Category Archives: Bible

The Puritans as interpreters of Scripture

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Some general statements:-

1.  Puritan exegetes are pre-modern, in the sense that they emphasise the similarities between their culture and that of biblical times rather than the differences.  They felt a kinship with biblical characters and their experiences because they belonged to the same human race, worshiped the same unchanging God, and struggled with the same spiritual problems.

2.  Puritan grammatical-historical exegesis is remarkably competent, as an informed reading of Matthew Henry’s commentary demonstrates.

3.  Puritans exegeted Scripture in order to apply it.…

The influence of theology on science

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The relationship between science and Christian theology is much closer than many – including Richard Dawkins and the other New Atheists, would have us believe.  Colin Russell, Emeritus Professor of the History of Science and Technology at the Open University, has a number of ways in which Christian theology has influenced the growth and development of science:-

1.  The elimination of ‘myth’ from nature.  An animate nature is not susceptible to scientific enquiry, not compatible with the biblical injunction to treat nature as a dependent creation of God, Psa 29, 89, 104, 137, who alone is to be worshipped, Deut 26:11; Isa 44:24; Jer 7:18.…

On reading the Bible

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Some basic hints:-

1.  Meet the Author.  J.I. Packer has written, ‘The joy of Bible study is not the fun of collecting esoteric titbits about Gog and Magog, Tubal-Cain and Methuselah, Bible numerics and the beast, and so on; nor is it the pleasure, intense for the tidy-minded, of analysing our translated text into preacher’s pretty patterns, with neatly numbered headings held together by apt alliteration’s artful aid.  Rather, it is the deep contentment that comes of communing with the living Lord into whose presence the Bible takes us – a joy which only his own true disciples know.’…