Peter KrolFaith is one of those fancy Christian words we can find ourselves using a lot without truly understanding what it means. To many in American culture, “faith” is the opposite of reason and is best represented by a blindfold or reckless leap. For many...
Drew LongacreThe Dead Sea Scrolls don’t interest only academics and scholars. Many average Christians have questions, too. Read on for the answers to the most common questions! What are the Dead Sea Scrolls? How were the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered? How...
Brian CollinsEven elementary Bible readers quickly recognize that the Bible includes an Old Testament and a New Testament. For beginning readers, these two great divisions might seem to be equivalent to Part I and Part II. As beginners grow in their...
Gregory GoswellWhat is “paratext”? In short, paratext is everything in the Bible apart from the words. That statement sounds distinctly odd, for most people would simply equate the Bible with the words it contains, but there is, in fact, more in the...
Murray J. HarrisIn order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. (2 Cor 2:11 NIV) One of the Christian’s defenses against the devil’s stratagems is prior awareness of his purposes and methods. In 2 Corinthians 2:5–11, we discover...
David P. BarshingerWith the church under attack and the safety of believers and the furtherance of the gospel at stake, what would a professor say to his students? Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562) turned to the Psalms—as Christians have long done—as a source of...
Michelle GroverImprinted among Kristie Anyabwile’s earliest memories is a scene in which she and her grandmother “Miss Nicie” kneel to pray beside their shared featherbed. Kristie vividly recalls the worn tapestry of da Vinci’s The Last...
While Abram was an idolator in Ur of the Chaldeans (Josh 24:2–3), God appeared to him and made three staggering promises (Gen 12:1–3). I will make you into a great nation. I will make your name great. I will make you the source of blessing for the...
Richard WinstonIn Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” What does this mean? What is the relationship between Jesus’ teaching and the Old Testament? Three...
Andy NaselliWhat Jesus says in Matthew 5:31–32 is a key passage on divorce and remarriage. Here is a phrase diagram of Jesus’ words, made using the Logos Canvas Tool: Evangelicals hold three main views on divorce and remarriage: I believe that what constitutes...
Jonathan T. PenningtonWhoever they are, don’t give them your pearls. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the...
Mark WardBible translations cause fights. As if we needed more of those in the church right now. I want to bring peace to Christian conflicts over the KJV, ESV, NIV, and other good evangelical English Bible translations—to End Bible Translation Tribalism...
Scott CorbinMark Keown is the author of Discovering the New Testament. He sat down with Scott Corbin of Lexham Press to talk about this recently completed three-volume work. What was it like to do a full New Testament theology? Writing Discovering the New...
Bronwyn LeaIf church kids over the years learned that the answer to just about any Sunday School question was “Jesus,” scholar and pastor Jonathan T. Pennington says adult church goers often have similar ingrained responses. Like a call-and-response Rorschach...
We are sometimes told that unless we have experienced the same trial as someone else, we are unable to give that person genuine sympathy and encouragement. For example, only a parent who has lost a very young child can really sympathize with parents...
Matthew EverhardWhen Jonathan Edwards was 19 years old, he sketched out a series of handwritten resolutions, or personal vows, intended to provide structure to his Christian pilgrimage and guidance for his emerging ministerial career. Many of his resolutions...
Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254) is often remembered today as the great biblical allegorist. In my seminary years, I was told to avoid him because he was loose with the Bible. And yet Origen remains one of the most influential theologians on the question of...
One of the big guns often hauled out in Christian fights over Bible translation is the literal gun. “BLAM!” says the literal gun. Then it says in a booming voice, “TRANSLATIONS SHOULD BE LITERALLY ACCURATE, WORD-FOR-WORD!!!” And then it adds another...
James HamiltonThe Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary is a special new kind of commentary. It includes not just exegetical comments about the meaning of specific verses; it also has a biblical theology section where it traces out the theological themes of a...
John LeeUnlike the Gospels of Luke and John, Mark’s Gospel never explicitly reveals any authorial intent. In A Ransom for Many, John Lee and Daniel Brueske identify Mark 10:45 as the heart of Mark’s Gospel. This single verse is the pivot point of Mark’s...
You don’t know English; you’re Russian. (Hello!) But you have a Kindle e-reader and you’re learning English by reading. (Imagine with me.) You make a wise choice and you pick up a classic of children’s literature, C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch...
Steven WiniarskiMatthew 15 begins with the Pharisees challenging Jesus over the behavior of the disciples. Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees emerge as Jesus’s chief opposition. They view themselves as the chief interpreters of the law; Jesus’s teachings...
When humanity conspired against God in the plain of Shinar (Gen11:4), they sought for themselves a name, a nation (i.e., a city), and to be a blessing to the whole world (i.e., a tower with its top in the heavens). God stooped down and wrecked their...
Graham ColeThe following is a short excerpt from the already short What Is the Bible? by Graham Cole—one of 17 short books on many current topics in the Questions for Restless Minds series, edited by D.A. Carson. In it, Cole describes the way two different men...
How did the church fathers read the Bible? The church fathers read the Bible as the written word of God, given to the church through the prophets and apostles. Everything in it proclaimed Jesus Christ and the gospel of eternal salvation. Sometimes...
Katie FrenchWhen his childhood dream of being a major league baseball player bit bitter dust, Jim Hamilton realized he’d have to pick another career. He found a new passion: biblical theology, a passion that took off during his studies at The Southern Baptist...
Word order can often be significant, especially when it is surprising. For example, Paul’s letter to the Christian believers in Rome is the flagship of the Pauline fleet. The apostle greatly treasured his special calling to be an apostle that came...
Robby LockettI love the New Testament letters. From Paul’s discourse on adoption in Romans to his discussions of love and resurrection in 1 Corinthians; from his powerful defense of gentile Christians and Christ’s finished work in Galatians to his wonderful...
We are familiar with God’s calls in Scripture to be marked by a tender heart. Paul commands Christians, “Be … tenderhearted” (Eph 4:32), and Peter tells believers to “have … a tender heart” (1 Pet 3:8). These teachings clearly show what God expects...
Whenever my laptop or smartphone gets stuck, I always hear the same preliminary advice: try to reboot. For some reason, shutting the technology down and starting it back up again tends to shake things loose and get them back where they’re supposed...