I updated this post. Scripture: Deuteronomy 21:10-14. I knew a kid named Carl at elementary school, my contemporary. He was half European-American and half Japanese. His dad had married a Japanese girl after WWII and brought her over here.
Scripture: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 and Exodus 22:16-17. Is the titled question true? Or are there circumstances that clarify what was really going on? A parallel case in colonial Philadelphia is also included here.
Critics of the Bible forget that it also advocates liberty. It’s the Grand Arc of the Biblical Narrative, from Genesis to Revelation. Let’s see if we can discover universal truths from these historical, culture-bound slave laws. I updated this post.
This a table of Messianic prophecies, which go a long way in building up our faith and the reliability of the Bible. It also answers the question: How does this post help me grow in God?
The Book of Genesis is the story of the families of earth, as the author narrows them down to one family in particular. This one major family, whose patriarch is declared righteous for his faith, will lead to the Messiah about 2000 to 1800 years later, about seventy years before the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.
Hostile critics turn molehills into mountains. They apply unequal weights and measures to the Old Testament and the synoptic Gospels and John. That’s unfair. The Gospel writers were conforming to Old Testament precedence. Here’s the evidence.
Not every corner of the American church, but large sections are unhealthy, particularly in the Renewal Movements.
What are they? What are their motives and purposes? How do we discern the differences, when they seem so similar?
Who were they? A satanic hybrid or just extra-tall human warriors? Do they appear today? Should we obsess over them? This post also has a modern angle and is pastoral.
Does the church replace Israel? Or is replacement theology partly true and partly false, depending on definitions and contexts? After exegeting a key passage in Romans and looking at others, I finally made up my mind (for what it’s worth).
The Palestinian media say that Jesus was a Palestinian. A Dutch film says the same. Would the so-called “historical” Jesus recognize the label? How did he refer to his homeland, even under Roman occupation? Clarity and historical accuracy, not politics, is the purpose of this article.
Renewalists use the term all the time, but do we know what it means? What does the Bible say?
American Bible teachers appear confused about biblical interpretation between the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT).
Who were the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6 and elsewhere? I updated it yet again!
Here are biblical passages that show that people outside of ancient Israel and the law of Moses had a level of the knowledge of God, most likely because God revealed himself to them.
Youtube critics daily, it seems, call for the blood of Christian prophets who are mistaken about some of their prophecies. The critics read Deuteronomy 13 and 18 and sarcastically demand the death penalty for their ministries. But what did Paul say about their mistakes? Let’s do a side-by-side comparison of the OT and the NT.
This difference is what Jesus established and the New Testament authors laid out in the Scriptures. It’s really very simple.
Do we ignore the Old Law so we can be free to live as we wish in the New Covenant? What about Christian Sabbath keeping? What does the Bible really say?
How much continuity and discontinuity is there between the New Covenant and the Sinai Covenant? This article is designed to answer the confusion between hyper-grace on the one side and legalism on the other.
God’s New Covenant plan is much better than an obsolete, national, theocratic tax designed to support an obsolete, national, religious system. God has a better way for the New Covenant church.
We all need to participate. But how exactly?
A brief history of a controversy over the Bible in America, since the 1970s. I offer my view of Scripture, at the end.
Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and tsunamis—natural disasters slam humankind every year. Did God do that? What does the Bible say? Two different covenants make all the difference—a progressive revelation.
When the Old and New Testaments are interpreted carefully and rightly, using Scripture to interpret Scripture, this truth will emerge: Jesus Christ fulfills the old law, in many, many areas.
In the current confusion in society, we need clarity. The Bible still has wisdom to teach us, if we listen.
Does the Old Testament demand literal retaliation for a wrong? Should an eye or a tooth be gouged or knocked out—physically? What about the teaching of Jesus? Does he raise our vision to a higher calling? How do we forgive a tort or a physical injury? How do we get compensated for damages?
Many claim that the birth narratives in the Gospels–here the third Gospel–were merely reshaped copies of Greco-Roman myths. True?
These verses on healing and deliverance are foundational for the entire Old Testament and for the entire Bible.
In Genesis healing is about fertility. It is God’s promise to those who live by his commands. It is his blessing. And this first book of the Bible teaches us that God can answer prayers for fertility, to remove the sadness of infertility.
How do biblical covenants bear on that extremely important question today? Do the Sinai Covenant or the New Covenant cancel the Abrahamic covenants? What does the remnant mean in the Bible?
Here are the verses where the words love and grace in their various forms appear in the biblical prophets. Great for a series of sermons and Bible studies or your personal edification.
This is for your Bible study and sermon series and personal edification. All the words for love and grace in these three books of the biblical Wisdom literature are found here. Great for your personal edification or a series in a Bible study or sermons.
Even though these verses have an ancient historical context, they are spoken to you today. Such verses are timeless and universal in that way, if we interpret them properly. Great for a sermon or Bible study series or your personal edification.
The Torah is the first five books of the Bible. Yes, God’s love and grace can be found in this section of Scripture. It is not always and only wrath and judgment. Great for your personal edification or a series in a Bible study or sermons.
So begins an eight-past series. In the late 1980s or early 1990s, a pastor reported this conversation (as I recall it) between him and a woman from his large congregation. She apparently wanted him to approve of something.
Despite the confusion circulating over the web for years, the Bible unambiguously upholds the sanctity of prenatal life.
Scriptures: Lev. 25:44-46 and Deut. 23:15-16 (and Exod. 21:16, again, with its parallel Deut. 24:7). As we have observed in this series, slavery was a cultural fact of the ancient Near East. When an Israelite bought a foreign slave or a foreigner residing among them, what were the owner’s obligations to care for them and what rights did the slaves have? This post also has two parallel cases in colonial Virginia.
Scripture: Lev. 19:20-22. One OT scholar says that this law protected a slave woman when she was caught in the middle between three men.
Scriptures: Exod. 21:20-21, 26-27; Lev. 25:43, 46. There were two cultural (and unpleasant) facts in the ancient Near East, long before the Torah existed: (1) Masters hit their slaves to punish them, and (2) slaves had secondary status. How does the Torah intervene and regulate those two pre-existing facts? (I also include cases of a servant girl dying allegedly from a beating and a servant boy who was flogged for theft, in colonial Philadelphia, just for comparison.)
Scripture: Exod. 21:7-11. In a culture of arranged marriage and widespread poverty, fathers in the ancient Near East did this long before the Torah existed. Now the Torah has to intervene and tell the men what the daughter’s legal rights were. This post also looks at polygamy.
Scriptures: Exod. 21:2-6; Lev. 25:39-42; Deut. 15:12-18. The Torah balances out fairness with generosity, yet it is still obviously situated in the ancient world–its own cultural context. It is always best to evaluate these ancient texts on their own terms and in their own times. Let’s see what we can discover. For comparison, this post includes the case of an indentured servant in colonial Philadelphia.
Scripture to be studied: Gen. 16:1-4. Hagar was a handmaid to Abraham’s wife, Sarah. Critics claim that Abraham could have sex with Hagar whenever he wanted because she was a slave. (This post also looks into polygamy. Then it includes a case of a lave woman named Lucy and her three children in 1827-1828, South Carolina, America, just for a comparison.
Who were the “gods” and “sons of the Most High” in Psalm 82:6? Whom does Jesus say they were in John 10:34-36? Many commentators offer their opinion, and they are unanimous about who they were not. Now what about–who they were?
The title could also be “Is God Bound to Obey Our Decrees and Declarations?” That’s what certain teachers seem to say. Let’s look into this subject.
It is a widely used (and abused) biblical word. What does it really mean?
That’s a shock. Aren’t we supposed to obey the Ten Commandments? Well … only if you don’t do something else first.
This is an old-fashioned look at a Hebrew lexicon and two Greek lexicons, but in an easy-to-read format for nontechnical readers of the Bible. The definitions are wide-ranging and unexpected.
He seems to be a mysterious figure. Some say he was a Christophany (manifestation) of the preincarnate Christ. But who was he according to the entire Scriptures that mention him? An old-fashioned Bible study here.
What’s with all the wrathin’ and a-smitin’ in the Old Testament? If grace teachers don’t explore this topic, some people may accuse them of hiding unpleasant truths and focusing on feel-good, sugarcoated doctrines alone.
He shares it with us. It means everything to your life in Christ. Let is shine on you.
God shares this attribute with us, in manifesting his presence, even visibly sometimes. God’s glory can even include material prosperity. Don’t believe it?
Here is a list of the principal works referenced or used at this site. More will be added as time goes on, so please check back.
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 