This question has probably been posed before, but could you advise us HOW we are supposed to pray? I hear of people saying they spent hours praying, etc. Well, I don’t have that long of an attention span. Usually, my prayers are ongoing throughout the day whenever I have a moment or I am just contemplating something. I pray every night, but to be honest, I often fall asleep while praying. Is that bad? I don’t think so, but I don’t want to be rude to God!

I know that we are to have a conversation with God and that is my method. When I try to sit down or kneel down and pray for an extended period of time, I lose focus as I get too caught up in the process of praying and therefore, I always think I am doing something wrong. However, as you know, there are some that think we are supposed to dedicate an hour a day, etc. to praying. Is there a Biblical basis to this? If so, HOW are we supposed to pray? If God already knows what we need are we just supposed to spend an hour or two thanking Him over and over again? I don’t want to sound flippant, I am just trying to grow and learn where I can.

Your article concerning the “solution” to the three day and night controversy disregards the eyewitness testimony of the authors in the Bible, all of who agree (including our Lord) that Jesus Christ rose “on” the third day. This is repeated 13 times in one form or another. It also disregards the testimony of Flavius Josephus who was an annual eyewiteness to the Feasts of the Lord in Jerusalem. Jesus Christ was clearly crucified as the Lamb of God, on Nisan 14. If Firstfruits (as it testified to by the feasts of the Lord and Flavius Josephus) was held each year on a Sunday and is the 16th (after the Sabbath as stated by Josephus) then it was, just as the Bible says, a “3rd Day” resurrection. Paul confirms that Christ, our Firstfruits, is risen from the dead.

The Church (regardless of denomination) has been right all along and there is absolutely no need to “fix” Scripture because of the statement of Jesus concerning “three days and three nights” when every other time the Resurrection is mentioned is clearly stated as “on the 3rd day.”

The three day and three night “conflict” you perceive is no conflict at all. It has been long understood in Jewish teaching that any part of a day includes the entire day.

Can you tell me any thing about the Salt covenant? Was there a reason for/ or a lesson in Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt? I can’t find much about it that I understand. No one seems to know about it. Look forward to your articles on the Bible. I learn much from them.

I am a Christian Pastor(Reformed Baptist) and I have been puzzled about the blatant exegesis that we often involve ourselves in. I especially think about the belief that the Unclean Food Lists of the OT have been nullified. Now the basis for this declaration is cited as being from Mark 7: 19 and Acts 11:5-11. Looking at these passages closely I find that the first (Mark) is concerned with Ritual defilement and I find that when our Lord declared all foods clean, he was referring to the fact that no food can defile you spiritually- thus the explanation that it enters the body through the mouth and then is excreted. The other reference in Acts was to declare to Peter, a Jewish Christian, that he was not to refuse the good news to the Gentiles (who did come to him with a request to preach the good news to them after that vision!!) as God had chosen to reveal His salvation even to them.

Now how can we in good Christian conscience twist these texts to say that we can eat anything and everything?

I am involved in a discussion on what we (born-again believers) will be like after we are raptured into Heaven. The discussion is getting wild and some are suggesting that “we will be like him” to the point of becoming God in the same manner as Jesus Himself. They are quoting verses in the old and new testaments involving the word “glory.” to indicate that we will be exactly like him.

I don’t believe that we are going to become “God” as our Lord Jesus is, can you help?

It seems that if Jesus were buried Thursday afternoon, he wouldn’t have been in the grave 3 full days and 3 full nights. For that to have happened, he would have had to been crucified on Wednesday. Any thoughts?

In Mark 14:51 at the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane, there was a “certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body ,and the young men laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.” In all my years, I do not remember reading this portion before, nor hearing anyone address this…why is it there and what does it mean?

Other than my wife, you have been my closest relative in the Lord. My question is regarding the Virgin Birth of Jesus our savior. My wife (a baby nurse practitioner) and I are trying to confirm that Jesus was placed in the womb of Mary. We believe that the entire person of Jesus (egg and sperm; i.e. zygote) was placed in her womb by the Holy Spirit (God). Luke 1:28-31 are the appropriate verses.

If God only put the sperm into her egg, the egg material would contain the sin from Mary. Jesus was without sin; so we think all the material that God provided was his, and Mary carried Jesus to birth. In other words, we think that Mary just carried the baby Jesus in her womb to term, but had no part in the Lord’s physiology.

I heard of a Vietnamese man who has been forced to recant his new found faith in Christ; he has signed a document saying he recants, but will also be required to sacrifice to his ancestors in order to publicly prove he has recanted. Matthew 10: 33 says that if we deny Christ before men he will deny us before the father. Would you please comment on this terrible situation, and also what relationship Matt 10:33 has to OSAS, in your opinion.

I have been studying up on the fig tree parable. in Luke 21 and Matthew 24. Both passages mention the fig tree. Does the fig tree represent Israel or not? I’ve heard both ways and it sure makes more sense for the fig tree to represent Israel. Remember when Jesus put a curse on the fig tree that bore no fruit and the scripture that is mentioned in Jeremiah 24 about Israel as a fig tree? I’m so confused because isn’t Israel the tell-tale sign that we are the last generation? The generation that witnesses the budding of the fig tree will witness everything last thing? Can you explain this? Thank you!