Faith in Jesus: What Does It Mean to Believe in Him?
Faith in Jesus: What Does It Mean to Believe in Him? By Edwin Aaron Ediger, ed. Roy B. Zuck. Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2012. 430 pp. Paper, $30.95. This is a tough book to review. On the one hand, Ediger does a great job of explaining and defending many Free Grace interpretations of tough texts. […]
The Sovereignty of God: Contemporary Evangelical Attestation Versus Biblical Attestation
Jeremy D. Edmondson I. INTRODUCTION God is sovereign, a truth clearly stated in Scripture: “Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants” (Ps 119:90-91, ESV). But as with any statement, terms must be defined. What […]
The Stone/Rock/Tomb Motif in Matthew
Bob Swift In Memoriam1 I. INTRODUCTION In Matthew’s Gospel, the words “stone” (lithos) and “rock” (petra) occur ten times (Matt 3:9; 4:3, 6; 7:9; 21:42, 44; 24:2; 27:60, 66; 28:2) and five times (Matt 7:24, 25; 16:18; 27:51, 60),2 respectively. The related word “tomb” (taphos or mnēmeion) occurs thirteen times (taphos in Matt 23:27, 29; […]
The Simple Life Is Meaningful
By Randy White Somewhere in the past 40 years “Purpose” has become our god. I suppose Rick Warren revealed this god more than he invented it in his wildly successful book, The Purpose Driven Life. Somewhere, having Purpose (yes, I’m capitalizing it on purpose, since it has taken on a god-like status) became a “must […]
Bible Bloopers and How to Avoid Them
By Marcia Hornok Making Assumptions While the Bible has no bloopers, the way we visualize the written Word might. For example, when Joseph’s eleven brothers came to him, we picture Benjamin as a youth because he was the youngest. However, shortly thereafter, all seventy members of Jacob’s family moved to Egypt, and the name list […]
R-E-S-P-E-C-T — Ephesians 5:22-24
By David Bechtel On Thursday, August 16th, 2018, the world lost one of its great voices, the “Queen of Soul”—Aretha Franklin. She was perhaps best known for her recording of the song “Respect.” But, perhaps few know that the song was originally written by a man—Otis Redding. Redding wrote and released the hit song “Respect” […]
Avoiding Small Church Ruts
By Josh Meier Permanent state or Temporary circumstance? Someone once said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The difference is thinking of poverty as an intrinsic quality versus thinking of it as a temporary circumstance. While that attitude may have […]
Appropriating Faith
By James Morison (1816-1893) Some of our older theologians—inclusive of many of the “Marrow-men”—spoke much of the appropriating act of faith. It was this act which they supposed to be saving. “In the direct act of saving faith,” says Anderson, “a person appropriates Christ crucified to himself, saying with the heart, I am verily persuaded […]
Learning to Sorrow in Hope
By Allen Rea On April 23, 2018, after fighting her disease for a very long time, my mother died. The woman that gave birth to me, that cooked me many meals, that loved and supported my every action, left this world. It has been said that when one loses a parent, he loses a part […]
Loving Me Enough
By Charlie McCall Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? (Heb 12:7). A summer staff worker whom I was disciplining made two statements to me. The first was in anger, and I expected it: “You don’t have any right to […]