The Choice
Bible scholars have long recognized that Genesis 1 & 2 offer two complementary creation narratives. Genesis 1:1-2:3 contains a comprehensive account of how God formed the entire cosmos by bringing…
The Fruitless Fig Tree
Mark 11 contains an excellent example of a literary "sandwich." The meat of the sandwich is the so-called cleansing of the temple. Many Christians fail to grasp the importance of…
Life Insurance
How can a Christian know that they'll be saved? On the day of God's final judgment, can we be certain that we shall be vindicated and welcomed into God's glorious…
Salvation and the Spirit
It's not at all unusual to hear Christians talk about the time when they were "saved" in the past tense. Perhaps this salvation event occurred when they were a child…
Abraham and the Apostles
Acts is one of the easiest books in the Bible to read. It has a fast-paced narrative filled with memorable scenes. One such scene is recorded in chapter 3. Peter…
Pulling Things Together
In evangelical circles, Ephesians 2:8-9 is perhaps the most frequently quoted text in the entire Bible: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves,…
The Boast of the Jew
Perhaps no passage of scripture is more frequently quoted in evangelical circles than Ephesians 2:8-9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not…
Elucidating Ephesians
In the evangelical world, perhaps no passage of scripture is cited more often than Ephesians 2:8-9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this…
Is Your Bible the Right Size?
Over the last 500 years, Protestants and Catholics have disagreed over the content of the scriptures. The Catholic Bible contains 7 additional Old Testament books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon,…
Translation of the Seventy
The last few weeks we've been tracing the formation of the Old Testament. Let's summarize what we've learned so far. The key criterion for inclusion in the sacred writings was…