Genesis 22:1-19, Exodus 32:1-35, Ecclesiastes 1:1-18, Matthew 20:1-16 , John 6:53-66, Psalm 73:1-28
Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ...
Martin Luther said that every Christian ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year. But, likening the Bible to a forest, he also said that reading the Bible doesn’t become really enjoyable...
Genesis 22:1-14, Exodus 14:21-31, Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 22:36-40 , James 1:22-25, Psalm 119:105
Søren Kierkegaard offers two suggestions for the reader who tackles difficult portions of the Bible. First, read it like a love letter, he says. As you struggle with language, culture, and other barri...
Genesis 2:8, Genesis 3:23-24, Exodus 15:27, Song of Solomon 4:12-15, John 18:1, Matthew 26:36
The Bible has its own garden path. It runs from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, some of the most important events in the Christian faith take place in Biblical gardens, evens around which Christianity...
My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P...
In the 2008 Batman film, The Dark Knight , the Joker (played by Heath Ledger) tries to get Batman to reveal his identity by kidnapping and executing one citizen every day until he reveals himself...
For years, Bible scholars have danced around the matter by saying slavery in Rome was far different from slavery in the first few centuries of American history. No doubt their observations carry a mea...
Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Deuteronomy 1:5, Exodus 18:13-27, Exodus 20:18-19, Exodus 33:11, Deuteronomy 34:10, John 1:21, John 6:14, Acts 3:22-23, 1 Timothy 2:5, Luke 24:27
Context A Copy of the Law or a Second Law? Like the other books in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the title of the book of Deuteronomy comes from its translation into Greek. The...
When the Reformers broke with Rome and claimed the view that the Bible was to be the supreme authority of the church (sola Scriptura), they were very careful to define basic principles of interpretati...
Genesis 12:1–3, Exodus 3:1–12, Isaiah 53:, Matthew 22:15–22 , John 4:1–42 , Acts 17:16–34
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi...
Genesis 1:1–3 , Exodus 20:1–17, Daniel 6:16–23, Luke 10:25–37, Romans 3:21–26, Psalm 119:105
In the sixteenth century the Reformers declared their total confidence in what they called the perspicuity of Scripture. What they meant by that technical term was the clarity of Scripture. They maint...
Matthew 25:15-22, Matthew 20:18-19, Matthew 21:45-46, Matthew 22:18-20, Exodus 20:4, Acts 5:29, Matthew 20:25-28
Preaching Commentary A Notoriously Difficult Passage This passage includes one of the most iconic and quotable of Jesus’s interactions with his contemporary opponents. Jesus deftly steps out of a t...
Some time ago, I read about the work of a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the at...
2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21, Exodus 4:12, 1 Samuel 3:19, Jeremiah 1:9
The biblical sense of inspiration means God so superintended the writers of Scripture that they wrote what he wanted them to write, disclosing the exact truth he wanted conveyed.
[Speaking about art] As you climb the stairs of quality, you’ll meet individual works that you’ll need for the rest of your life, works that will thrill you, energize you, lift your soul, soothe you, ...
Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an int...
The Hebrew word yada (“to know”) is, in fact, used for both sexual intercourse as well as our relationship with God. Every relational event is a stage that affords one a glimpse into the consumm...
You fear you won’t. We all do. We fear that the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave…We wonder: Will this gray sky ever brighten ? This load ever lighten...
Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance Remembering Deliverance AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Covenant first These words spoken by God to the people of Israel...
Exodus 20:1–17, Genesis 22:1–14 , Micah 6:6–8 , Luke 10:25–37 , Matthew 5:17–20, Psalm 82:3–4
Interpretive strategies have gone through cycles of strict-constructionist (or Originalism) and broad-constructionist (or Living Constitution) perspectives. Originally the procedure of interpreting th...
Exodus 17:1-7, 2 Kings 4:1-7, John 2:1-11, Matthew 25:14-30 , Psalm 19:1
John Dryden (1631–1700), an English critic and poet laureate, often skipped classes at Westminster School in London and rarely prepared his lessons. One day, when tasked with writing a poem on the gos...
Road Trips in Scripture While the definitions of “oceans” and “lakes” had to be qualified a bit in order to relate biblical locations to our present-day vacations, road trips—like mountains—can be fo...
God's Sovereignty The sovereignty of God is a pervasive theme in the Bible, expressed in a variety of ways. Daniel’s vision is one of those expressions and a bit more challenging than the declara...
Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Deuteronomy 1:5, Exodus 18:13-27, Exodus 20:18-19, Exodus 33:11, Deuteronomy 34:10, John 1:21, John 6:14, Acts 3:22-23, 1 Timothy 2:5, Luke 24:27
Preaching Commentary Context A Copy of the Law or a Second Law? Like the other books in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the title of the book of Deuteronomy comes from its tran...
“When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman” (Gen 12:14). What is considered beautiful is one of those things that often goes without being said. Sarah was about...
Preaching Commentary God's Sovereignty The sovereignty of God is a pervasive theme in the Bible, expressed in a variety of ways. Daniel’s vision is one of those expressions and a bit more chall...
There are no vowels in the Hebrew (YHWH), which makes it impossible to know exactly what the word is. Some old translations say ‘Jehovah’. Modern scholars tend to speak of ‘Yahweh’. When the word appe...
Since our savior is also our Lord, we are called to follow his ways. And whenever discussions arise about what those ways look like in a church, confusion is bound to follow regarding grace and works....