Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 08104 This question arises frequently in Christian circles, particularly where the influence of charismatic and deliverance ministry culture is strong. It is a question that requires careful biblical thinking, because the answer has significant pastoral consequences. If genuine Christians can have demons that need to be cast out, then the church needs a deliverance…
Reading Time: 7 minutesStanding with Israel in Biblical Truth and Justice Q10141 Preamble As an Evangelical Baptist committed to the authority of Scripture and the unchanging promises of God, I find myself compelled to respond to recent statements from Baptists Together, BMS World Mission and Baptist Union of Wales that mischaracterise Israel’s legitimate right to self-defence and misrepresent…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10013 This question lies at the heart of understanding the Bible’s storyline. How we answer it affects how we read prophecy, how we understand God’s purposes, and how we see ourselves as believers today. The distinction between Israel and the Church is one of the fundamental insights of dispensational theology, and Scripture makes this…
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 7080 This question has caused considerable debate throughout church history so how we answer it affects everything; from how we read the Old Testament to how we live our daily lives. The short answer is no, Christians are not under the Mosaic law. But we need to understand what that means and what it…
Reading Time: 13 minutesQuestion 12045 Baptists hold a remarkable and often underappreciated distinction in the history of Western civilisation: they were among the earliest voices in the English-speaking world to call for universal religious freedom. Not mere toleration for their own group, but genuine liberty of conscience for all people, including those whose beliefs they considered deeply wrong….
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 10066 Replacement theology, also called supersessionism, is the belief that the Church has permanently replaced Israel in God’s plan, and that the promises God made to Israel in the Old Testament are now fulfilled spiritually in the Church rather than literally in the nation of Israel. This teaching, whilst widely held throughout church history,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10014 Eschatology does not float free from the rest of Scripture. The Bible’s teaching about the last things is built on a covenantal foundation that stretches from Genesis to Revelation, and unless those covenants are understood properly, the prophetic picture will always be distorted. The question of how the biblical covenants relate to eschatology…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10036 Two phrases in the New Testament sound similar enough to be confused but refer to entirely different realities. “The times of the Gentiles” and “the fullness of the Gentiles” describe distinct aspects of God’s programme, one relating to political dominion over Jerusalem and the other to the ingathering of Gentile believers into the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10029 The question of whether modern Jewish people are still God’s chosen people sits at the intersection of some of the most important and most contested doctrines in Christian theology. The answer you give depends heavily on how you read the Old Testament promises, what you understand the relationship between Israel and the church…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 7083 The question sounds simple, but it touches on something of real theological importance. Did the rules change somewhere between Genesis and Acts? Were Old Testament believers saved by keeping the law, by performing sacrifices, or by some arrangement that no longer applies? The way this is answered has profound implications not just for…