Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1034 If God is all-powerful, couldn’t He reveal Himself without a book? Couldn’t He speak directly to each person, write His truth on the sky, or simply implant knowledge in our minds? Why do we need Scripture at all? This question touches on what theologians call the “necessity of Scripture”—and the answer reveals something…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1041 When we open our Bibles, what should we be looking for? Some read Scripture as a collection of moral lessons. Others approach it as ancient literature or a rulebook for living. But there is a far richer way to read God’s Word—one that Jesus Himself taught His disciples. This is what theologians call…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1043 Have you ever heard someone quote a Bible verse to support an idea that seemed completely unrelated to its original context? Perhaps you have seen a preacher build an entire sermon on a phrase pulled out of its setting, or encountered a teaching that required considerable mental gymnastics to connect to the text…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1044 When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about head coverings, was he addressing a timeless principle or a local custom? When Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell everything, was this a universal command or a specific challenge to that individual? How do we know when a biblical instruction transcends its original setting…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1045 In 1868, a German missionary named Frederick Klein discovered a black basalt stone in Jordan bearing an inscription from Mesha, king of Moab. That inscription mentions “the house of David” and describes events recorded in 2 Kings 3. In one artefact, a biblical king was confirmed, a biblical narrative illuminated, and sceptics who…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1051 When you start digging into biblical manuscripts, you’ll eventually come across something called the Samaritan Pentateuch. It sounds exotic and perhaps a bit intimidating, but understanding what it is and how it relates to our Old Testament is actually quite straightforward once you get your bearings. The question is this: if the Samaritans…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1052 Walk into any Christian bookshop or browse online, and you’ll find hundreds of commentaries on every book of the Bible. Some are slim paperbacks, others are multi-volume sets that could double as doorstops. Prices range from a few pounds to several hundred. How do you know which ones are actually worth your time…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1054 You want to study the Bible seriously. You know that reading devotionally is good, but you want to go deeper—to understand what passages really mean, to trace themes across Scripture, to grasp the original languages, to see the historical background. What tools do you actually need? The options can feel overwhelming, especially with…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1055 Some Christians treat their Bibles like museum artefacts—handling them with great care, keeping them pristine, never dreaming of writing in them. Others have Bibles so marked up with underlining, highlighting, and scribbled notes that the original text is almost lost in a sea of colour. Who’s got it right? Is it okay to…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1046 When we open our Old Testament, we are reading a translation of ancient Hebrew manuscripts. But which Hebrew manuscripts? And what about the Greek translation that Jesus and the apostles so often quoted? This question sits at the heart of how we received our Bible and which text we should trust as authoritative….