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...

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 u...

Faithfulness carries the idea of integrity, steadfastness, true, dependable, etc. Two important emphases of this quality are stressed in the Bible. (a) God is faithful is all things (see Psa. 36:5;...

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

God is frequently referred to under the figure of a "father" (107 times in the Gospel of John alone). The Scriptures apply the term in several ways: (a) God is the Father of all men in the sense th...

"Fellowship" translates the Greek koinonia, meaning "participation, association, sharing," etc. Fellowship exists on two levels -- the vertical level (that which the Christian enjoys with God), and...

This phrase appears eight times in the N.T. It is the ancient expression for what modern society calls "Sunday." The significance of this day can be readily seen in the following cases: (a) It was ...

Each year, the ancient Hebrews would offer the "firstfruits" of their crops to God as a token of their thanksgiving for the bounty that would follow (Lev 2:12, 23; 23:17, 39). In his initial lett...

In the O.T., this term referred to the first individual born to parents, whether of man or beast. The firstborn was accorded a place of special prominence (cf. Gen. 48:13-18; Dt. 21:15-17; 2 Chron....

The Bible affirms the omniscience of God, i.e., the fact that he knows everything -- past, present, and future (1 Sam. 16:7; Psa. 139; Isa. 40:13ff; Acts 1:24; Heb. 4:13). One aspect of divine omni...

The most common word in the Greek N.T. which conveys the idea of "forgiveness" is aphesis, a compound term meaning "to send away from." (a) Forgiveness is a divine response to human sin, issuing ou...

Form Criticism is a modern approach to the Bible that has its origin in a liberal mentality. It asserts, for example, that the Gospel records are basically "myths." The "scholarly critic," therefor...

The Greek term porne is a comprehensive term, covering every sort of illicit sexual activity by human beings. Note: (a) Unmarried people who desire to vent their sexual appetites may marry; otherwi...

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

This phrase is found in Galatians 4:4, where Paul speaks of Christ's birth and earthly ministry as occurring when "the fulness of time" had arrived. The expression takes note of the preparation tha...

The Book of Galatians was one of Paul's letters to several churches in Galatia, written about A.D. 48. A Jewish element in these churches taught that one must be obedient to the law of Moses and th...

Gambling may be defined as the willingness to take a risk (a wager), motivated by the desire to get something for nothing. Gambling, an ancient vice condemned in virtually all societies, is motivat...

This is the erroneous theory that a vast span of time (billions of years) transpired between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. During this time period, huge creatures roamed the earth (e.g., dinosaurs), and the...

A genealogy is a registry of names of the ancestors or descendants of a particular people. A number of genealogical lists are recorded in the Bible -- for example in Genesis, Chronicles, Matthew, a...

The opening book of the Bible is a document of "beginnings." Written by Moses some 1,500 years before Christ, it introduces the beginning of: the Universe, life, mankind, the home, sin, the plan of...