Category Archives: Bible

Discussion starters – Judges 6-8

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  1. In Judges 6:13 Gideon asks, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?” Who today might be feeling the same?
  2. As soon as Gideon receives his commission from the Lord, he finds himself in conflict with his immediate family (6:25). In what ways do you find that your Christian faith brings you into conflict with those close to you? How do you deal with that?
  3. As with Moses (Exodus 3 &4), Gideon is reluctant to do what the Lord wants him to do (Judges 6:15).
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More urban legends of the Old Testament

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Having compiled a couple of sets relating to texts in the New Testament, I thought I’d take a look at some commonly-misunderstood texts from the Old Testament.  These are discussed more fully in the Bible Study Notes.

Here’s a start:-

Genesis 1 – Gap theory.  Is there a ‘gap’ between verses 1 and 2?  According to some, there first two verses teach that God created the heavens and the earth ‘in the beginning’ and that the earth became (some unspecified interval later) formless and void. …

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?  …