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Jude, a brother of James and a half-brother of Jesus (1:1; Matthew 13:55), is the author of this general epistle. As he began a letter about the "common salvation," he felt compelled to issue a warning against certain false teachers who, under cover, were attacking the nature and work of Christ. ...
Homosexual activity is sexual intimacy between two persons of the same gender. This form of sexual conduct is uniformly condemned in the Bible. (a) It stands outside the divinely prescribed realm of authorized sexual gratification, i.e., the marriage union (Gen. 2:24; Mt. 19:4; 1 Cor. 7:2), and i...
The New Testament is a collection of twenty-seven documents with the following characteristics: • They are classified as "scripture," a term suggesting a divine writing (1 Tim. 5:18; 2 Pet. 3:16). • Eight known writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, and Jude — produced these boo...
The doctrine of "annihilation" is the idea that eventually, after a sufficient period of punishment, the souls of the wicked will go out of existence. This dogma is without biblical support. The punishment of those who die estranged from God is described as: "fire unquenchable" (Mt. 3:12). Final ...
More than a dozen words are used in the Greek N.T. to represent various aspects of "sin" (e.g., bad, evil, transgression, iniquity, trespass, godless, unrighteous, etc.). The most frequently employed word is hamartia (173 times), which provides the picture of "missing the mark." The word is used ...
The term devil means one who slanders or accuses (cf. Rev. 12:9-10). This word is used thirty-three times in the New Testament of the arch-enemy of man, Satan (Mt. 13:28). Since only the deity is characterized by underived immortality (1 Tim. 6:16), Satan was obviously created (Col. 1:16). But si...
The most popular Greek word for "authority" is exousia (sometimes translated as "power"). The term, with various usages, is found 102 times in the New Testament. The word, together with some parallel terms, are employed of: • The authority of God (Lk. 12:5; Rom. 9:21; Jude 25). God's authority is...
Reason is the intellectual ability of human beings to gather facts and from them draw correct conclusions. Reason is one of the traits of human kind that separates man from animals (cf. Jude 10). There are several abuses of "reason" that are worthy of special attention: (a) There is the arrogant ...
Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman, whereby they pledge to belong to one another in a life-long union. There are several elements relative to this institution that are important to understand. (a) The origin of marriage is divine, commencing from the sixth day of the creation week (Ge...
The term Catholic originates with a Greek word, katholikos, which means "general" or "universal." The expression is not found in the Scriptures but has been employed in various senses in church history. Justin Martyr (Dialog lxxxi) used the term for the general or universal resurrection of the de...
The Greek term porne is a comprehensive term, covering every form of illicit sexual activity by human beings. Note the following passages that help us understand this word. Single people who wish to satisfy their sexual appetites may marry. Otherwise, such activity is "fornication" (1 Cor. 7:2). ...
Faith is the willingness to trust and obey God without ever having seen him. It is not a gullible "leap in the dark," as existential "faith" postulates. Instead, it rests on evidence that allows us to maintain a prima facie (self-evident) case for belief. Faith involves believing the truth, not m...
The English word "bible" means "scroll" or "book" and refers to the sixty-six documents that comprise the book of Scripture -- thirty-nine Old Testament documents and twenty-seven New Testament books. These two divisions are sometimes called the two covenants (Ex. 24:7; Mt. 26:28; Heb. 8:7). The ...
Discipline is actually a process of training that begins at the point of one's conversion and continues throughout one's life. It includes teaching, example, exhortation, admonition, etc. (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The most extreme and ultimate form of church discipline, however, is the withdrawal of f...
The term "heaven" is used in different ways in the Bible. The expression may refer to the atmospheric region just above the earth where the birds fly, the rain forms, and the wind blows (Gen. 1:10; 7:11; Dan. 8:8). The outer space region that houses the stars, the sun, and the planets is also des...
This English term is related to the Latin conscientia, literally, "to know together" or "joint knowledge." It corresponds to the Greek suneidesis (found thirty times in the New Testament), which essentially has the same meaning. The conscience is an inward faculty, unique to human beings, that ei...
References to "worship" are common in both the O.T. and the N.T. The Hebrew term shachah (about 100 times) refers to "bowing" before an object of religious devotion. Similarly, proskuneo (59 times) in the N.T. means to prostrate oneself, do obeisance. Worship can be offered to the true God (Gen. ...
A priest is one who offers sacrifice and ministers in services pertaining thereto (cf. Heb. 5:1). This term implies recognition of sin and the need for atonement, in some fashion or another. (a) The term is used of pagan priests who sacrificed to false gods (Acts 14:13). (b) In the earliest age o...
Contrary to the denominational claim that infants are born in sin, the Bible teaches otherwise. • Children do not inherit evil from their parents (Ezekiel 18:20). • The practice of sin begins in "youth" (Genesis 9:21), not at birth. • Both Jesus and Paul used little children as models to emulate ...
The Greek word for "heart" is kardia (as in the English word "cardiac"). Although "heart" literally refers to the blood-pumping organ in a person's body, the term is rarely used to refer to the physical organ in the Bible (see 2 Sam. 18:14). "Heart" is therefore used mainly figuratively in the Sc...