Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 11131. Devotional Bible reading gets a bad name in some circles, as if reading Scripture for nourishment rather than for analysis is somehow the lightweight cousin of proper study, the spiritual equivalent of skimming instead of really working. I want to push back on that a little. Devotional Bible reading, done well, is not…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11130. Scripture memorisation is one of those spiritual disciplines that almost every believer agrees is valuable and almost no believer actually practises with any real consistency, myself included in seasons of my own ministry when other demands crowded it out. I want to make a case for why Scripture memorisation deserves a genuine place…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 60054. Biblical numerology covers two quite different things, and a good deal of confusion comes from muddling them. One is the observation that certain numbers recur in Scripture with evident significance, which is plainly true and worth studying. The other is the practice of treating numbers as carriers of hidden meaning, calculating with names…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9114. Touch not my anointed is one of the most misused sentences in the English Bible, and I have heard it deployed to shut down every kind of legitimate question. A leader is challenged about money, doctrine, or conduct, and someone stands up to warn the congregation that they are touching God’s anointed. The…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9113. What role does the gathered church play in helping believers interpret Scripture? For many evangelicals the honest answer is none at all. We read our Bibles alone, we form our conclusions alone, and we treat the church as the place where those conclusions are occasionally aired. That instinct comes from something good, but…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 9105. What does 1 Timothy 2:12 mean in context? Few verses in the New Testament are quoted more often with less attention to what surrounds them, and few are dismissed more quickly by people who have decided in advance what Paul is allowed to say. I want to walk through the passage carefully, because…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8020. Whether angels appear today is a question I get asked more often than almost any other in this category, usually by someone who has heard a story and does not know what to do with it. The honest answer has two parts, and both need saying. Scripture nowhere states that angelic appearances have…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8013. Named angels are far rarer in Scripture than most Christians assume. Ask around a congregation and you will hear Raphael, Uriel, sometimes Raguel or Sariel, and a general impression that the Bible contains a substantial roll of angelic names. It does not. There are two. Michael and Gabriel. That is the complete list…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8008. Angelic emotions are more visible in Scripture than most readers expect, and once you start looking for them they are difficult to miss. Angels shout, sing, rejoice, long, marvel, and worship, and none of those verbs describe a passionless mechanism carrying out instructions. I think the assumption that angels are cold comes from…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 8005. Whether angels eat looks like a curiosity question until you notice how much rests on it. Scripture calls angels spirits, and Scripture also describes a meal in Genesis 18 in which Abraham serves curds, milk, a prepared calf and fresh bread, and his visitors sit under a tree and eat it. If angels…