John's gospel immediately impresses us with how different it is than the others. There is no genealogy, no manger, no boyhood, no baptism, no temptation, no mount of transfiguration, and no Gethsemane. There are no scribes, lepers, publicans or demoniacs. There are no parables. Luke had written to show that Jesus was the Son of Man, but John to show he w… Read more…
Peter's epistle seems to have been written between AD 65 and AD 67, between the outbreak of Christian persecution and the outbreak of the Jewish war. The world was changing, and Peter felt the peril and suffering of the times. With Christianity in crisis, Peter had some things to say.
Peter had known Christ as few people have known hi… Read more…
Every movement of God needs a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit by the third generation. The first generation is motivated by conviction; great truths have been grasped, and those who have espoused them have a compulsion to spread those truths abroad. They will dare all and die for them. The second generation inherits these truths, but the conviction softens to… Read more…
Jude's original intention was to write a treatise on the subject of salvation. The Holy Spirit changed his mind, however, and he wrote, instead, a remarkable memorandum on apostasy. Suddenly, the full scope and horror of the apostasies that seemed to be surfacing everywhere in late apostolic times dawned upon him. Hence, his vivid little volume!
… Read more…
James was a man whom the Jerusalem church, a thoroughgoing Jewish church, much loved and honored. James modified his views on issues of circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and eating only ritually clean food as a concession to Paul's impassioned convictions. An all-out fight could have wrecked the church, that these two strong men avoided it is remarkable. Ja… Read more…
Romans is the gospel according to Paul. There can be little doubt that it was Paul who thought through the theological implications of Christianity. It was Paul who thought through the deeper meaning of the Old Testament in the light of Calvary and in the light of that great experience which was when, on the Damascus road, he came face to face with Jesus of … Read more…
Thoughtful people are insisting that if we are not living in the age of the Apocalypse, we must at least be living on he threshold of that age. So many significant things are happening. The rebirth of Israel, the rise of Russia, the increasing collective consciousness of Europe, the awakening of China, the resurgence of militant Islam, the political and mora… Read more…
Five warnings appear in Hebrews, and these have been the subject of much controversy. The epistle, if read excluding these warnings, suffers no change in meaning and even provides a new smoothness in the narrative and ease in following the main argument.
But when it comes to interpretation of these warnings, placed as they were by the Holy… Read more…
The Galatians had welcomed Paul with open arms and had received him, indeed, "as an angel of God" (Gal. 4:14). But that hospitable attitude did not last. They became prejudiced against Paul by false teachers who persuaded them to embrace "another gospel" (1:6). They had been "bewitched," Paul said (3:1) and had become as ready to "bite and devour one another… Read more…
The onslaught of a cult at nearby Colossae alerted Paul to growing dangers at Ephesus, but what destroyed the church there in the end was not falsehood, but formality. It became, so to speak, a cold, fundamental, orthodox, evangelical, Bible-believing church that lacked even a spark of its original love for Christ. As we read this Ephesian letter, what impre… Read more…
Satan took the truth of God and found agents to deny it, distort it, and debase it. He would alter a word here, snip out a bit there, and add something to that. He attacked the Word of God, the Son of God, and the Spirit of God. At Colosse, he attacked the deity of Christ first. Then came the additions: intellectualism, ritualism, legalism, mysticism, and as… Read more…
The book of Acts is a story of transition: it begins by showing us how the church came into existence, and at the end we see the final official rejection of Christianity by the Jews of the Diaspora in Rome. The story revolves around the personalities and ministries of three men - Simon, Stephen, and Saul. Simon Peter was the apostle to the Jews, and Saul (la… Read more…
Paul's style tended to be elliptical; the gaps had to be filled in by his readers. His transitions, by which he moved from one step to another, were also important and sometimes call for words to be supplied. Paul's sequences of thought were often subtle, complex, and hard to follow. Much of the problem goes back to the difficulty of the grammar in t… Read more…
Greek religion was an obscene collection of old wives' fables, utterly degenerate and debilitating to national character. Just the same, although Paul deplored Greek morals, he admired the Greek mind. When he received the "Macedonian call," he wasted no time in launching his gospel expedition.
Three of Paul's letters were addresse… Read more…
Paul was in Corinth when he wrote Romans 1:19-32. The sins listed there were everyday sins on the streets of Corinth, displayed as much in broadest daylight as at darkest midnight. It was no small thing to be a Christian at Corinth, to spurn its wares, to live there unspotted from the world. Christianity is in no peril from the Corinths of this world, howeve… Read more…
It is a book of facts, a book of firsts, a book of faith, a book of forecasts, a book of funerals. It has been called "the seedplot of the Bible" because all the vast forests of Scripture start there as seedlings. It is said to give us the beginning of everything except God.
It is the book of Genesis.
Genesis is the ope… Read more…
As we study the "Book of the Twelve" we will be stirred by the clarion sound of tumpets of war and by the measured tramp of marching feet. We will see great empires rise and fall. We will find ourselves in towns, villages, and world capitals, on mountaintops, and out in the raging deep. We will stand in busy markets and wilderness wastes; we will pause along… Read more…
Controversy over the Song of Solomon does not rage so much over the inspiration, the genuineness, or the canonicity of the book. It is centered rather on its interpretation. God is not mentioned in the Song, the book is not quoted elsewhere in the Old Testament, and is completely ignored in the New Testament. Yet it takes its place confidently with the other… Read more…
John Phillips advises us that his commentary is not much concerned with either the endless wrangles of liberal writers or with their criticisms of the book of Daniel. They have brought up their heavy artillery against it because of the minuteness of the predictions embracing even special events in the distant future.
Here Phillips leaves … Read more…
The Psalms are a vast storehouse of human experience touching all the notes in the keyboard of human emotion. There is love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, peace and strife, faith and despair. This is the stuff of which life is made, so it is no wonder that God's saints in all ages have felt the tug of the psalms.
In times of … Read more…
The Psalms are a vast storehouse of human experience touching all the notes in the keyboard of human emotion. There is love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, peace and strife, faith and despair. This is the stuff of which life is made, so it is no wonder that God's saints in all ages have felt the tug of the psalms.
In times of … Read more…
John Phillips wanted his commentary on Proverbs to be interesting, so he set the goal of illustrating each proverb. Illustrations are drawn from science, nature, fiction, history, his personal experience, and above all the Bible itself.
Here is the wisdom of Solomon — outlined, analyzed, illustrated, and available in an understandable an… Read more…
John Phillips wanted his commentary on Proverbs to be interesting, so he set the goal of illustrating each proverb. Illustrations are drawn from science, nature, fiction, history, his personal experience, and above all the Bible itself.
Here is the wisdom of Solomon — outlined, analyzed, illustrated, and available in an understandable an… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William BarclayÆs brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from renow… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William Barclay's brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from re… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William Barclay's brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from re… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William Barclay's brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from re… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William Barclay's brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from re… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William Barclay's brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from re… Read more…
For more than fifty years and for millions of readers around the world, the New Daily Study Bible commentaries have been the ideal help for both devotional and serious Bible study. William Barclay's brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach, and sheer enthusiasm have inspired generations of readers. These new editions contain a new foreword from re… Read more…
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