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 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 third book of the N.T., the Gospel of Luke, was intended as a defense of the historical data regarding Jesus — especially on behalf of the Greeks. Authored by Luke, a Gentile physician (Col. 4...

A word that denotes the commencement of anything with a point of origin. 

The “heavens and the earth” had a beginning (Gen. 1:1); hence, they are not eternal. Material origins must be explained su...

The prophet Zephaniah was the great, great-grandson of King Hezekiah (1:1). His prophetic ministry was conducted in the days of Judah’s good king, Josiah (ca. 639-09 B.C.). 

Josiah came to the thr...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

“Extreme Unction” is one of the so-called “sacraments” of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the action of a priest in applying oil to someone who is at the point of death. The priest reads prayers a...

Philemon was a Christian who lived in the city of Colossae. Philemon owned a slave whose name was Onesimus. Onesimus fled to Rome where he came in contact with, and was converted by, Paul. The apos...

This word originally meant “hidden things,” suggesting a special body of information reserved for a select group. Eventually, it came to signify a collection of fourteen or fifteen books, some of w...

The word “perfect” is used in different ways in the Bible. (a) Only deity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is perfect in the absolute, moral sense (Mt. 5:48), though Christians are to strive for this...

Before Jesus was born, the angel informed Mary: “the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God” (Lk. 1:35). The descriptive reveals something of the unique essence of Christ. The ...

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...

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...

This is Paul’s last letter before his execution. It was written during his final Roman imprisonment. The epistle summons Timothy to Paul’s side. It is intended to help Timothy understand the events...

Citizenship is the legal relationship that one sustains to a city, state, or country. Paul was a citizen of Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 21:39), and he enjoyed the privileges of “citizenship” in the Rom...