Category Archives: Bibliology

Ancient Egypt by the Nile

Joseph’s Prophetic Dreams and Their Fulfillment

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Genesis 37-50 records the incredible account of Joseph, his dysfunctional family, and God’s faithfulness through it all. Joseph’s prophetic dreams during his youth sustained him in his making wise choices throughout his life. Joseph had additional opportunities in the narrative to interpret dreams for the baker, the cupbearer, and for the great Pharaoh. But the ones we will focus on concern the dreams of his eventual exaltation above his brothers. This prophecy of exaltation has several unique features. First, in a narrow sense, it was focused on just one person—Joseph himself.

God’s Kingdom Program in the New Testament: A Biblical Theological Overview Part 2

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Introduction The kingdom of God is a complex biblical theme that spans across the two testaments. This article continues a very brief biblical/theological overview of the kingdom theme. The former article considered precursors to the kingdom theme, the foundation of the kingdom of God theme in the Davidic Covenant, and selected predictions of the kingdom in the Prophetic Books. Specifically, the previous article concluded that the concept of the kingdom of God (which is different than His sovereign rule over all creation), takes on definite shape in the Davidic Covenant, which promises that David will have a descendant who will rule over an earthly and eternal kingdom (2 ‍Sam 7:16).

God’s Kingdom Program in the Old Testament: A Biblical Theological Overview Part 1

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Introduction The kingdom of God is a prominent and multi-faceted biblical theme. Kingdom concepts can be found in virtually every biblical book, and it touches on a wide range of biblical ideas. While it is debatable whether the kingdom of God is the over-arching theme of the Bible, it certainly is a theme that transcends several eras of biblical history and binds together several strands of biblical revelation. The goal of this article is to give a brief biblical/theological overview of the kingdom theme in the Old Testament.

Sound Exegesis— Sound Living

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Shaky Exegesis— Shaky Living During the earthquake of modernism that shook and collapsed the orthodoxy of many churches and denominations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, another earthquake was also taking place off the shores of Christianity—the birth of modern secular psychology. This earthquake happened along similar fault lines as the earthquake of theological modernism. Its upheaval ultimately resulted in a tsunami—Christian integrationist psychology—that not only swept over many evangelical churches and parachurch organizations, but also swept into fundamentalism.

The Baptist Fundamentals (1920/1921) and Hermeneutics

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In 1920 Curtis Lee Laws proposed that those who cling to and earnestly contend for “the great fundamentals” of the Christian faith be called “fundamentalists.”1 For twenty-five years, Laws served as the editor of the Watchman Examiner, a Baptist publication. The most commonly cited list of the “fundamentals of the faith,” however, is the Five Point Deliverance (1901) used in the fundamentalist-modernist debates within the Presbyterian denomination.2 Yet in June of 1920, conservatives within the Northern Baptist Convention hosted a “Pre-convention Conference on Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith” in Buffalo, New York, that resulted in a volume entitled Baptist Fundamentals (Judson Press, 1920).

The Task of Exegesis

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One of the hallmarks of The Fundamentals1 was its high view of Scripture. This emphasis resulted naturally from the historical challenges posed by modernism.2 With its historical skepticism, Modernism questioned not only the authorship and dates of biblical books, but also denied the supernatural content that is recorded in those books. As a result, The Fundamentals sought to defend the accuracy and authority of the Bible from its detractors. As one peruses the table of contents of The Fundamentals, one sees a number of articles that relate directly to a high view of Scripture and its authenticity.

The Grammatical-Historical Hermeneutic

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Communication involves at least two parties in its process: the communicator who delivers the message and the recipient. Both individuals must follow some basic principles for communication to occur: the communicator must express the message clearly, and the recipient must understand the communicator’s meaning in its context. If individuals follow these rules for communication, how much more significant is the practice of attempting to understand correctly what God has recorded for them in His Word? This attempt at accurate comprehension is the study of interpretation, also known as hermeneutics.

Biblical Hermeneutics and Postmodernism

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In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty and Alice share this playful exchange: “And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!” “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

A Baptist Perspective on Reformed Theology

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The term Reformed theology means different things to different people. For some, this term simply refers to the ‘doctrines of grace’ which are also known as the five points of Calvinism. They are: Total depravity: Sin has so affected all areas of our personality that no one seeks after God. Unconditional election: God’s choice of some to be saved was not based on foreseen merit or faith. Limited atonement: God’s purpose in sending His Son was to actually save and preserve the elect.

Colossians 2:11-12 and the Circumcision-Infant Baptism Analogy

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Most Baptists have heard of Reformed and Presbyterian churches who baptize babies, because “the practice of circumcision in the Old Testament (OT) is replaced by infant baptism in the New.” Verses cited in support of this analogy include Gen. 17:7–8; Gal. 3:9, 14; Col. 2:11–12; Acts 2:38–39; Rom. 4:11–12; 1 Cor. 7:14; Matt. 28:19; Mark 10:13–16; and Luke 18:15.1The challenge for those who use this analogy is that these passages either mention circumcision (Gen. 17:7–8; Rom. 4:11–12) or baptism (Acts 2:38–39; Matt.