Bad Tenants
The theme of fruitfulness is found throughout the scriptures. Isaiah chapter 5 tells the story of a landowner who carefully cultivated a vineyard, anticipating a rich harvest of good grapes.…
Bearing the Right Fruit
The theme of fruitfulness can be traced throughout the scriptures. In the last blog, we examined Isaiah 5, which contains the song of the vineyard. God the landowner lovingly cultivated…
Context Is Crucial
Every Bible reader acknowledges (at least in theory) that context is crucial for understanding the scriptures. If you want to make sure you've properly understood a verse, you need to…
The Scroll
Of all the books in the world, the Bible is one of the most difficult. Even a passing knowledge of church history reveals that even professing Christians have often disagreed…
Heresy and the Canon
Around 140 AD, a wealthy shipowner named Marcion arrived in Rome. He was originally from Sinope, a city in Asia Minor on the coast of the Black Sea. Although he…
The Good News of God’s Judgment
If you were to ask most evangelical Christians to explain "the gospel" - the good news - the reply would no doubt be that we are offered forgiveness and reconciliation…
Musical Emergency
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has been held annually since 1982. According to the contest's website, this upside-down award goes to the author who pens the most "atrocious opening sentence to the…
All Israel Shall Be Saved
For the last few weeks, we've been considering the status of ethnic Jews within God's overall purposes. The Apostle Paul spent three entire chapters (9-11) in the book of Romans…
Suffering, Sacrifice and Salvation
Yogi Berra, baseball Hall of Famer and master of malaprop, once quipped, "the future ain't what it used to be." Over the last several weeks, we've examined some of the…
The Trials of the Tribulation
Over the last few weeks, we've been addressing the issue of the rapture. Like King Belshazzar from the book of Daniel, the rapture has been weighed on the scales and…