Do you believe in predestination? And if you do, what sort of predestination? Does a man really have a choice in all this, or has God long ago decided who should be saved and who …
Romans: The Heart of the Gospel
My perspective has changed on the Book of Romans. It’s not that I didn’t understand it before, but there are a lot of different ways of looking at this book. There are a lot of …
History & Prophecy #6
Many prophecies in the Bible are dual. There can be a type and an anti-type of prophetic events. The type is the first occurrence of any given prophecy and it foreshadows the anti-type, which is …
Doctrines, Creeds, and Dogmas
If you are a Christian, and a member of a church, your church probably has some set of beliefs that it expects all of its members to hold. That’s probably not as big a deal …
Christian Origins #50 - Romans
I don’t know what it is, but preachers of every stripe, myself included, are prone to lay a guilt trip on people from time to time. It is almost as though we were your mother. …
Christian Origins #49 - Romans
Imagine for a moment that you are a highly successful cat burglar. Then one rainy night, you discover that you are not as good a driver as you are a cat burglar, and you are …
Christian Origins #48 - Romans
I am surprised at how often Christian people are conflicted on ethical and moral principles. I am not surprised that we struggle over some of the choices we have to make, but that people don’t …
Christian Origins #47 - Romans
Do you think you would ever be willing to die in someone else’s place? Can you imagine a really good person whose life and lifestyle was so worthy, that you would say “No, let them …
History & Prophecy #5
In the process of relating the events of history to prophecies, let’s ask if we can come to deeper understanding of prophecy and prophets. We need to understand more clearly the historical situation in which …
On Predestination
What did the First Christians believe about predestination? Did the First Christians believe that a persons life is completely mapped out before they are born? Did they believe that one person is born destined to …
Christian Origins #46 - Romans
Why on earth would anyone be happy about being in trouble? Why would you take satisfaction, even pride, in severe affliction? You read people in the Bible who talk this way a lot, but does …
Christian Origins #45 - Romans
The Christian faith is constantly at war with itself over questions of grace versus obedience. There is nothing new in this, because the discussion was going on right from the start. I think the problem …
Christian Origins #44 - Romans
I would have to conclude that there was a lot of tension between some of the Jews and Gentiles in the early Christian church. Paul is at such pains to chastise both Jew and Gentile …
Christian Origins #43 - Romans
There’s a lot of fatuous nonsense out there today masquerading as serious theology. It happens because of the doctrinal and theological disputes going on between sects and churches. In the discussion of proof texts and …
History & Prophecy #4
There have been many interpretations regarding the time of Christ’s return. How could there be so many different opinions? Could it be that all too often people make their assumptions by looking at the future …
The Problem with Sin
I used to be a teenager and, although it was a long time ago, I still remember some of the questions about the Bible that troubled me back then. Young people ask a lot of …
Christian Origins #42 - Romans
Is there any English-speaking person in the world who hasn’t heard of the Garden of Eden? That’s the garden that God planted, and the presumption is that the garden was fabulously beautiful and rich in …
Christian Origins #41 - Romans
When you are reading someone else’s mail, it’s really easy to get confused. You don’t know the players, the history of the arguments, the attitudes, or the story behind the punch lines. When we read …
Christian Origins #40 - Corinthians
The Apostle Paul was steamed. He may have been a minister—gentle and kind—but don’t kid yourself, Paul got steamed. You can only take so much nitpicking, so much scratching around in your past, so much …
Christian Origins #39 - Corinthians
Looking back through 2,000 years at the apostle Paul, the man looks like a giant. He’s certainly a legend, but there’s no evidence from the New Testament that Paul was looked at that way by …