Category Archives: Bible

Preaching from the Old Testament? Use Biblical theology!

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Biblical theology (a slightly unfortunate expression, because all theology should be biblical!) means ‘looking for, and following, the connecting themes that run through the Scriptures’ (Millar and Campbell).  In other words, it is discerning the Bible’s overall story; its big picture.

How can biblical theology be used to preach Christian truth from the Old Testament?

Gary Millar offers the following options:

  1. Follow the plan.  Sometimes, a forwards trajectory is present in the OT passage itself.  Ruth 4 (which traces Ruth’s descendants down to King David) and 2 Kings 11 (where that same royal line is in jeopardy) are cases in point. 
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Galatians 3:28 – ‘All one in Christ Jesus’

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Gal 3:28 – There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

It is a real shame that, as with a number of ‘problem texts’, there is a danger of losing the positive meaning in the flurry of controversy that surrounds it.

But controversy there is, and we must face up to it.  For this verse has, in recent years, become the locus classicus for social egalitarians.…

1 Timothy 2:4 – ‘God wants all people to be saved’

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2:3 Such prayer for all is good and welcomed before God our Savior, 2:4 since he wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Various interpretations have been offered:

1. ‘God wants all people to be saved.  Since his will cannot be thwarted, all therefore will be saved.’

This is the view of Hanson.  But, as Moo states, the problem with a universalistic interpretation

‘is that Paul teaches quite explicitly in this very letter—indeed, in the next verse—that faith, which Paul confines to this life and limits only to some people, is necessary for salvation (see also 1 Tim 1:16; 3:16; 4:10).’

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Mark 12:41-44/Luke 21:1-4 – ‘The widow’s mite’

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Mk 12:41 Then he sat down opposite the offering box, and watched the crowd putting coins into it. Many rich people were throwing in large amounts. 12:42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, worth less than a penny. 12:43 He called his disciples and said to them, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the offering box than all the others. 12:44 For they all gave out of their wealth.…

Romans 5:18 – ‘Life for all?’

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Some have taken Paul to be teaching universalism here. For Kasemann, ‘all-powerful grace is unthinkable without eschatological universalism.’

In The Lost Message of Paul (ch 19), Steve Chalke insists that, for Paul, ‘all people’ must mean ‘all people without exception’.  The gift of life is co-extensive for ‘all men’ with the sentence of condemnation ‘for all men’.  To interpret otherwise, he says, is not only ‘disingenuous’, but also renders Paul’s language incoherent.  I think that Chalke’s summary rejection of alternative views, together with his dismissal of those who hold them as ‘disingenuous’ is irresponsible.…

The genealogical Adam and Eve

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Very often it’s put to us as a stark choice: either you accept the biblical account of human origins, or you accept the scientific account.  Either you believe that we are all direct descendants of Adam and Eve, or that we are all products of a long evolutionary process, stretching back a million years or more to a (non-human) common ancestor.

But can we have our cake and eat it?  Can we hold both to the essential factual historicity of the accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and to the validity of evolutionary science?…

Luke 7:2 – ‘Highly valued servant’ or ‘gay lover’?

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Luke 7:2-3 A centurion there had a slave who was highly regarded, but who was sick and at the point of death. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.

(See also: Matthew 8:5 When [Jesus] entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help: 8:6 “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible anguish.” 8:7 Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”)…

Mark 6:45 – ‘To Bethsaida’

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Mark 6:45f ‘Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dispersed the crowd. After saying good-bye to them, he went to the mountain to pray.’

Lk 9:10 appears to place the miracle at or near Bethsaida.  Matthew, whose account many judge to be based on that of Mark, omits the references to Bethsaida.  Was he, perhaps, correcting what he saw to be a minor problem in Mark’s account?  …

1 Corinthians 15:44 – ‘Raised a spiritual body’

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1 Corinthians 15:42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 15:44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Paul’s teaching here has led some to interpret the resurrection appearances of vv5-8 as non-physical, amounting to something like subjective visions.  …

Mt 13:31; Mk 4:31 – ‘The smallest of all the seeds’?

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Mt 13:31f “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.  It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the wild birds come and nest in its branches.”

Mk 4:30-32  “To what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use to present it?  It is like a mustard seed that when sown in the ground, even though it is the smallest of all the seeds in the ground—when it is sown, it grows up, becomes the greatest of all garden plants, and grows large branches so that the wild birds can nest in its shade.” …