by Gordon Franz
Introduction
During the last two decades of the First Century AD, Rome was in the grip of the self-deified Emperor Domitian.  Imagine a small group of believers in the Lord Jesus walking pass the Coliseum in Rome and turning westward toward the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Hill.  They observe at the highest point [...]

By Gordon Franz
Book Review

Robert Cornuke, The Lost Shipwreck of Paul (2003), Publisher: Global Publishing Service, Bend, OR, 232 pages.

Introduction
Mr. Robert Cornuke co-authored three books with David Halbrook and then authored a fourth book on his own in which he claimed to have used the Bible as a “treasure map” (2003: 78) in order to locate [...]

By Gordon Franz
Introduction
Ancient funerary monuments, sarcophagi, and ossuaries can tell much about the dead that can be instructive for the living today. The inscriptions about the dead can tell the living today what life was like in the past and can teach us lessons for life today. A visit to a cemetery can be an [...]

By Gordon Franz and Ernie McGinnis
Introduction
The term “skeletons in the closet” conjures up secrets from our past that we do not want other people to know about. But here is an unusual twist from the ancient Greco-Roman world: skeletons on the table! Recently we visited the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA. Gordon was working on [...]

By Gordon Franz
A sport shoe company ran an advertisement during the 1996 Olympics, with the line, “You do not win the silver medal, you lose the gold!” That line caught the essence of athletic competition. The athlete enters the competition with the goal of winning the event, not losing it. The legendary coach of the [...]

By Gordon Franz
The Apostle Paul’s visit to Macedonia marked the first time he set foot on European soil (Acts 16:11). However, this was not the first time the gospel was proclaimed in Europe (cf. Acts 2:10). In fact, the “Macedonian call” (Acts 16:9) seems to imply that there were already believers in Macedonia that needed [...]