Reading the Bible: The Importance of Genre
Identifying genre will have an incredible affect on your reading of Scripture.
Genre is “literary context.” Genre defines how a certain literary event fits within culturally adjacent literary events. To ask about a work’s “genre” is to ask “how is this work similar to other works, and how does that allow me to better interpret what it is trying to accomplish?” Furthermore, determining discourse type, or literary... Continue Reading
There Are Burdens We Can’t Bear
Instead of us bearing what our sin justly deserves, Jesus takes our place.
Christ bore our greatest burden and pressing priority (our sin and its due penalty). Therefore, he is uniquely and gloriously suited to bear every other burden we have. He is like Atlas holding the weight of our world upon his shoulders. He alone can bear the freight of all of our troubles. It is to our... Continue Reading
Heaven on Earth?: Some Hard Questions & Some Help
In The City of God Augustine provides a helpful roadmap through the myriad questions surrounding the early Christian understanding of the resurrection.
Augustine insists that all Christians affirm three central beliefs about the resurrection. First, Christ himself has been raised from the dead and is alive in heaven. Second, there will be a future resurrection of humanity. And third, the human body itself is immortal. Interestingly, the verse from which each of these fall out is, for... Continue Reading
The Fundamentalist Christian and Anti-Semitism
If this attitude were the attitude of all Christians the fear in which even American Jews live would vanish and many Jews would turn to Christ at once.
We cannot expect the Gentile, who merely uses the term “Christian” to designate the difference between Gentile and Jew, to love the Jew, but we who are Christians indeed, in that we have been saved through faith in Christ, should love His ancient people. Above all things in this regard we should keep constantly in... Continue Reading
5 Common Misconceptions about Heaven and the Afterlife
Here are five things that the Bible doesn’t teach about heaven and the afterlife.
Revelation 21 even mentions the “glory and honor” of the nations being brought into the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:26), suggesting that some of the best of what human beings have produced will find a place in the new creation. So our present lives can impact the new creation. Likewise, how we live now is a testimony to... Continue Reading
5 Ways the Ascension of Jesus Comforts Christians Today
As Jesus floated upward, slowing vanishing from sight, his words rang forth, “The Lord bless you and keep you…May he give you peace.”
Even as Jesus receded from view, his disciples still heard him blessing—and for good reason. This cloud elevator to heaven was not just some simple means of transportation. Rather, this was Bethany—the place of triumph. Here are five ways the ascension brings comfort to every Christian today. Before he was taken up, Jesus turned... Continue Reading
Where Does Ultimate Authority Lie?
The final arbiter of all theological and moral debates must be the Word of God.
Where does ultimate authority lie? Is it in the Scriptures alone or is it in the Scriptures and tradition? If it is in both Scripture and tradition, tradition trumps everything by giving the binding interpretation of Scripture. So, for all practical purposes, there are not really two sources of authority, Scripture and tradition, but one,... Continue Reading
What Is Mutual Submission and How Does It Apply to Marriage?
Christians should have a marriage that accepts the goodness, clarity, and authority of God’s word.
In a healthy Christian marriage, the husband and wife should lovingly and sacrificially put each other first before themselves, as fellow members of the body of Christ. Faithful headship involves creating an environment of openness and communication in which the husband honors his wife and values her opinions, all the while recognizing her equality and... Continue Reading
Is Proverbs 3:5–6 about Finding the Will of God?
The verse more properly reads “and He will make your path smooth.”
Concerning the significance of the imagery of a “path” in Proverbs 3:6, Friesen writes: The noun “path” is frequently employed in the Psalms and Proverbs. But it does not have the idea of an individual will of God. Hebrew writers use it to describe the general course or fortunes of life (see Proverbs 4:18–19; 15:19). “Trust... Continue Reading
Teach Your Child to Have Devotions
Talk about the Bible with your child; teach him how to pray.
Scripture songs, Bible stories, family worship, testimonies—let the rich story and good news of God’s salvation be the soundtrack of your home. A child may begin the journey to faith by imitating his parents, but he must eventually confess Jesus as Lord with his own lips. As a Christian parent, one of my chief desires... Continue Reading