Expediency is sometimes defined as the method by which a determined goal is achieved, regardless of the moral consequences. This is not the biblical concept of expediency.

In Bible parlance, a me...

The book of Ezra documents Israel’s first two returns from Babylonian captivity. The narrative covers approximately eighty years, from Cyrus’s edict to Ezra’s arrival in Jerusalem. 

Zerubbabel led...

Faithfulness conveys integrity, steadfastness, truth, and dependability, among other qualities. Two important emphases of this quality are highlighted in the Bible. 
• God is faithful in all things...

This expression generally refers to the apostasy of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which introduced the human family to heartache, disease, and ultimately death (Gen. 2:17; 3:16ff; Rom. 5:12)....

“Fellowship” translates the Greek koinonia, meaning “participation, association, sharing.” Fellowship exists on two levels — the vertical (the Christian’s relationship with God) and the horizontal...

In the Old Testament, this term denoted the firstborn offspring of humans or animals. The firstborn was accorded a place of special prominence (cf. Gen. 48:13-18; Dt. 21:15-17; 2 Chron. 21:3). 

Th...

Form Criticism is a modern approach to the Bible that originated in a liberal theological context. It holds, for example, that the Gospel accounts are mythological. The “scholarly critic,” therefor...

The most common word in the Greek New Testament that conveys the idea of “forgiveness” is aphesis, a compound term meaning “to send away from.”

Forgiveness is a divine response to human sin, flowi...

Animals operate largely on instinct, an inherited pattern of behavior. Human beings are different. We are made in the very image of God himself (Gen. 1:26-27). We possess volition (i.e., the power ...

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 ...

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria. It was an exceedingly wicked city, but Jehovah loved even these alien Gentiles. Accordingly, he sent Jonah, a prophet from northern Palestine, to proclaim u...

A genealogy is a record of the names of a person’s ancestors or descendants.

Several genealogical lists are recorded in the Bible, for example, in Genesis, Chronicles, Matthew, and Luke. These ar...

The term “evangelist” is an Anglicized form of the Greek euanglistes, derived from eu (“well”) and angelos (“messenger”). 

An evangelist is someone who proclaims the good news, serving as a gospel...

Sometime before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians (586 B.C.), the prophet Habakkuk wonders why God appears to have ignored Judah’s sins. The Lord informs the bewildered prophet that he is pl...

This word comes directly from Greek into English, letter-for-letter: hades.

W.E. Vine noted that some derive the term from the negative prefix a (“not”) and eido (“seen”), hence “the unseen,” thou...

After Judah’s initial return from Babylonian captivity (536 B.C.), God’s people had begun the work of rebuilding the temple. Then, due to opposition from certain enemies, the Hebrews became discour...

On several occasions the Scriptures speak of a “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1). What does the phrase mean? (a) It does not refer to a literal new heavens and earth. This is s...

Certain first-century Jews sought to persuade Christians (perhaps in the region of Jerusalem) to abandon the faith, return to Judaism, and wait for the real Messiah. The design of this letter, by a...

Three different Greek words are rendered “hell” in the King James translation of the Bible. (a) Hades is found ten times in the Greek N.T.; nine times it is rendered “hell,” once “grave” in the KJV...

“Heresy” takes its rise from the Greek, hairesis (nine times in the N.T.). Originally, the term meant simply “to choose” (Lev. 22:18, 21 — LXX). Then it came to signify a choice, i.e., an opinion ...