Category Archives: Bibliology

Pseudonymity and the New Testament

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After our freshman year at college, my best friend from high school and I got together and compared our experiences. I was attending FBBC while he attended another well-known Christian college. We both had learned so much and were really pleased with our education so far. Yet as we talked, he told me about something that disturbed him greatly. In his NT survey class his professor believed and taught that many of the epistles in the NT were not written by the claimed authors, but rather that they were pseudonymous.

Am I Feeding My People Mouse Poison? Jeremiah 23:15–32

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Some mice had been snacking on our chocolates at night, so we set out some mouse treats for them when we took a trip this winter. Know what? Inert ingredients make up 99.995% of the poison.1 The believer today must realize that false teachers try to feed people with the same type of bait. They add their own poison to God’s truth to end up with false teaching. Jeremiah warned the people of Judah repeatedly about the results of false teaching.

The Compromise of Jeroboam

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Jeroboam was the new king of the ten northern tribes that had split from the two southern tribes. Because of Rehoboam’s fool-hearty decision to oppress his people, the ten tribes crowned Jeroboam as their new king. From the beginning, this king compromised the commandments of God and plunged his nation into disobedience and spiritual apostasy. I. The Decree by the Unnamed Prophet Jeroboam wasted no time in violating the commandments of God. According to 1 Kings 12:25–33, the new king initiated four significant changes in the worship of God.

Theology and Thermodynamics: The Synergism

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Science and Religion The relationship today between science and religion is, to say the least, strained. This has not always been so. Many of the early scientists were devout Christians.1 Their work was fundamental to the development of modern science. Their influence and the rise of Christianity liberated science from the superstitions and polytheism that for centuries viewed the material world as being filled with various spirits and gods.2 Under the Christian worldview true science emerged as the material world was shown to be a proper object of study.

Another Look at the New Evangelicalism

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In the late 1940s there was a move by some leaders within conservative Protestantism toward a new kind of evangelicalism. It expressed dissatisfaction with fundamentalism (note Carl Henry’s book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, published in 1947, as well as Harold Ockenga’s inaugural address at the founding of Fuller Seminary that same year). Its new evangelicalism differed from the older fundamentalism in several ways. As their movement developed, some of these differences surfaced immediately and others more gradually. The overall difference could be noted as a change from recognizing the essential importance of doctrinal conviction and practice with a call to defend the truth, to a less precise view of doctrine, with an emphasis upon personal relationships, and a softened attitude toward (or capitulation to) the world’s way of thinking and doing.

Babel, Part 2

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Concluding the topic introduced in September’s issue, Dr. Whitcomb discusses God’s purpose for the division at Babel and His plan for its reversal. Peleg, which means “division,” was the name which this particular descendant of Noah and Shem acquired by virtue of his presence at the scene of God’s judgment of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 10:25). Surely, loving parents would not have named their son “Peleg” at the time of his birth, anymore than Nabal (= “fool”), the husband of Abigail, would have received such a name at his birth (cf.

Babel, Part 1

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God’s judgment of the Tower of Babel was one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the world. In one moment, a massive, highly complex building project, involving the entire human race, came to an end. Thousands of workers, linguistically unified and Satanically inspired, suddenly found themselves incapable of communicating with each other. Overwhelmed by fear and frustration, each worker took his family and moved away from the others. Mankind has never recovered. But what really happened, and why? For centuries, Bible students have wondered about the following three statements: • “Come, let us build for ourselves .

My Swan Song

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What does one say when one is about to depart from the institution that he has loved and served for 41 years? Is there a Scriptural text that deals with that subject? Yes, there are several. In the O.T., Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and David each gave a farewell address. In the N.T., Peter and Paul both wrote of their impending death in their final epistles. One’s final message is sometimes called a “swan song,” a term based on an ancient belief that the swan knew the hour of its death and announced it with a great cry or sweet song.

Christianity and Liberalism

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A century ago, a new, “modernist” liberal theology was infiltrating Protestant seminaries throughout the United States, transported primarily from Germany. J. Gresham Machen, an opponent of this new liberal theology, wrote a volume entitled Christianity and Liberalism in which he argued that historic Christianity and “modernist” theology were incompatible systems. To Bible-believing Christians like Machen, certain “fundamentals” were non-negotiable for authentic Christianity, such as the inspiration of Scripture, the deity and virgin birth of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the literal Second Coming.

Rote Memory

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In educational circles for the last half century or so, the words “rote memory” have become almost offensive to many. If the object of education is to teach people to think and to feel deeply, it seems either wasteful or damaging to require them at any level to memorize facts and lists. According to this idea, teaching rules of grammar may block the student’s creativity. Making him learn the multiplication table is a waste of his time when he can play store in school or buy a calculator cheaply in the check-out line.