You will preach narrative far better if you know this literary archetype. The Bible is full of stories, and most of them revolve around a hero. From Abraham to Moses to Deborah to the True and Better Hero, much of Scripture is a hero’s journey...
“Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.” — Genesis 20:7 In the drama of the broader story of...
Spring is here! It’s time to celebrate Easter, appreciate Moms, and enjoy the newness of the season. Pro Media’s March bundle is packed with images to celebrate all month long. Here’s a sneak peek. Pro Media launches around 40 new sets of media...
If there’s one part of the Bible virtually everyone has heard of, it’s 666—the “number of Beast.” And if there’s one thing no one can agree upon, it’s what that number stands for. We see 666 in Revelation 13:18: “let the one who has understanding...
Hunched over a table, writing by candlelight, scribes copied God’s Word letter by letter. What can we know about this ancient craft, highly responsible for the spread of the Bible? In this clip from Fragments of Truth, a feature-length documentary...
“What is Naomi worth? Count her sons. According to that cultural scorecard, Naomi is a zero. So is her barren daughter-in-law Ruth. But is that how God sees them?” In celebration of International Women’s Day, we bring you this excerpt...
In a nondescript yellow brick building in SE London last weekend, two unassuming pioneers in the fight for autistic people held a workshop considering the question of autism and the church. In this post, I interview both Grant Macaskill (Kirby Laing...
“The command tells the truth; the story shows the truth.” By Leland Ryken The best methodology for seeing recognizable human experience in the stories of the Bible is simply the conviction that the stories embody familiar human experience. If we are...
By Jared Wilson John Calvin writes, “Christ is, as it were, a fountain, open to us, from which we may draw what otherwise would lie unprofitably hidden in that deep and secret spring.” This is the Jesus whose gospel we receive, and this is the Jesus...
Hebrew doesn’t come easy for most—it certainly didn’t for me. While in my Hebrew classes in seminary, I set aside one full day a week to study it, trying my best to memorize the piles of vocabulary words my professor assigned and learn all...
antichrist [ an-ti-krahyst ] A person who opposes Christ. Can refer to a particular person who appears as Christ’s principal antagonist. Top Bible Verses about Antichrist 1. Daniel 7:24–27 And as for the ten horns coming from it, from this...
Few living theologians can lay claim to founding a theological movement, and John Milbank is one of them. In the 1990s, his work Theology and Social Theory (Basil Blackwell) launched what is today known as radical orthodoxy. How do we reject the...
One quality above all others gives your sermon intro the hook it needs. Here’s how to work that quality into your intro. All ad writers agree that a headline is the most important part of any ad. Famous ad writer David Ogilvy once said, “On the...
It seems appropriate that as we bring Black History Month to a close, we pay tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King is regarded as one of the greatest non-violent leaders the world has ever known. He spent nearly 13 years (December...
If your hope is tied to political or cultural renewal as the evidence of Christ’s work in the world, then you will eventually find yourself in despair. —Dayton Hartman, Jesus Wins, p. 55 The world gives us many reasons to despair. Open a news feed...
Francis Schaeffer (1912–1984) was an evangelical missionary, theologian, and writer, best known for founding L’Abri with his wife, Edith. After studying at Hampden-Sydney College, Westminster Theological Seminary (where he studied under Cornelius...
It only takes a few words to produce dramatic theology. In the short letter we know as 3 John, the apostle is writing to a beloved friend, Gaius (v. 1). He commends Gaius for ministering to fellow believers who were strangers because “they have gone...
Of course, there’s the well-known New Perspective on Paul, which deals with Paul’s theology of justification and the relationships between law, grace, and faith. But did you know there are other debates about Paul’s theology in current...
By John Frame When people philosophize about God, images of his distance often predominate. God is, we say, far from us, in a different realm from the earth in which we live. There is some truth in this. The Bible often says that God reigns “on...
Dr. John M. Perkins is one of the last living figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Born into poverty as the son of a sharecropper, Dr. Perkins grew up on a Mississippi plantation under extreme racism. He lost his teenage brother to murder, was...
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) fought three great evils in his life: slavery, the subjugation of women, and hatred among humankind. Born into slavery in 1818 and separated from his mother at birth, Douglass never knew his actual birth date. He was...
Despite popular belief, Saul did not become Paul on the road to Damascus. Those are simply two versions of the same name: Saul the Hebrew version, Paul the Roman. However, what did change when Christ appeared to Paul—and it’s perhaps the most...
With the end of the Civil War in 1865, the black church and its worship gained a more public face, even in the South. Black groups within white churches could separate and begin self-determining congregations. Accepting a call to become the pastor...
Why, in the face of material prosperity and the endless production of greater and better goods, would anybody choose the life of the mind? I use the definite article with purpose. There are plural “lives” of intellectual priority that one might...
Paul describes the Christian life as the process of “being transformed into the same image [of Christ] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). There is an upward and downward reading of this text. One reading will transform and the other...
More resources on the Trinity? Haven’t we (collectively) said all there is to say about Trinitarianism? We’ll let Dr. Fred Sanders answer that. Sanders is the author of several books and teaches theology at Biola University. He recently recorded a...
Explore the intersection of Bible and technology at this year’s BibleTech conference, coming to Seattle on April 11–12, 2019. Learn about advances in biblical studies from over 25 leaders in the tech, Bible translation, and publishing industries...
In preparation for this blog post, I asked my 13-year-old nephew what he valued most in a small group leader. He said, “I just want someone who really wants to know me and cares about my life.” That takes the pressure off being a perfect leader...
It’s a common myth that God will always bring us back to repentance. This myth is debunked in the first letter of John. While John writes that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all...
