The early record of Genesis is the locus of all manner of speculation, from young earth creationists to allegorical views that see the book as little more than one tribe’s attempt to explain the mysteries of the cosmos. Aside from how God has created all things seen and unseen is the question of whether the first man was an actual being, or whether he is simply a genus, a middle eastern explanation of humanity. The…
Proof texting has some value in certain situations, but if we want a comprehensive treatment of a doctrine throughout Scripture, it requires something more. If we limit the evidence on a doctrine to one book, one part of Scripture, or one writer, we will not have the whole story. The Red Letter Christians exemplify this, essentially saying that what Jesus said is more important than what one reads elsewhere in Scripture. Even if not overtly…
What do we learn from the farewell speeches recorded in Scripture? If we compare the parting words (or nearly so) of Joshua, Samuel, and Stephen, there are common themes. Noting these, are there lessons for believers in these discourses? There are at least two important things that as Christians, one never outgrows. Remember Your Redemption Joshua 24 finds him gathering all the people at Shechem. He rehearses the history of the nation, beginning with the…
One of the things that hymnology does is to reinforce our doctrine and theology. That’s not the only thing it does, but it is an important thing. As Christian worship has become more experiential in its expression, one of the dangers is that this undergirding of doctrine gets diminished. For the hymnwriters of previous eras, many of whom were steeped in Scripture, their words were a kind of precis of biblical truth. The writer expected…
One of the common assumptions about the law of Moses is that it is our tutor or schoolmaster. That is, the law leads us to Christ. For this reason, it remains useful to us. In Galatians 3, Paul explains the temporary nature of the law, and contrasts it with the promise to Abraham. The promise given to Abraham was by faith, and came prior to the law, by 430 years. But the natural question in…
In the early chapters of Romans, Paul the prosecutor has summarily indicted all of mankind; Jew and Gentile, as guilty before God. Part of his case has been a dismantling of the Mosaic Law as having any part in providing humanity with a right standing before God. The law cannot do this for at least two reasons. First, no one keeps the law. “None is righteous, no, not one” (3:10) Second, the law reveals sin,…
A recent sermon by megachurch pastor Andy Stanley has a lot of people criticizing him for everything from poorly worded teaching to Marcionism. Stanley doesn’t have a single text he preached from but loosely bases his sermon on the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, and Galatians 2. His points are not well stated, and this is the source of the trouble. He wants to echo the sentiments of the apostles to say that when Gentiles come…
The book of Acts is a transitional record, and in those transitions, we can learn something The birth of the Church comes about at the day of Pentecost, and from that moment, until chapter 28, there are profound developments in the life of the Christian community. The question I address is, what can we learn from how the gospel is presented, particularly in the earlier chapters? Are there patterns we should emulate, or are there…
Among the many fault lines within evangelicalism is the question of certainty. In David Bebbington’s “quadrilateral,” Biblicism is a shorthand for the Scriptures as the final authority. But it’s too facile to point to a passage of Scripture and say “There, you see?” When two equally sincere and honest believers have a disagreement about what those Scriptures mean, then the problem just moves elsewhere. In a prior post, I discussed the rule of faith, which for…
Paul wrote to the Ephesians about the importance of the local church in bringing believers to “the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13) That urging is every bit as important today as it was in the first century. The danger of remaining immature, or poorly instructed in the teaching of the gospel, can have profound consequences. I recently read…