Tag Archives: Sabbath

THERE was one man who had more to do with the future of the Christian church than even the apostles themselves, and his name was Paul, or Saul in Hebrew. He was the greatest of all Christian missionaries. Much more is known about Paul than about other leaders of the early church, for he wrote or dictated long letters of instruction and encouragement to various missions he had established. These letters were called epistles. A number of them were preserved and published. In addition, most of the Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New Testament, deals with …

JESUS lived and died a Jew. Like the ancient Hebrew teachers, he urged people to love God and to love their neighbours. He left no writings of his own. His public ministry was short, possibly not as long as two years. It seems probable, therefore, that his influence on world history might not have been nearly as great had his story ended on the cross. The gospel story does not end with his crucifixion. He died on Friday. To speed the death of those crucified on Fridays, so that they could be buried before the Sabbath, the legs of the …

ALL THAT is known about Jesus of Nazareth appears in the first four books of the New Testament. These books, written many years after his death, are called the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There are differences of detail in each and the events of his life are not always reported in only one or two of the books, others in all of them. The gospels of Matthew and Luke, for example, begin with the birth of Jesus to a virgin named Mary. The gospels of Mark and John begin with events that took place some thirty years …