Pastor Shaun Marksbury

Struggle with understanding the unity aspect of the Trinity?  Many do and have. For instance, one heretical group in the Middle East was known to Mohammed, and as such, the Qur'an says that Christians believe in three, not one God.  What does Scripture say? Calvin explains: ________________________________________________ Moreover, because God more clearly disclosed himself in the coming of Christ, thus he also became known more familiarly in three persons. But of the many testimonies this one will suffice for us. For Paul so connects these three—God, faith, and baptism [Eph. 4:5]—as to reason from one to the other: namely, because faith is one, that he may thereby show God to be one; because baptism is one, that he may thence show faith also to be one. Therefore, if through baptism we are initiated into the faith and religion of one God, we must consider him into whose name we are baptized to be the true God. Indeed, there is no doubt that Christ willed by thi...

Good Christians disagree on this, so don't make it a test of orthodoxy.  The point is that we have the evidence to examine and debate, meaning that the text is trustworthy (a lack of debatable evidence would imply collusion and tampering).  Still, the evidence seems to point to Mark's Gospel ending on v. 8.  Here are a few resources I used in preparation for this topic.  They may help you to better understand the issue.  The first is a section from the MacArthur Study Bible: The external evidence strongly suggests these verses were not originally part of Mark’s gospel. While the majority of Gr. manuscripts contain these verses, the earliest and most reliable do not. A shorter ending also existed, but it is not included in the text. Further, some that include the passage note that it was missing from older Gr. manuscripts, while others have scribal marks indicating the passage was considered spurious. The fourth-century church fathers Eusebius and Jerome note...

Here's a good list of articles for those wanting a bit more introduction on this subject: An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 1–Introduction An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 2–The Writing and Transmission of Ancient Documents An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 3–Textual Errors An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 4–The Role of Church History in Textual Criticism An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 5–The Received Text An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 6–The Challenge to the Received Text An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 7–The Task of Textual Criticism: Weighing the Evidence An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 8–“Traditional Text” Positions: Textus Receptus and Majority Text Only An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 9–“Traditional Text” Positions: The Ecclesiastical Text An Introduction to Textual Criticism: Part 10–“Traditional Text” Positions: Byzantine-Priority An Introduction to Textual Criticism: ...