Category: Biblical Theology
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The Wonder of Creation: Exploring the Purpose and Relevance of the Creation Narrative in Apologetics
The first eleven chapters in the Bible are my favorite chapters. As someone who questioned their veracity before I started following Jesus, I understand that there are some difficult things in these chapters. When we read these chapters, we read them like 21st century Americans who are obsessed with particular orders of events and the…
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What About Human Responsibility?
Jesus has so far affirmed Pharisee soteriology. God first loves an individual. In response to God’s love, the individual cares to keep God’s Law. If a person keeps God’s Law, that person is righteous. God’s love is what brought the person into righteousness (i.e. saved the person). When the person kept the Law, that was…
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Seeing the Kingdom of Heaven
Have you ever seen God? Some of you will answer by telling me how you see God working or how you see God in nature or people. Those things are not God Himself. I will venture to guess that you have never seen God. Yet, we believe He is. A vast majority of people on…
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Jesus as Prophet and The Personal Salvation Debate Among Jews in the First Century
In these notes, I first show the point of John 3:1-2 by offering a biblical apologetic for Jesus as having the authority of a prophet to reveal new revelation. Then, I explore the theological environment of First Century Judea in order to provide historical context for Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. It is no surprise that…
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On Salvation and Reprobation
From the debates between Paul and the Gnostics through the ancient dialogue between Augustine and Pelagius to the exchanges between Luther and Erasmus or Calvin’s disciples and those of Arminius to the more modern upheaval between the New Calvinists and Free Willists, the doctrine of election has dominated Christian discussion. Election is the doctrine that…
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The Christian Hope
Why did Jesus have to come and die on a cross? Could God simply have created a world with no sin? Could He not have gotten people into heaven without having to die? It’s His wrath, could He not withhold it if He wanted to? Why worship Jesus? Why celebrate Him? I’m so glad you…