the present tense and makes no suggestion that what Jesus is discussing wouldn't go into effect until later. There's also the fact that the evidence suggests continuity in how people were justified throughout history, not the sort of discontinuity baptismal regeneration involves. For more about that subject, go here. And contrary to what advocates of baptismal regeneration often claim, there wasn't universal or nearly universal agreement about their interpretation of John 3:5 prior to the Reformation. For discussions of the many interpretations of the passage that circulated before the Reformation, including some that are inconsistent with each other, see here, here, and here, among other relevant posts in our archives.

Most likely, what Jesus is doing in John 3 is drawing from some material in Ezekiel 36-37. Those chapters in Ezekiel refer to water, wind, and the work of the Holy Spirit in contexts that involve the bringing about of new life (being born again, as Jesus puts it; being made a new creature, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17; etc.). Ezekiel uses a lot of eschatological language and refers to a new covenant. In contrast to how baptism was typically practiced at the time when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, Ezekiel refers to sprinkling with water (36:25). And he goes on to discuss wind in chapter 37, which Jesus discusses in John 3:8 (in the same order as Ezekiel: water, then wind). Most likely, then, the water of John 3:5 is summarizing one aspect of the Spirit's work, namely his cleansing, while the wind of 3:8 is summarizing another aspect of his work, its unpredictability. In addition to the close association of the water and the wind in both Ezekiel and John, the two are closely associated conceptually. They're both commonly experienced elements of nature. The wind obviously isn't literal in John 3. It would make more sense for the accompanying water to not be literal either. Furthermore, the unpredictability of the wind doesn't sit well with a highly visible ceremony that's anticipated ahead of time, like baptism. That's reminiscent of what we see elsewhere in scripture about the immediacy of justification, how it can happen at any moment (2 Corinthians 6:2) and by a means we have immediate access to (Romans 10:8-10). Baptism violates both of those kinds of immediacy, and it makes less sense of John 3:8.

The Leaves Of High Trees Shake With Every Blast Of Wind

"The leaves of high trees shake with every blast of wind, and in the same way every breath, every evil word, will disquiet an arrogant man….Contention that comes from pride leads a person into a thousand inconveniences that those of a meek and lowly temperament seldom encounter." (Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 562)

Holding Skeptics Accountable For Their Claims

One of the implications of what I discussed in my last post is that critics have to pay a price for something like assigning a late date to a gospel. For example, though I've argued elsewhere that Luke and Acts were written no later than the mid 60s, it's possible that a companion of Paul, like Luke, lived until later and published his work later than the mid 60s. If a skeptic assigns Luke/Acts to the 80s, let's say, he still has to allow for the possibility of Lukan authorship (or authorship by some other companion of Paul), and pushing the documents a couple of decades later pushes them that much closer to the later sources who comment on authorship in one way or another. That closer chronology adds credibility to those later sources. (And that's also true for other matters, like genre and historicity, not just authorship.) Skeptics are often schizophrenic about this kind of thing. They'll disregard the implications of what they said in a particular context when acknowledging the implications would be unfavorable to their conclusions in another context. I've written elsewhere about how they sometimes do that with certain Christmas issues, for instance, like the virgin birth and the Bethlehem birthplace.

Eyewitnesses Of Acts' Events Living Into The Second Century

We're accustomed to framing timing issues in early Christianity around Jesus' life. He died in the 30s, so we think of a document written in the 60s as postdating Jesus' life by about three decades, for example.

But we need to keep in mind that many significant events, like the ones narrated in Acts, occurred after Jesus' life on earth. Acts closes with events in Rome in the 60s. Some people who were in Rome at the time surely lived into the second century, probably multiple decades into the second century in some cases. That diminishes the popular skeptical suggestion that individuals in the second century wouldn't have had firsthand knowledge about issues like the dating and authorship of documents, were just speculating about such issues without much to go by, etc.

I've cited Acts as an example here, and something else that's significant about Acts is its connection to the third gospel. The fact that people with firsthand knowledge of Acts' authorship and the circumstances surrounding it could so easily have lived well into the second century, and that some probably did, adds weight to the universal testimony from the second century onward that the third gospel was written by Luke. (And there are multiple sources who partially or fully corroborate that authorship attribution prior to Irenaeus, as discussed here.)

This distinction between the timing of Jesus' life and the timing of later events is also relevant in many other contexts: the suffering of the apostles, their martyrdom, apostolic miracles, etc. Always ask yourself what timeframe is relevant to the issue under consideration. Be careful not to assume the timeframe of Jesus' life in contexts that involve a different timeframe instead.

How Close, And Yet How Far Apart, Were The Worlds Of The Familiar And The Extraordinary

Guy Playfair wrote about an occasion when he was inside the Hodgsons' house while investigating the Enfield Poltergeist. He's contrasting the paranormal events inside the house to what was going on with the people walking by outside, who were focused on other things:

"It was late afternoon, and commuters were going home from the station, snatches of their conversation drifting through the window. Once again I was reminded of how close, and yet how far apart, were the worlds of the familiar and the extraordinary." (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 50)

Jesus And The Apostles Emphasized Maturity

For example:

"The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity." (Luke 8:14)

"Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature." (1 Corinthians 14:20)

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food....let us press on to maturity" (Hebrews 5:12, 6:1)

"your deeds of late are greater than at first" (Revelation 2:19)

What does that suggest about how so many individuals, churches, parachurch ministries, and others operate in modern contexts like the United States, where there's so much focus on introductory material and not much concern about growing up? When you look at YouTube or Twitter comment threads or listen to callers on radio programs or conversations in church, do the people involved seem to have put much effort into maturing the way they should? Are they taking on more responsibilities and doing more of the work that needs done instead of being overly dependent on other people?

"You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed." (Matthew 25:26)

Was Tertullian the only early opponent of infant baptism?

I often see advocates of infant baptism referring to the history of credobaptism as if Tertullian is the only credobaptist source or the only source we know of who was somewhat close to credobaptism in the earliest centuries, the only prominent source early on, or some such thing. Sometimes they won't even mention Tertullian, as if nobody opposed infant baptism before the Reformation. But the evidence suggests that credobaptism was the only or dominant view during the earliest generations of church history. Many church fathers and other individuals other than Tertullian seem to have been closer to credopaptism than paedobaptism. For an overview, including patristic and medieval sources before and after Tertullian, see here. And here's one on Aristides, a pre-Tertullian source. They give a variety of reasons for waiting until after infancy for baptism, such as waiting until the person baptized has an understanding of and has professed the faith and the importance of having the person baptized choose to participate in baptism. The notion that everybody who delayed baptism did so only or primarily to have his baptism cover more sins later in life is demonstrably false.

This heaven!

"This heaven! who knows what it is? (Matt 22:23) This glory! who knows what it is? It is called God's throne, God's house (John 14:2), God's habitation; paradise (2 Cor 12:4), the kingdom of God, the high and holy place (Isa 57:15). Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:22), and the place of heavenly pleasures (Psa 16:11); in this heaven is to be found, the face of God for ever (Psa 41:12): Immortality, the person of Christ, the prophets, the angels, the revelation of all mysteries, the knowledge of all the elect, ETERNITY. Of this heaven, as was said afore, we are possessed already, we are in it, we are set down in it, and partake already of the benefits thereof, but all by our head and undertaker; and 'tis fit that we should believe this, rejoice in this, talk of this, tell one another of this, and live in the expectation of our own personal enjoyment of it. And as we should do all this, so we should bless and praise the name of God who has put over this house, this kingdom, and inheritance into the hand of so faithful a friend. Yea, a brother, a Saviour and blessed undertaker for us." (John Bunyan)

Did the earliest information about Christianity circulate entirely in oral form?

A post I wrote last week about Josephus was partly about the likelihood that the earliest Jewish opponents of Christianity communicated about the religion in writing. Elsewhere in Tom Schmidt's book that I cited, he discussed a line of evidence I've brought up before. "For the same reason during the 30s CE it is probable that Saul of Tarsus received letters from none other than a high priestly son of Ananus I instructing him to arrest followers of Jesus." (Josephus And Jesus [New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2025], 185) In a footnote, Schmidt cites Acts 9:1-2 and 22:5. There are other examples of actual or potential references to Christianity in written sources that are no longer extant, among both non-Christians and Christians. See my post here that discusses the example in Acts mentioned above and others. See, also, my discussion here regarding how the genealogy of Jesus in the gospel of Luke likely came from the brothers of Jesus, most likely James, and probably in written form.

What Justin Martyr said about early Jewish responses to Christianity, which I discussed in my last post, probably involved written material as well, not just oral sources.

People often speak of the earliest history of Christianity as if it involved only oral communication about the religion or as if any written sources that existed at the time had little or no significance. But that doesn't make much sense in the abstract, it's inconsistent with the large amount of documents we have from Christians from the middle of the first century onward, and it's contradicted by the references we have to early written sources that are no longer extant (the likely presence of written documents other than the canonical gospels in the "many" sources of Luke 1:1-3; Acts 9:1-2, 15:23-29; etc.). The nature of life is such that communicating orally makes more sense in some contexts, and communicating in writing makes more sense in other contexts. Both would have been present from the start of Christianity, not just later on. And that start of Christianity includes Jesus' life before his public ministry.

First-Century Jewish Sources On Jesus In Justin Martyr

Some of my posts in recent months have been discussing Tom Schmidt's new book on Josephus and Jesus. What Schmidt addresses in that book should be supplemented by what Justin Martyr tells us about early Jewish reactions to Christianity, such as Jewish corroboration of the empty tomb. As I discussed in a post several years ago, Justin cites what seems to be a first-century Jewish source (commenting on other first-century Jewish sources). What Justin tells us there and elsewhere corroborates much of what Schmidt argues in his book.

Josephus' Potential Sources On Jesus

What's quoted below is from Tom Schmidt's recent book on Jesus in Josephus. This is an overview of Josephus' potential sources from whom he got his information about Jesus. The cumulative effect is especially significant. How likely is it that somebody would live where Josephus lived, have the parents Josephus had, know the other people Josephus knew, etc., yet not learn anything about Jesus from any of those non-Christian sources or only receive information that was false or unreliable? It seems very likely that Josephus got reliable information about Jesus from multiple non-Christian sources on multiple occasions. Schmidt writes:

Little Things Filling Up Little Souls

"The reason that is so is because the human soul was made to see Christ, to know Christ, to love Christ, to enjoy Christ, and to be enlarged by the greatness of the glory of Christ. Without this, our souls shrink. And little souls make little lusts have great power. The soul, as it were, contracts or expands to encompass the magnitude or minuteness of its treasure. The human soul was made to see and savor the glory of Christ. Nothing else is big enough to enlarge the soul as God intended and make little lusts lose their power....Inside and outside the church, modern culture is drowning in a sea of triviality, pettiness, banality, and silliness....Therefore, the deepest cure to our pitiful addictions is to be staggered by the infinite, everlasting, unchanging, all-satisfying glory of Christ." (John Piper)

More Pre-Reformation Disagreements Over Baptism And John 3:5

I've written a lot over the years about how diversely John 3:5 was interpreted prior to the Reformation, contrary to the popular suggestion that there was more agreement about the passage. For example, it's sometimes claimed, falsely, that everybody or almost everybody thought the passage teaches baptismal regeneration. I've discussed many examples of Christians who rejected baptismal regeneration before the Reformation, like here. Those who assigned some kind of high efficaciousness to baptism widely disagreed with each other about the sort of efficaciousness involved. Go here for a discussion of some examples. People often lowered their view of baptism in order to heighten their view of something else (prebaptismal faith, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, etc.). Such tradeoffs would inevitably affect the sort of efficaciousness assigned to baptism in an interpretation of John 3:5. Some people held a highly efficacious view of both prebaptismal faith and baptism. To the extent that they were consistent in maintaining those views, there would have to be a tradeoff. Heightening your view of prebaptismal faith lowers your view of baptism in some contexts, as I've discussed elsewhere. And there were many other issues that influenced how people understood John 3. As I've discussed elsewhere, there was widespread disagreement before the Reformation about types of baptism other than water baptism, such as baptism of desire. And there were disagreements over whether Jesus' comments in John 3:5 were in effect at the time when he spoke the words in that passage or wouldn't go into effect until later. Those who thought John 3:5 wouldn't be applicable until later disagreed over which later point in time that was.

What if men like Papias and Polycarp weren't eyewitnesses of the apostles?

I've argued, in other posts here and elsewhere, that they were. But if they weren't, what would follow?

There still would have been other individuals in early church history who had been an eyewitness of one or more of the apostles. There would have been many eyewitnesses, and some of them would have lived well into the second century. That's the nature of life. Skeptical challenges to the eyewitness status of individuals like Papias and Polycarp don't change that. It's not as though the presence of eyewitnesses depends on the status of particular individuals who have traditionally been thought to have been eyewitnesses of the apostles. The fact that eyewitnesses would have existed and have lived until well into the second century can't reasonably be denied. Keep that in mind when you see people questioning the eyewitness status of certain people.

And even those who weren't eyewitnesses could have been in a good position to have had significant information. They were contemporaries of the apostles, lived in an area where one or more apostles had been, etc. Think of the evidence for the apostle John's long lifespan and his interactions with Christians and churches in Asia Minor, for example. On his long lifespan, see here. For a discussion of the evidence for his influence on the Asia Minor region, go here. That post is focused on Ephesus, but much of what's said there is also applicable to Smyrna and other locations in the area. It's not as though Polycarp had to be a disciple of John in order to have had significant information about John and other eyewitnesses of Jesus. Polycarp was in the right place, at the right time, in the right sort of leadership position to have had a lot of reliable information about Jesus and the apostles, even if he wasn't a disciple of John (though the evidence suggests he was).

Anytime skeptics raise doubts about an issue like whether a certain person was an eyewitness of the apostles or whether a New Testament author was an eyewitness of whatever type, it's helpful to begin by asking what's at stake. Even if the skeptic's position were granted for the sake of argument, what would follow from it? Often, even if we granted the skeptic's position, the source in question still offers a large amount of evidence against the skeptic's view of Christianity.

Why was there so much diversity in ancient baptismal beliefs and practices?

Gavin Ortlund just posted a video about how the historical evidence favors credobaptism over paedobaptism. I agree with him, and I've written about the subject in other posts, like here.

What I want to focus on in this post is why we see so many differences, and often contradictions, among the ancient sources on baptismal issues if what critics of Protestantism tell us about the nature of the church and other relevant issues is true. If there was one church that all or a large percentage of these sources belonged to, with the sort of unity people like Romans Catholics and Eastern Orthodox often claim they had in the past, with their infallible church maintaining all apostolic teaching in every generation, providing guidance, scripture interpretation, the settling of controversies, and such in the way modern Catholics and modern Orthodox often claim their church provides, why do we see such diversity in the historical record on baptismal issues? Some of the differences went on for centuries, sometimes a millennium or more.

Hermas (who lived in Rome, a significant context in relation to Roman Catholicism) advocated postmortem baptism (The Shepherd Of Hermas, Book 3, Similitudes, 9:16; see, for further discussion, Anthony Lusvardi, Baptism Of Desire And Christian Salvation [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024], 15-18). As I discussed in a recent post, people like Cyprian thought John 3:5 refers to two sacraments, not just baptism. Cyprian, along with others, also disagreed with Roman Catholicism about the validity of heretical baptism. As I discussed in another recent post, the concept of baptism of desire was widely absent or contradicted early on and didn't become a majority view until well into church history. And there are many other baptismal views the early sources held that are wrong by the standards of modern Roman Catholicism and modern Eastern Orthodoxy. For a discussion of a lot of other examples, see here. The views we find in the early sources include credobaptism and justification apart from baptism.