Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 20. How is studying doctrine an act of love? Many people assume the opposite, that studying doctrine is a cold and bookish thing, the hobby of people who would rather be right than be kind. I want to overturn that assumption completely, because I am persuaded that studying doctrine is one of the most…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 0040. It sounds wonderfully humble to say that you just want to read the Bible without theology, taking the plain words at face value and leaving all the systems and arguments to the academics. I have heard it many times, often from sincere believers who are weary of theological squabbling. Yet the more I…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 0037. It is a fair question, and the answer turns on the apostolic teaching that filled the gap before the New Testament was gathered into one book. The earliest Christians did not walk around with a leather-bound Bible containing all sixty-six books. The church was born at Pentecost, and the Gospels and letters were…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04033. Ask where the Bible comes from and you cannot answer well without speaking of the Spirit and inspiration in the same breath. The Scriptures did not fall from the sky finished, nor were they invented by clever men who wanted to control others. They were breathed out by God through human writers whom…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10147 The question of who wrote the book of Revelation is not a matter of idle curiosity. The authority of the book depends upon it. If Revelation was written by the apostle John, the last surviving member of the Twelve, then it carries apostolic authority and takes its place as the capstone of the…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 60078 Sceptics sometimes ask how we can trust that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels are actually what He said. After all, the Gospels were written decades after Jesus’ ministry. Isn’t it possible that His words were distorted, embellished, or even invented by the early Church? How can we have confidence that…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60081 A Christian student entering a university biblical studies department for the first time can find the experience genuinely disorienting. Lecturers who have devoted their academic careers to the subject treat the multiple authorship of Isaiah, the post-exilic composition of Daniel, and the legendary character of the patriarchal narratives not as contested positions but…