Gayle DoornbosIn Jeremiah, the people of God in exile in Babylon are commanded to pray for the city and to seek the peace and prosperity of the city by building houses, planting gardens, and getting married. The exiles are called to not merely pray for the city...
Guy WatersOne of the best known and most comforting statements of Jesus is also one of his most enigmatic. What is it that Jesus holds out? Why do people need to receive what he offers? What incentives does he give to us to receive it?
Mike AquilinaIrenaeus of Lyons is essential to any study of early Christianity, whether theological or historical. He was an important witness to events, episodes, and people at a critical moment in Christianity’s early growth. He was also the first to practice...
Wyatt GrahamThe doctrine of divine impassibility has fallen on hard times. Some theologians today reject the doctrine outright or only accept a redefined version, while others have simply forgotten about it. Even when believers talk about impassibility, many...
Veli-Matti KärkkäinenEven while professional theologians celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea (325 CE), its formulations of classical Christology remain largely unknown and strange among lay folks. To many the christological affirmations of the...
Chandler WileyFasting was a popular religious practice in the time of Jesus. In fact, Mark 2 shows us that when Jesus and his disciples feasted instead of fasting, they drew some questioning looks. How could such a great religious teacher not take part in such a...
Mark BriansChristian feast days—what are they? Far from being a strange and sour corruption from the late middle ages, the feast days of the church—or what is called the liturgical calendar—offer Christians a gospel-centered way of walking through the year...
Jennifer Powell McNuttFrom the window of graduate student housing at Emory University, my mother recalls watching an older man carrying a heavy sack and placing a book at the doorstep of each of the apartments, one after the other. And then this St. Nicholas-like man...
Malcolm FoleyTo profess the Christian faith is to make a profound theological and political claim. If God raised Jesus from the dead, that necessitates we confess him as Lord. But to declare Jesus is Lord in a world of many lords is a dangerous thing to do. Over...
Brad LittlejohnIn one of the most memorable conversations in all of Scripture, Jesus addressed to the Roman Empire that his kingdom was not of this world. Clearly, although Christ’s kingdom may not be this-worldly, neither is it strictly otherworldly: it takes...
Mitch ChaseYou cannot tell the whole story of the Bible without talking about marriage. In the beginning, God created a man and a woman and put them in a covenant relationship with each other.
Michael F. BirdIs Christianity a servile and womanish religion? It is somewhat ironic that today people sometimes dismiss Christianity as too patriarchal, whereas the ancient Romans reviled the churches as too womanish. They accused Christianity of being for the...
Sandra GlahnIn Acts 19:35, the Ephesus city clerk refers to an image that fell from heaven. What was this image that fell from heaven?
Why does so much evil exist in the world? Why do men murder? Why do countries go to war? Why do people exploit others? Why do we live in a world marked by human evil? Foundational to answering these questions is the doctrine of original sin...
Joel BiermannAdmittedly, this is not one of the first questions people ask. Much more common is the question, Why do bad things happen to good people? For Christians, though, an equally disturbing question is: Why do good people do bad things? It is a...
Chapter after chapter in the book of Exodus relays in painstaking detail the tabernacle’s plan and construction. The entire last half of Exodus narrates the building of the tabernacle (Exod 25–40). Following this, the setting for the entire book of...
What do we see when we read the book of Job? Several things, no doubt. We see a man undergoing terrible emotional and physical suffering. We find the surprise of a spouse who tells him to turn from God. We encounter friends who counsel him with...
The Olivet Discourse is found in Matthew 24–25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. This famously difficult speech by Jesus is, at minimum, a prophecy against the Jerusalem temple. But others also see here a prophecy of Jesus’s second coming as judge of the world...
People are afraid of demons. What are demons afraid of? Have you ever wondered? Maybe you would think it strange to imagine demons being afraid of anything. The accounts of demonic possession in the Gospels, and the attempts to represent such...
JoAnna HoytEvery year new students walk into classrooms ready to build upon their first-year biblical language skills by learning how to exegete the Hebrew or Greek text. They are taught how to examine the nuances of words, the rules of grammar. They discover...
Stan ReevesCreeds and confessions are precious gifts to the church of the present from the church of the past, through the work of the Spirit. They summarize the beliefs Christians have studied, worked, debated—and even died—to state clearly from Scripture...
John SchwandtFormal education is ripe for innovation. Non-traditional students—parents, professionals, retirees—have new options that are achievable, affordable, and accredited for advancing their Bible study abilities. Tradition and attempted innovation For...
Sean LukeThe risen Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, the Word-made-flesh, established for himself a great company of saints which is, as it were, the Word-confessed. The church is the company of saints who confess Christ while being sustained by the Word’s “continual...
Blake AdamsAugustine’s Confessions is a great book. It has been read by the greats: great minds and great saints—from Petrarch in the sixteenth century to Sigmund Freud, Albert Camus, and Hannah Arendt in the twentieth. It cannot be ignored. We read...
Matthew EverhardSince the fall in the garden of Eden, death has held dominion over all living things, not least of all human beings. Though Scripture tells us of an occasional Enoch or Elijah, death claims all living entities eventually, no matter their age, title...
Daniel StevensJesus chose to make Nazareth the site of one of the most significant and enigmatic declarations of his early ministry. As the community was gathered in the synagogue for Sabbath, he said: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. What did Jesus mean? Why...
Joan Osborne’s 1995 pop hit What If God Was One of Us? asked an excellent question. Another song, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing—a famous hymn of Charles Wesley and George Whitefield—gives the correct answer. The ancient world had many deities, even...
Over the course of history, theologians, commentators, preachers, and readers of the Bible have pondered what it means to be justified by faith in Christ, as Paul says in Galatians 2:16 (LEB). There are several knots that we have to untie when it...
James HamiltonThe creeds confess it because the Bible teaches it: Jesus is coming to judge the living and the dead. What does the New Testament teach about the Parousia?
Joshua JensenGenesis 3:8 is a familiar verse in a familiar story: Adam and Eve have sinned, and now, in the cool of the day, they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the Garden. Afraid, they hide among the trees.