Father’s Day is this Sunday (just in case you’ve forgotten.) It’s a day set aside for us to show our gratitude to the men who have provided, cared for, and guided us throughout our lives. Unfortunately, too many have never experienced the joy of having a father. Some...
These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.—Colossians 2:17 Colossians 2:17 gives us another important insight into how the earliest Christians put their Bibles together. But, the NIV here nicely obscures some of the...
The Bible states that we have an enemy that plagues everyone—death. Though we may avoid this enemy for a time, we cannot escape it. Death is certain. No one can avoid death. And Death is cruel. At its heart, death is separation. Death separates our bodies from our...
In 2 Cor 3:13 Paul says that “Moses put a veil over his face to prevent Israel from seeing the end of what was passing away.” What exactly was it that Israel couldn’t see? The answer: Israel had a hermeneutical problem. She couldn’t see the purpose of the Mosaic...
Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with approximately 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. There are over 2.7 million Muslims in the United States. The percentage of Muslims in the U.S. population is projected to rise from 0.8% in 2010 to 1.7% by 2030. Yet...
In Acts 1:12-26 Peter says that Judas Iscariot had to be replaced (see Acts 1:16, 21). The vacancy his defection (and suicide) created could not be left open, otherwise Scripture would be broken. After all, what Judas had done and what, then, the remaining apostles...
In a handful of places the NT interprets Jesus’ resurrection (+ ascension) as his exaltation to God’s right hand, which is to say, as his fulfillment of David’s prophecy about the coming messiah in Ps 110:1: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool...
We’ve all heard it, and most of us have either thought it or even prayed it. “God, if You [do this thing I currently want], then I’ll [do something I probably should do but haven’t].” We find ourselves in a situation we don’t like or lacking something we crave, yet we...
There was some delay between the writing of the NT documents and their universal acceptance as Holy Scripture (= canon). In fact, the first list to recognize the 27 books of our NT comes from the mid-4th century (see here). The delay feels a bit unsettling, doesn’t...
My wife and I are looking forward to enjoying our first Christmas as parents, even if our son is currently more interested in putting wrapping paper in his mouth than in any other part of Christmas. It’s still fun to discuss what traditions we want to establish as a...
Did Christ exist before he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary? And if he did, in what sense did he exist before his incarnation? In the early fourth century, a church leader named Arius came into conflict with Alexander (bishop in Alexandria, Egypt) over...
One of the lingering questions I have about Wellum & Gentry’s (W&G) remarkable book Kingdom through Covenant has to do with their view of Rom 9–11. They argue that Rom 9–11 promises the future salvation of a lot of ethnic Jews (see 501; also their response to...
Most likely you’re familiar with the idea of cults, but you may be less familiar with the anti-cult movement. Though you may not realize it, your understanding of cults is likely influenced by the anti-cult movement. For as long as “cults” have existed, others have...
One of the lectures I give each year in my Gospels class is titled “Who’s Invited and What Should They Do?” In the first part (“Who’s Invited?”), I talk about who it was Jesus invited (invites) to follow him, to repent and believe, to enter his kingdom. Here we talk...
25 Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the...
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued two decisions on homosexual marriage that will likely shape the social structure of America moving forward. Even apart from the decisions of the Supreme Court, the acceptance of homosexuality appears to be a foregone conclusion. It...
Just last week I had a chance to reread Barnabas Lindars’ Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews and was reminded of how helpful I’d originally found his synthetic picture of Hebrews’ message. Now that I’ve worked through Hebrews more thoroughly, there are some bits of...
David M. Hay. Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity. SBLMS 18. Nashville: Abingdon, 1973. 176 pp. In this revised version of his 1965 Ph.D. thesis, completed at Yale under the supervision of Paul W. Meyer, Hay explores the use of Psalm 110 in early...
I have become [the church’s] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people”—Col 1:25–26 (NIV) Here I’ll make three...
Christianity consists of beliefs and practices. There are certain ways one must view God, himself, and the world at large, and there are certain ways one must think, feel, and act as a result of those views. Throughout church history, Christians have debated what...
This Tuesday, February 12, is best known as Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday). It is the day that precedes Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. In the Detroit area, the day is more commonly known as Pączki Day. A pączki (typically pronounced punch-key or...
Ben Witherington—evangelicalism’s equivalent of the prolific Jacob Neusner—wrote a little article a while back on the influence of Galatians on Hebrews, which I’d been meaning to read in the course of my work on Hebrews. Well, just last week, I happened to be...
If you’ve ever worked your way through Matthew’s gospel, looking up the Old Testament texts he cites, then you’ve surely puzzled over what he has to say about Hosea 11:1 in Matt 2:15. Matthew claims that when Jesus returned with his parents from Egypt he fulfilled...
Dave Doran sat down with Chris Anderson recently and asked him about pastoral ministry and modern hymn writing for the church. Chris served as church planter and pastor at Tri-County Bible Church in Madison, OH, from 1998 until just a few weeks ago. He recently...
The recent tiffs over the role of personal obedience and activity in sanctification is symptomatic of a much deeper theological struggle that has intensified in the last decade, viz., the definition of union with Christ and the relationship of that union with...
David Instone-Brewer argues in a recent article that the Talmud’s account of Jesus’ trial contains the original Jewish charge against Jesus. The lines, as preserved in the Munich ed. (1342), read like this: It was taught: On the Eve of the Passover they hung Yeshu the...
January 22 marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that declared abortion to be legal in the United States. Since that decision, over 50 million abortions have been legally performed in the U.S. Many Christians have labored to overturn...
In our previous video post with Dr. Michael Vlach, we linked to another video titled "What Is Covenant Theology?" In this video Dr. Vlach notes that one of the major differences between covenant theology and dispensationalism is a hermeneutical one: how does the New...
Christmas is a time of giving. Many people and organizations embrace this spirit of giving by organizing programs that provide gifts to low-income families. They often encourage families with more resources to adopt a family for Christmas. As Christians, we may...
I had a chance to sit down with Clearwater Christian College prof. Carl Martin a few months back to talk about biblical studies, ministry preparation, and the sorts of things that get him out of bed in the morning. Below is the first part of that conversation, where...
In the wake of the furor of my last blog post, I was heartened this week to discover a helpful post by Rick Phillips that cuts to the very heart of the question of the believer's participation in sanctification. The post, titled Thank God that Christians Are Not...
Two profs from Southern Seminary published a biblical theology earlier this year that “fell like a bomb on the playground of the [biblical] theologians,” particularly disrupting the contented play of those of us hailing from either one of the two traditional...
I’ve been reading the Gospel of Mark together with some Christians and “seekers” over the past several weeks. (We’ve been using a fantastic study put out by the folks at The Good Book Company entitled Christianity Explored.) One thing that has struck me while...
Christian media outlets have a lot to say these days about the idea of shame, mostly trying to convince us that shame is bad. And in many circumstances, they are right. For instance, (1) we need not be ashamed before God for sins committed in our pre-conversion past:...
The Bible teaches that Christians ought to pray for healing and that God routinely answers such prayers (Jas 5:14–15 et al.). But what exactly should we expect from God when we pray to him for healing? As I see it, there are basically five discernable responses to...
There it was in my Facebook feed. One of those ubiquitous memes from well-meaning fellow believers: God does not want you to try harder, he wants you to trust him deeper. Stop trying. Start trusting. But is it true? Does God really not want us to “try hard” to become...
Have you ever read one of the Gospels in one sitting? I believe many Christians have not. Have you ever read Romans in one sitting? How would such a reading change your perspective on the book? I require my students to read the Bible in large portions. For instance,...
A message from Dr. Doran: Dear Friend of DBTS, Happy Thanksgiving! God has been gracious to us and is worthy of every bit of thanks, and more, that He receives. I am looking forward to a fun and refreshing time with family and friends on Thanksgiving Day, then...
It is with great pleasure that we announce the release of the 2018 Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, now in its 23rd year of publication. This year’s selections give attention to a thorny question in Zechariah, the curiosity of Paul’s reticence to directly cite the...
…so said the late R. C. Sproul in a timely and succinct blog post just last year. Sproul was a master of theological summary, and it is only fitting that we remember him for this service to the Christian Church in the wake of his recent departure. Despite Sproul’s...
Last week on this weblog Bill Combs offered a corrective against using the hammer of justification to answer questions better answered with appeals to regeneration/sanctification. This problem is not, I think, an incidental concern, but an endemic one, and one of some...
Go to your average weekly prayer meeting, and chances are it won’t be long before you hear a prayer dressed up with mindless filler that means practically nothing. We all know it would be really bad to lead out in prayer by saying, “God: here’s my prayer list: Frank,...
Just six months before he died, John Wesley (1703–1791) wrote to a preacher named Robert Carr Brackenbury (1752–1818). In that letter Wesley revealed why he believed God had led him establish the Methodists. He wrote, “…with regard to full sanctification. This...
Summer comes to a more-or-less official end this weekend with the celebration of Labor Day. The day is not so much about general labor, of course, but about organized labor (an issue about which the Bible is mostly silent and, when it does speak to the issue, is a bit...
A few weeks ago a theological kerfuffle erupted on the blogosphere. Several Reformed Confessionalists (whom I will call Carl Trueman and Co.) accused certain members of the evangelical complementarian community (whom I will call Grudem, Ware, and Co.) of Nicene heresy...
So said Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:23. And so we must agree with him. Still, I wonder whether this verse can sustain all the freight that has been loaded onto it over the years. Does it mean, as John Piper suggested a few months ago, that Christians should not carry...
Once again the anniversary of Christ’s death is opening up the question whether it is proper to say that God died on the cross, with good men leveling arguments at and past one another. Some argue that God, being immortal (1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16; etc.), by definition...
In the past few months I have encountered several conflicting ideas about forgiveness in unexpected counseling situations. Nor is the confusion confined to the uninformed or immature. The biblical idea of forgiveness is an elusive one that is often missed entirely or...
As an instructor in Systematic Theology I sometimes have conversations (whether formal or informal) over the merits of some point of theology or biblical application that end rather oddly with an appeal to “convictions.” The idea seems to be that if a person holds...