Joel Johnson | Biblical History & Theology

“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).” (Mt 27:46) At this point, Jesus had been on the cross for up to 6 hours (Mk 15:25; Mt 27:45-46 but see Jn 19:14). The previous night, he had suffered such extreme agony and stress in the garden that He began to sweat blood – a rare medical condition known as hematohidrosis. Modern medical observations have found that this condition is often caused by extreme distress or fear. The fine capillaries near the skin burst and haemorrhage into the sweat glands. As a result, blood actually comes out with the sweat. Although it does not normally cause a significant amount of blood loss, it has the effect of making the skin fragile and tender. Before daybreak, he was spat upon and struck in the face while blindfolded at the Sanhedrin (Mt 26:67; Mk 14:65; Lk 22:64). The ch...

The Forge is the latest movie by the Kendrick brothers, following on from their 2015 box office hit War Room . It was released on the 23rd August in the United States, where it finished fifth at the box office (grossing $6.6 million for the weekend). The movie will be released in Australia on the 29th of August and is screening in 109 cinemas across most major cinema chains, including Hoyts, Event Cinemas and Cineplex.  I recently attended a pre-screening of The Forge ; these are my observations and thoughts.  Overview The Forge follows Isaiah Wright (played by Aspen Kennedy), a 19 year old boy from Charlotte, NC, who is a year out of high school and is still floating around with no plans for his life. I say “boy” intentionally, because that is made very clear by the opening of film - he may be 19, but Isaiah is not a man.  When his single mother finally tells him to get a job or get out, Isaiah is rudely jolted into the “growing up” process. During this process, he giv...

 “... In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” (Eph 1:4-6) There’s a lot that is covered in these verses. In them, we can see God’s supreme plan to save His people through Jesus’ sacrifice, which He had in place before the creation of the world (Rev 13:8, Eph 1:4). However, here I would like to focus on one particular aspect which can sometimes be overlooked when we read this passage. I know that when reading these verses, I have previously overlooked it and when it was brought to my attention, I found it really fascinating. That is where Paul talks about the “adoption to sonship”. This is a single Greek word, υἱοθεσία , which doesn’t really translate well to a single word in English. It literally means placing in the condition of a son, in which we can see the idea of adoption. When you are adopted, you are ‘placed’ i...

I will preface this post by saying that I am not a web expert by any means. Most of this is compiled from reading various tutorials/forum posts and trial & error. However, it may hopefully save you a bit of time if you are also trying to add a custom domain to your Blogger site.  The Domain Name The first step is to purchase your custom domain. Again, I haven't done a detailed investigation into the best places to purchase domain names from. However, it seems that the 'big name' sellers (e.g. GoDaddy) will often have more expensive prices compared to less well known domain sellers. You could try somewhere like  https://www.namecheap.com .  Because I live in Australia, I was able to get a free .com.au domain from VentraIP for 12 months. They give away 5000 of these domains per year ( https://ventraip.com.au/domain-giveaway ) - because I found it in April, they had only given away about 3000 domains for the year and so I could easily snag one. The continuing domain cost...

In April 2024, I completed my goal of running a total of 200 km throughout the month to raise funds for Destiny Rescue. They are an Australian-based  organisation with a mission to rescue children from sexual exploitation and human trafficking and help them stay free. They have rescued over 14,000 trafficking victims to date and supported their re-integration into society. Most of their work is in the Asian region, but their efforts extend to Africa and Central America.  There are over 1 million children currently trapped in commercial sexual exploitation, so it has never been more important to do something about this issue.  If you would like to contribute to the cause, please check out my page at:  https://movetorescue.com.au/joel-johnson Please also check out the great work that Destiny Rescue is doing at  https://www.destinyrescue.org.au/ .  Thank you, Joel