Today we tend to think of Scripture for discipleship primarily in terms of individual Bible Study, but in the early church—which had no complete Bible—Scripture use was much more multivalent. Read more from Steve Bruns as he continues his series on discipleship.
How does prophecy work? Does it tell us in detail the timing of key future events? In this Seven Minute Seminary episode, Dr. Ben Witherington explains the difference between “forth-telling” and “foretelling,” and suggests that God reveals enough about the future to give us hope, but not enough to not require faith in our every day lives.
Sometimes doing devotionals can get in the way of really hearing from God if it makes us dependent on others’ thoughts to get into Scripture. In this article, Jessica LaGrone narrates the story of how when and how she stopped doing devotionals in order to get back into the Word herself.
What are the Dead Sea Scrolls? In this Seven Minute Seminary, Dr. Brent A. Strawn answers, providing the archaeological background and historical details that make this what some have called the discovery of the century.
Satan is very comfortable with having people love the Bible and not love God. In this video, Dr. Bill Mounce suggests that we approach the Bible in order to love God more, not to just gain information. He suggests we followup each study with the questions, “What do you learn about God, and what do you learn about yourself and others?”
Give Me That Book! A Primer for the Practice of Inductive Bible Study is a new ebook by T. Michael W. Halcomb that guides a person through moving from the biblical text all the way through to sermon preparation. Enjoy the introduction to the book in today’s post.
Many Christians are intimidated by memorizing Scripture, all the while able to recall hundreds of song lyrics and movie quotes. Matt Johnson shares why it doesn’t have to be this way, and offers helpful advice on how to get started in this formative, spiritual discipline.
P.T. Forsyth’s dictum states that “with its preaching Christianity stands or falls.” But what is is biblical preaching and what form should it take? Dr. David Bauer shares 4 common ways of preaching, based on a life-time committed to the practice of biblical preaching.
In the past couple of decades, The Ten Commandments have represented a fault-line in modern American “culture wars.” So how might pastors and congregations engage these texts in hopes of bearing spiritual fruit rather than only focusing conversation on questions of religious faith in the public sphere? Ten: Words of Life for an Addicted, Compulsive, Cynical, Divided, and Worn-Out Culture by Sean Gladding takes up this concern.
Wesley was “a man of one book,” meaning that for doctrine, devotion, and especially preaching, the Bible played an indispensable role. Using Wesley’s quote as a basic guide for reading Scripture, we may glean a healthy and balanced process of encountering God in Scripture by these 6 steps: read, pray, compare, meditate, consult, teach.
In order to interpret prophetic literature, it is important to first understand what it means to be a prophet. Prophets are commonly mistaken with oracles or clairvoyants, those who see and predict the future. While prophets did at times anticipate the future, prediction was not their primary role in biblical times. In the Old Testament, God charged specific men and women to bear supernatural messages to His people.
How should we understand Genesis 1-2 in context? What are the issues involved? Dr. Sandy Richter leads us in an introduction to these few chapters that are so foundational to the Christian faith. She argues that the central question for readers of the biblical text should be, “What is this author trying to say?”
