Colossae was a city about 100 miles east of Ephesus. Paul wrote a letter to the church in this city. It was one of his four epistles from Rome (Acts 28), while he was in prison.  The letter of Col...

The expression "Great Commission" is commonly used to refer to a special directive Christ gave in a post-resurrection appearance before he ascended back into heaven.  The "commission" is found in ...

"Communion" is a term applied to the Lord's Supper because of its usage in 1 Corinthians 10:16. This act of worship emphasizes the fellowship (koinonia — sharing, participation) we enjoy with Chris...

Paul commended Timothy for making "the good confession" before many witnesses (1 Tim. 6:12).  The word "confession" comes from the Greek homologia, which means "to say the same thing." It implies a...

"Confession" means "to say the same thing."  In connection with our salvation, confession is the personal acknowledgment of the transgressions in our lives that God has spoken of and condemned thr...

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 es...

Critics are fond of claiming that the Bible cannot be the word of God because, supposedly, it contains multiple contradictions. Such allegations reveal that these critics are oblivious to the natur...

Paul wrote this epistle to a church he had established on his second missionary campaign (Acts 18:1-11). It deals with problems within that local congregation, such as division (1:10ff), carnality ...

Paul's second preserved letter to the Corinthian brethren was designed to be corrective. It urged the saints to be forgiving to the brother who had been disciplined because of his fornication (2:1f...

A covenant is an agreement between two parties. In some cases, the parties stand on equal footing, and each party contributes to the conditions of the covenant.  It can be the case, however, that ...

The creation was the act of an omnipotent God, speaking into existence, from no previous materials, the entire Universe and everything within it. This concept is unique to Judeo-Christian theology....

The Book of Daniel records the life and prophetic visions of the prophet Daniel.  As a young man, he was taken into Babylonian captivity in 605 B.C., during the first deportation under King Nebuch...

The Hebrew term yom, with its Greek equivalent, hemera, typically signifies a unit of time determined by the full rotation of the Earth upon its axis. That is its meaning in Genesis 1, concerning t...

This theory attempts to reconcile the six days of creation activity (Gen. 1) with the billions of years required by evolutionary chronology. However, there is overwhelming evidence that the "days" ...

The Greek word diakonos comes into the English language as "deacon." The term basically means to serve. It is used of ordinary servants in a secular sense (Jn. 2:5, 9) or of those who serve gener...

Death is a term that, in one sense or another, suggests the idea of separation. Physical death is that state of the body which is separated from the "spirit" or "soul" (Gen. 25:8; 35:18; Jas. 2:2...

Deism is a religious and philosophical theory that acknowledges the existence of a Supreme Being responsible for creating the universe. However, this philosophy asserts that the transcendent Being ...

Demons (not "devils" KJV) were evil spirits (Mt. 12:43-45) that were permitted to inhabit the bodies of some people during the days of Christ and his apostles.  Almost certainly, this was to allow...

A religious denomination is a body or sect subscribing to a particular set of doctrinal tenets that is set apart from other religious groups by its name and human creed.  Denominations find no div...

The doctrine of hereditary total depravity is also known as "original sin" in Roman Catholicism. This concept asserts that all children come into the world with both the effects and guilt of Adam's...