Life is messy. Really messy. And it presents humans with all sorts of complicated spiritual, social, and legal challenges about what’s right and wrong, or even good or best. Ethics relates to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions. When...
Christians do not have unique possession of the ethical, of what is good and right. The Greeks wrote of the good life; today many different guilds work carefully to police the professional ethics of their respective fields. And plenty of other...
No doubt we’ve all heard somewhere that money is the root of all evil. The saying is deeply embedded in popular wisdom. But is it really true?
A Bible concordance is simply a reference tool in which words from a particular translation of Scripture are arranged alphabetically in a kind of index—often accompanied by words from the immediate context of each use. Scripture references are...
What you’ll see in this Logos Live episode In this Logos Live, Mark Ward talks with Samuel James about his brand-new book, Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age. They discuss the ways the social internet is shaping...
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires (Ps 37:4). This oft-quoted verse has profound implications for the believer. Before we can explore the landscape of this powerful statement, it’s important we take note of its...
Though the Sermon on the Mount gets most of the attention, the Gospel of Luke records another major teaching event regarding the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20–49), known as the Sermon on the Plain. Concerning that sermon, this article will take up the...
The world with its flashing screens, its promises of pleasure, its offerings of wealth, its promotion of power and fame, screams for our attention. It is like Lady Folly in Proverbs, luring us to fix our gaze on things below. Much of what we see in...
What is the most violated verse on the internet? Probably love the Lord your God with all your heart. Every online sin draws its nourishment from that root. But right behind that violated verse might be—our second-place winner—Paul’s words: Speaking...
One of the issues that most divides Christians is the relationship between the book of Genesis and modern science. A central question is the age of the earth; closely related questions include the impact of the Fall of humanity on the world, as well...
What, exactly, is the future Christian hope? What are we supposed to be looking forward to? We long for heaven, of course—and Scripture definitely exhorts us along these lines: Paul tells us to set our minds on things above (Col 3:2).
Pentecostals and charismatics represent more than one out of every four Christians worldwide. Philip Jenkins suggests that this movement is perhaps the most successful social movement of the past century, one which should surpass one billion members...
Who doesn’t love good literature? This is especially true of a Christian book that enriches the soul and encourages growth in your walk with Christ. If you’ve had any exposure to this genre, you’re probably familiar with A Pilgrim’s Progress, Foxe’s...
Envy typically means the desire for something someone else has. It can be used as a noun or a verb. So, for example, we might avoid envy (the noun) or we might envy someone (the verb). Jealousy is a close cousin, though it’s often interchanged with...
One of the greatest threats to our study of the Bible is our familiarity with God’s Word. When we believe we already know something, we tend to stop laboring to understand it. Familiarity thereby breeds presumption. And when presumption reaches full...
Bible trivia is fun and useful. Need some questions for your own Bible trivia exercise—perhaps in a church group? Below are a hundred Bible trivia questions—divided into eleven categories—to test your knowledge of God’s Word and hopefully provide...
The Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7) contains some of the most memorable sayings of Jesus: Love your enemies. Seek first the kingdom of God. The Lord’s Prayer. Do not judge. Figures like Mahatma Ghandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were heavily...
I was that kid whose nose was always stuck in a book. I was also that kid who occasionally read a dictionary for fun. I just loved words—including and especially God’s Word. When I was eleven years old, I asked for my own Bible, having already worn...
So you want to apply the Bible to your life, do you? That’s wonderful news, since the Lord Jesus (Matt 7:21–27) and his apostles (Jas 1:22–25) want you and me not only to hear the word but also to do it. But what should that “doing” look like?
Navigating life at the crossroads of science, faith, and philosophy is challenging. Lydia Jaeger, a seasoned navigator in these realms, has gifted us with her work, Ordinary Splendor: Living in God’s Creation. I thoroughly enjoyed my recent...
Among the divine attributes, none is so mysterious and sublime as that of divine holiness. In systematic theology, the divine attributes—aspects of God’s character and being—are normally divided into two categories: the incommunicable and the...
I was born with a Bible in my hand (not literally), in church before I was even born (literally). I can’t remember my first Bible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of those soft, cute little fabric storybook Bibles with crunchy things on...
Discovered in the sparse wetland environments of northeastern Australia, one remarkable species of frog swallows its own fertilized eggs, sending them to what seems to be their digestive doom. But by transforming this normally hostile environment...
The apostle Paul uses the seemingly paradoxical phrase “spiritual body” in 1 Corinthians 15 when explaining what will happen to believers’ bodies at the resurrection. In this same discourse, he also claims that there are many kinds of flesh...
As a kid growing up in Georgia, my school used to take field trips every year to the Savannah Science Museum. I loved it! We’d run through a two-story replica of the human heart, peer into terrariums of exotic snakes, and lift massive weights using...
A former coworker of mine, now retired, a very sharp editor and faithful Bible reader, sends me occasional Bible questions. She sent one the other day about the alleged secret meaning of God’s name, YHWH.
If we are honest, theological education has a persistent PR problem. Some pastors may even discourage a potential seminarian from attending a school because of their own difficult journey. But there’s a reason seminary has long been a standard...
The Bible opens by describing a universe that is formless and void. The Creator breaks the silence by speaking a word of power into the nothingness. And then light is introduced, thus marking the first day of creation. Throughout the subsequent five...
Exegetical ambiguity occurs when a word or passage from Scripture can support more than one interpretation. Exegetical ambiguity can spur a deeper engagement with the text, but it can also frustrate or even cause despair. But it may relieve us to...
What you’ll see in this Logos Live episode We talk to the Church Intensive by Crazy Love team about their mission to train pastors, leaders, and church planters. The team, which includes Francis Chan, Robert Zabala, and Sean Brakey, aims to...