Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 01021 The book of Revelation has generated more confusion, more speculation, and more wildly divergent interpretations than perhaps any other book in the Bible. Yet it opens with a blessing: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 06070 The Old Testament does not use a single word for sin. It uses a rich vocabulary of overlapping terms that together paint a more complete picture of what sin actually is than any single word could capture. Three of those terms recur throughout the Hebrew Scriptures — and significantly, they appear together in…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 01141 Popular culture has a habit of borrowing from Scripture without particularly caring about accuracy. The result is a collection of widely repeated phrases that bear some resemblance to biblical language but carry meanings quite different from, or sometimes entirely absent from, the texts from which they are supposedly drawn. This matters not as…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 01200 Scripture is frequently quoted and frequently misunderstood, sometimes because a quotation has been removed from its context, sometimes because a popular rendering has hardened into assumed meaning that the original never carried, and sometimes because the verse is genuinely addressing a different situation from the one it is being applied to. The consequences…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1005 This is one of the most honest questions believers ask, especially when they’re genuinely trying to understand God’s Word but find themselves surrounded by conflicting interpretations. If the Bible is God’s Word and clear enough for us to understand, why do sincere Christians who love the Lord and study their Bibles come to…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1037 How should we read the Bible? This question lies at the heart of everything we do as Christians. Get interpretation wrong and everything else goes wrong with it. One of the most important principles in biblical interpretation is what we call “literal interpretation,” but this term is often misunderstood. Some think it means…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1038 Throughout church history, Christians have debated how to read the Bible. One approach that has attracted both devoted followers and sharp critics is allegorical interpretation. What exactly is this method? Where did it come from? And should we be using it today when we open our Bibles? These are important questions, because how…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1039 One of the most fascinating aspects of Bible study is discovering how the Old Testament points forward to Jesus and the New Covenant. This is not something we impose on the text; it is woven into the fabric of Scripture itself. The technical term for this forward-pointing pattern is “typology.” Understanding what typology…
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 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…