Mark’s account of the life of Christ begins with the Savior’s baptism. It is primarily directed to the Romans, one of the major cultures of the first century. It is designed to emphasize the action...

The term “body” is used in Scripture in both literal and figurative sense.

Literal user of the body
In a literal sense, the term “body” in Scripture refers to the physical “tabernacle” in which t...

Sanctified suggests “having been separated from (something), set apart.” The term is used in a variety of ways in the Bible. (a) Both God the Father and Christ the Son are to be sanctified (Num. 20...

On the night before his death, during the Passover celebration, Jesus instituted the communion supper for his disciples (Mt. 26:26ff; Mk. 14:22ff; Lk. 22:19ff; cf. 1 Cor. 11:23ff). The Lord’s Suppe...

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 ...

The Greek word is huiothesia, from huios, “son,” and tithemi, “to set, put, or place.” 

The word suggests the idea of putting one into the position of a son. It is used five times in the New Testa...

The word “agnostic” does not appear in the English Bible. The term derives, however, from Greek roots suggesting the idea “not known.”

When Paul visited Athens, he noted that the pagans there had...

The gods of the biblical era were profuse. They were the inventions of the human mind in a world that had rejected the true God and his sovereignty over humanity. 

The Old Testament prophets denie...

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...

God is often referred to as a “Father” (107 times in the Gospel of John alone). The Scriptures use the term in several ways:

God is the Father of all men in the sense that he is the Creator of hum...

This document is a historical narrative of a period of about 270 years, from the time of Jehoshaphat’s death, to the fall of Jerusalem, when Judah’s final group was taken into Babylonian captivity ...

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...

The Holy Spirit is a divine being who is “spirit” in nature (Lk. 24:39), and “holy” in character. (a) The Holy Spirit is not a mere force (as some cultists insist, e.g., the “Jehovah’s Witnesses”);...

“Liberalism” (in the classical sense of the word) is a rather flexible term for an ideological disposition that developed in the 1800’s, and reached an intense level in America during the days prec...

Jesus once declared that he came to this earth to give up his life as a “ransom” for others (cf. Mt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45). The term for “ransom” is lutron. Lutron derives from luo, “to loose,” and whe...

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...

Justification may be defined as the divine process by which God acquits the sinner and reckons him as righteous. The noun dikaiosis (“justification”) is used but twice in the N.T. (Rom. 4:25; 5:18)...

The book of Matthew is especially directed to Jews (hence, the heavy appeal to the O.T.). It is designed to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies of the...

Each year, the ancient Hebrews would offer the “firstfruits” of their crops to God as a token of their thanksgiving for the bounty to come (Lev 2:12, 23; 23:17, 39).

In his initial letter to the s...

Joel, a prophet of the southern kingdom of Judah, labors to warn the Hebrew people of the coming “day of the Lord,” a time of judgment upon a rebellious people. The punishment is described under a ...