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...

The Bible occasionally speaks of the wicked being ultimately "destroyed" (apollumi) in hell (Mt. 10:28; Lk. 13:3, 5; 2 Thes. 2:10). Some, therefore, have assumed that after an appropriate period of...

The book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Pentateuch. The title signifies "second law."  Moses penned this document near the end of the era of wilderness wandering. Its design is to rehears...

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...

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 Tim. 3...

The Greek word oikonomia is rendered "dispensation" several times in the New Testament (see 1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 1:10; 3:2, 9; Col. 1:25). Sometimes the word suggests the idea of managing a household ...

Dispensationalism is a system that divides history into seven dispensations, each corresponding to one day of creation week. C.I. Scofield popularized the theory in his Reference Bible (1909). Thes...

Divorce may be defined as the legal dissolution of a marriage covenant. Under the Mosaic regime, divorce could be obtained for a variety of reasons (Dt. 24:1; Mt. 19:8). But this looseness was me...

Drunkenness involves the ingestion of a mind-altering substance for purely pleasurable purposes. This vice is repeatedly condemned in the Scriptures (Prov. 23:29ff; Eph. 5:18; 1 Cor. 5:11; 6:10; Ga...