Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 60041 Theological progressivism is not a new phenomenon, but its current form has gained significant cultural momentum and now exercises considerable influence across denominations, seminaries, and publishing. The word “progressive” carries positive connotations in ordinary language, suggesting forward movement and improvement. Applied to theology, however, it describes something quite specific: the systematic revision of…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08078 The prayer of Jabez, found in a brief passage in 1 Chronicles, became a cultural phenomenon in evangelical Christianity following Bruce Wilkinson’s bestselling book The Prayer of Jabez (2000). The book sold over nine million copies and spawned an entire industry of related products. Some have connected Jabez’s prayer to spiritual warfare, treating…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08077 The language of “binding and loosing” appears in two passages in Matthew’s Gospel and has generated an enormous amount of confusion, particularly within charismatic Christianity, where it has been reinterpreted as a spiritual warfare technique. Understanding what Jesus actually meant by these words requires careful attention to the Jewish context in which He…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 01006 The words “prophecy” and “prediction” are often used interchangeably in popular conversation, but they are not the same thing. Understanding the difference is important for reading the Bible accurately, because biblical prophecy involves far more than foretelling the future, and reducing it to prediction alone strips it of much of its meaning and…
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: 3 minutesQuestion 01013 The term “apocalyptic literature” is frequently used in biblical studies, and understanding what it means is essential for reading significant portions of Scripture well. The word “apocalypse” comes from the Greek apokalypsis, meaning “unveiling” or “revelation,” and it describes a specific literary genre that uses vivid imagery, symbolic language, and dramatic cosmic scenes…
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 6019 Jeremiah 17:9 is one of the most searching verses in the Old Testament: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” It is the kind of statement that either strikes the reader as obviously true or provokes significant resistance, depending on how comfortable they are with a…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 6015 The word “world” appears hundreds of times across the New Testament, and it does not always mean the same thing. Reading it as if it did produces significant confusion, particularly in passages that seem to say contradictory things. John 3:16 says God loved the world; 1 John 2:15 says do not love the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 1116 Few passages in Scripture trouble modern readers more than God’s commands to Israel to destroy the Canaanite nations. When God instructs Joshua, “You shall devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them” (Deuteronomy 7:2), we face what appears to be divinely mandated genocide….