Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1204. The faith once delivered to the saints is the phrase Jude reaches for when he explains why his short, urgent letter changed direction partway through the opening line. He had wanted to write about their common salvation, but found it necessary instead to appeal to his readers to contend for this same faith….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4013. Praying in the Spirit is a phrase that has been pulled in two very different directions, and I want to bring it back to what Scripture actually means by it. For some it conjures speaking in tongues and little else. For others it sounds so mystical that they assume it is for spiritual…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 12017 This is a question the church cannot avoid, and one that must be answered with both clarity and compassion. The Bible speaks directly and consistently on the subject of homosexuality, and it does so within a broader framework of God’s design for human sexuality that is positive, purposeful, and good. The contemporary debate…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10122 Tartarus is the rarest of the New Testament terms for a place of punishment, occurring only once in the entire Bible, in 2 Peter 2:4. It is a word drawn from Greek mythology, and its single New Testament appearance has generated considerable discussion about who is held there, why they are there, and…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 09094 The phrase “breaking bread” appears at several key points in the New Testament, and its interpretation has significant implications for how churches understand and practise the Lord’s Supper. Was the early church observing a brief, formal ordinance of bread and wine, or were they sharing a full communal meal in which the bread…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08066 The practice of rebuking Satan and demons verbally has become so common in certain Christian circles that many believers assume it is simply what Scripture teaches. People rebuke the devil over illnesses, financial problems, traffic jams, and virtually every other inconvenience, often with great confidence and volume. But the question of whether believers…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08076 The idea that Christians should pray directly against demonic principalities ruling over cities and nations has become a prominent feature of certain charismatic traditions, particularly through the influence of C. Peter Wagner and the strategic-level spiritual warfare movement. It sounds spiritually bold and urgently necessary. The question is whether Scripture actually instructs believers…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 08085 Scripture is clear that Satan faces eternal judgement in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). But what about the vast host of fallen angels who followed him in rebellion? Will demons be judged separately from Satan, and does Scripture tell us anything about how and when that judgement takes place? The Judgement Prepared…
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 08121 Spiritual warfare is not an optional interest for particularly dramatic Christians. It is the reality every believer lives within, whether they recognise it or not. The New Testament assumes a world in which invisible powers are actively at work, in which the Christian life involves genuine conflict with real enemies, and in which…