The Bible in Context
In the past thirty years the doctrine of hell has been the subject of much controversy. According to the dominant historic Christian view, hell is a place of eternal conscious torment for rebellious, unbelieving humans (and demons and Satan). Notice that there are five necessary elements to the traditional view of hell: a place in … Read more
John Calvin (1509-1564) was one of the most prolific and influential Bible interpreters in Christian history. He wrote a commentary on almost every book of the Bible and he systematized his understanding of the Bible in his magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion. I was interested in what Calvin had to say about two … Read more
I’m upset. How could I have been reading the Bible for so long and missed something so obvious? I think I know how. I read Protestant commentaries. Some of those commentaries are especially good at listing various interpretations of a passage but never coming to a decisive conclusion. The passage I’m talking about is 1 … Read more
Updated November 2023 Divine violence in the Bible is a huge challenge. Here’s the problem in a nutshell. Christ—the perfect revelation of God—taught and practiced nonviolence, even to the point of allowing himself to be mocked, beaten, and killed. We don’t have a single example of Christ physically harming another human being. And yet the … Read more
Slavery is evil. It is wrong for one person to own another person. While people argue in favor of various moral issues, no one is arguing in favor of slavery. The issue is clear-cut: slavery is wrong. That brings up a problem for readers of the New Testament. Why is slavery mentioned in several places … Read more