Tag: Christian
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“Don’t Give Your Strength to Women”: Bathsheba’s Wisdom for Her Grandchildren in Proverbs 31:1-3
I want you to imagine, for a moment, that you are walking down a path and come to a fork. You must veer right or left. You must choose which way to travel. How do you decide which path to take? If I don’t know what is coming, I will just go down one path…
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Let’s Start a Fire: Encouragement in the Tribulation Mentioned in 1 Peter 1:1-9
Peter’s eschatology in the New Testament is interesting to me. It seems to go against the grain of the rest of the Bible. Throughout all of Scripture, God promises to never again destroy the world despite the wickedness of people (cf. Genesis 8:21-22). In fact, God intervenes to prevent destruction and even sends the Son…
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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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Developing True and Good Relationships: Wisdom from Proverbs 27
Today, I begin a new series about different types of relationships as they are described in the Bible. Truthfully, the entire Bible is about relationships. I have chosen to look at Proverbs 27 to see what wisdom Solomon has for us concerning the relationships we have. Everyone we know was at one time a stranger…
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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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Unspiritual Spiritual Gifts- Exodus 31:1-11
After God instructed Israel to craft all of the specialty, custom items for the tent of meeting, He reveals that He has gifted certain individuals by His Spirit for the purpose of crafting these pieces artistically. God takes the credit for gifting His people for craftsmanship according to His own plans for the production of…
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The Sabbath Is For Man- Exodus 20:8-11
God instructs Israel to honor the Sabbath day by keeping it holy—setting it apart. The seventh day, Saturday, was to be a day of rest from labor. Toil was to be done in six days. On Saturday, the people were not to work themselves, anyone, or anything else. They were to rest. God rested on…