Thoughtful people are insisting that if we are not living in the age of the Apocalypse, we must at least be living on he threshold of that age. So many significant things are happening. The rebirth of Israel, the rise of Russia, the increasing collective consciousness of Europe, the awakening of China, the resurgence of militant Islam, the political and mora… Read more…
Five warnings appear in Hebrews, and these have been the subject of much controversy. The epistle, if read excluding these warnings, suffers no change in meaning and even provides a new smoothness in the narrative and ease in following the main argument.
But when it comes to interpretation of these warnings, placed as they were by the Holy… Read more…
The Galatians had welcomed Paul with open arms and had received him, indeed, "as an angel of God" (Gal. 4:14). But that hospitable attitude did not last. They became prejudiced against Paul by false teachers who persuaded them to embrace "another gospel" (1:6). They had been "bewitched," Paul said (3:1) and had become as ready to "bite and devour one another… Read more…
The onslaught of a cult at nearby Colossae alerted Paul to growing dangers at Ephesus, but what destroyed the church there in the end was not falsehood, but formality. It became, so to speak, a cold, fundamental, orthodox, evangelical, Bible-believing church that lacked even a spark of its original love for Christ. As we read this Ephesian letter, what impre… Read more…
Satan took the truth of God and found agents to deny it, distort it, and debase it. He would alter a word here, snip out a bit there, and add something to that. He attacked the Word of God, the Son of God, and the Spirit of God. At Colosse, he attacked the deity of Christ first. Then came the additions: intellectualism, ritualism, legalism, mysticism, and as… Read more…
The book of Acts is a story of transition: it begins by showing us how the church came into existence, and at the end we see the final official rejection of Christianity by the Jews of the Diaspora in Rome. The story revolves around the personalities and ministries of three men - Simon, Stephen, and Saul. Simon Peter was the apostle to the Jews, and Saul (la… Read more…
Paul's style tended to be elliptical; the gaps had to be filled in by his readers. His transitions, by which he moved from one step to another, were also important and sometimes call for words to be supplied. Paul's sequences of thought were often subtle, complex, and hard to follow. Much of the problem goes back to the difficulty of the grammar in t… Read more…
Greek religion was an obscene collection of old wives' fables, utterly degenerate and debilitating to national character. Just the same, although Paul deplored Greek morals, he admired the Greek mind. When he received the "Macedonian call," he wasted no time in launching his gospel expedition.
Three of Paul's letters were addresse… Read more…
Paul was in Corinth when he wrote Romans 1:19-32. The sins listed there were everyday sins on the streets of Corinth, displayed as much in broadest daylight as at darkest midnight. It was no small thing to be a Christian at Corinth, to spurn its wares, to live there unspotted from the world. Christianity is in no peril from the Corinths of this world, howeve… Read more…
It is a book of facts, a book of firsts, a book of faith, a book of forecasts, a book of funerals. It has been called "the seedplot of the Bible" because all the vast forests of Scripture start there as seedlings. It is said to give us the beginning of everything except God.
It is the book of Genesis.
Genesis is the ope… Read more…
As we study the "Book of the Twelve" we will be stirred by the clarion sound of tumpets of war and by the measured tramp of marching feet. We will see great empires rise and fall. We will find ourselves in towns, villages, and world capitals, on mountaintops, and out in the raging deep. We will stand in busy markets and wilderness wastes; we will pause along… Read more…
Controversy over the Song of Solomon does not rage so much over the inspiration, the genuineness, or the canonicity of the book. It is centered rather on its interpretation. God is not mentioned in the Song, the book is not quoted elsewhere in the Old Testament, and is completely ignored in the New Testament. Yet it takes its place confidently with the other… Read more…
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