Matthew Axelson

In “Reading the Gospels Wisely”, Jonathan Pennington offers many ideas and thoughts on how to read the Gospels in a beneficial way. He outlines good habits as well as points out where problems can arise. Although, Pennington makes several important arguments; hindsight, open-mindedness, and vertical reading are three aspects that ought to guide Christians while reading the Gospels. Hindsight is a broad term that encompasses a major point Pennington was arguing. Pennington talks about the genre…

Matthew Henson: Explorer and Adventurer The NPR radio station estimates the number of people who died trying to reach the North Pole at 800 (“Profile: Matthew Henson”). 800 people repeatedly tried to fight the odds and be the first people to ever reach that corner of the world. The first successful men to accomplish such a feat were U.S. Navy lieutenant Robert Edward Peary and his colored assistant, Matthew Henson. Though on the same team, Henson happened to be pulling a dog sled ahead of Peary…

The second piece that I decided to observe was Madonna and Child, a 14th century work that was painted by an unknown artist. The tempera on oil piece also sits in the memorial art gallery. This early renaissance painting seems to display a composition that most think of when thinking about Mary and Christ. Mary is directly center in this painting, with Christ held off to her right side. The child holds up his right hand, and in his left, there is a scroll. Though it is supposed to show a moment…

Entrance “Entrance”- Matthew McConaughey in the Lincoln Continental advertisement. The advertisement appeared on the NBC network. The advertisement starts off with immense clouds filling up the sky. The reflection of the clouds can be seen in the beautiful shallow waters. The stunning outline of the horizon gives the advertisement a fresh and breathtaking spin. A few seconds later the Lincoln Continental, being driven by Mathew McConaughey, drives in with high speed leaving a trail in the water…

Religion plays a crucial and timeless role in art across generations. Faith could be a hard concept to grasp or explain. How do you example something that is felt, something that explains miracles? When the roman people couldn’t fully grasp or explain the holiness of Christ and the Bible they depicted it in mosaics covering the entire roman world. Halos were drawn around Christ, the Apostles, and Jesus’s mother Mary to show holiness. The Four Evangelists is a painting on canvas that shows a…

In the Gospel of Mark, believed to be written around 67-73 AD, it shows many connections to Peter and what he preached at the time. In this book, Jesus is focused on more based on his deeds, rather than the words he preached, he is seen as being a vivid person through this Gospel. Mark’s writing were believed to target the audience of non-Jewish and Gentile-Christian groups. One of the central themes located within Mark’s Gospel is that following Jesus was often meant that Christians must suffer…

In the book The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Peter Brown discusses in detail the role of “dead human beings” in Christian life in the time between the third and six centuries AD (p.1). These departed human beings were a direct connection between heaven and earth in the minds of early Christians. Brown also discusses the existence of a theoretical “two-tiered model” of religious practice between the elites and the vulgar throughout the book. By minimizing…

Christ has called us to go and make disciples in His name; he wants us to go and share the saving the Gospel of His name so that others may find eternal life. Our job does not just stop at showing others the Gospel, but stretches far beyond sharing and into the realm of discipling new believers in their walk with Christ. It is my philosophy that when discipling a new believer, you will have to develop personal specific plans for the new believers. There are some basic principles to fallow when…

lives. As we go through the our lives our view of him changes and grows. We learn about him, we develop a relationship with him. Every person has their own unique relationship with him and we all view him in different ways. As you read the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we see that there point of view of Jesus focuses on different aspects of who Jesus is. All these views give us a unique portrait of Jesus. In the book of Mark, Jesus is presented with great authority. Even before Jesus…

From a historical point of view, Mark, being the oldest of the Gospels, not merely closer in point of time to the events that it records but also concerns the meaning of these events with less interpretation (Telford, 1999). The Gospel of Mark records the main events of the life and teachings of Jesus, which kind furnished evidence to support the belief that Jesus was the true Messiah; by believing in Jesus, people could obtain salvation. While the mysterious Sermon in Parables responds to…