Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08086 Few passages in the New Testament have generated as much interpretive debate as 1 Peter 3:19, where Peter writes that Christ “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.” Who are these spirits? Where is the prison? And what was proclaimed to them? The answers to these questions have divided commentators for centuries,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08139 Whether angels experience something analogous to human emotion is a question the Bible does not answer systematically, but it does offer a number of passages that present angelic beings as responding to events with what looks remarkably like genuine feeling. The question matters because it touches on what it means to be a…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08136 Peter’s statement that angels “long to look into” the things of the gospel is one of the most striking and often overlooked remarks in the New Testament. It sits within a passage about the privilege of salvation, and its force depends on grasping what it tells us about the gospel from the perspective…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08135 Angels are spiritual beings of immense power and long experience, but they are not God. That distinction matters enormously when considering the scope of their knowledge. Scripture presents angelic intelligence as genuinely superior to human understanding in many respects, while also marking clear limits that set their knowledge apart from the omniscience that…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08123 It would be a mistake to think of Satan as a figure confined to the opening chapters of Genesis and the closing chapters of Revelation with nothing much happening in between. Scripture presents him as active, purposeful, and relentlessly engaged in opposition to God’s work in the present age. Understanding what Satan is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08117 Satan is not a cartoon figure with horns and a pitchfork, nor is he the equal-and-opposite counterpart of God in some cosmic dualism. He is a real, personal, spiritual being of extraordinary intelligence and power, operating within boundaries set by God and destined for a defeat that Scripture describes in vivid and unambiguous…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08106 Fear of the demonic is something many Christians experience, and it ranges from a mild unease about the unseen spiritual world to a paralysing anxiety that Satan or his agents might harm them, their families, or their spiritual lives. The question of whether believers should be afraid of Satan and demons is one…
Reading Time: 2 minutesQuestion 08088 James 4:7 is one of the best-known verses on spiritual conflict: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” The promise in the second half is frequently quoted, but the condition in the first half tends to receive less attention. The sequence is not accidental. Before the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 11064 The word “stewardship” appears regularly in Christian vocabulary, often in the context of annual giving campaigns or building projects. But biblical stewardship is a far richer and more comprehensive concept than fundraising language suggests. It touches every area of life, from money and possessions to time, abilities, relationships, and the gospel itself. Understanding…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 07029 Redemption is one of the richest words in the New Testament’s vocabulary of salvation. It draws on the world of the marketplace and the world of slavery to describe what God has done for those who trust in Christ, and it carries the weight of a completed transaction that cannot be reversed. To…