INTRODUCTION TO EPHESIANS Ephesus The great city of Ephesus lay on the main route between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire, and was one of the major cities of the ancient world. By Paul’s time, it had become the capital city of the province of Asia (in modern Turkey). Ephesus was renowned as a “political, commercial, and religious center.” We are also told that “it boasted a 25,000 seat theatre, a race course, and the temple of …
Category: Biblical Studies
D. Jesus as the Word Even though the teaching of the “Word” or “Logos” appears prominently and explicitly in the prologue to John’s Gospel, the theme runs through the whole of the Gospel.[1] John stresses the words of Jesus as having special significance as words: Rhemata is used nine times for His words (5:47; 6:63, 68; 8:20;10:21; 12:47, 48; 14:10; 15:7), and three times for the words of God spoken by Jesus (3:34; 8:47; 17:8). John employs logos three times …
C. The Roles of the Logos Although the wording is brilliantly simple, an examination of the Prologue furnishes for us a great deal of help concerning what might be called the “roles” of the Logos. To begin with, the prologue places in front of us these facts: The Logos is a Person (1:3, 4, 14). There are three relations of Christ the Logos recorded in these opening verses. First, there is His relation with the Father “In the …
It may sound somewhat unseemly for any theologian to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ as “the Logos of God,” but to conceive of Him (momentarily) in this abstract way opens up new lines of inquiry that are harder to see under His personal name. And, after all, the Apostle John was the first to do it. If one comes to the term “Logos” with the mindset of the ancient Greek philosophers, the best thing that could be extracted from …
A Reply to “An Open Letter To Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties: The People of God, The Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the Gospel,” issued by Knox Theological Seminary. This is a paper I wrote for the Conservative Theological Journal which never saw the light of day (I can’t grumble, I used to edit it). I have been reading Kim Riddlebarger’s A Case for Amillennialism and Timothy Weber’s On the Road to Armaggeddon and I remembered the piece, …
Below is a little study I presented to a study-group a while back. Since the subject is one which is often not well understood, I thought this short paper would be profitable to some readers. When one asks the question as to how the Lord Jesus could be both man and God, that is, the Theos-aner, one is asking one of the most difficult, as well as perhaps the most argued about doctrinal questions of all. Before attempting a formulation …
The identity of the “Sons of God” in the sixth chapter of Genesis is and always has been, as one OT writer has put it, “the subject of a longstanding debate among biblical scholars.”[1] Whichever view is taken of them, it cannot be doubted that even amid the extraordinary stories in Genesis 1-11, the first four verses of Genesis 6 are extremely enigmatic. Why does the human author (Moses) use this term the “Sons of God”? Who are the “Nephilim” …
The Wisdom books provide us with a great deal of profitable information to help us live wisely and piously in the midst of our age of uncertainty. Here is a brief attempt to construct a worldview oriented to the perspective of these books. a. Foundation for Thought. Throughout these three books (but especially in Proverbs) there is to be seen a clear antithesis between God-centered (Theistic) thinking, and man-centered (Anti-theistic) thinking. To “fear the Lord” (Prov. 1:7; Job …
Liberal Challenges to the Historicity of the Old Testament: Outline – lectures originally presented at an intensive course on Old Testament studies. Lecture 1: A Short History of OT Liberal Criticism Lecture 2: The Rise of the Revisionists Lecture 3: Facts We Can Verify …
LIBERAL CHALLENGES TO THE HISTORICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT OUTLINE: Lecture 1: A Short History of OT Liberal Criticism. Introduction Major Critics of the Old Testament: Celsus (d. c. 180) Porphyry (c. 234-c. 305). Astruc (1684-1766) Eichhorn (1752-1857) German Higher Criticism: Wellhausen (1844-1918) Troeltsch (1865-1923) Noth (1902-1968) Albright (1891-1971) Mendenhall (present) The Conservative Response Conclusion. Lecture 2: The Rise of the Revisionists. Introduction What’s All The Fuss About? Inspecting The Assertions Historiography: Art or Science? The Quest for Scientific Respectability …