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54 results for “Biblical interpretation”
Clear searchEzekiel 20, child sacrifice, and the judgement of being given over
…ains the judge, while their practices remain evil. E. W. Bullinger discusses this under a biblical idiom in which active language can describe permission. He applies the explanation to several New Testament passages, including those concerning hardening in Romans 9 and 11. This i…
Read article →Matthew, the Hebrew word almah, and a sign whose meaning reaches beyond Ahaz
…for example, speaks of a betulah mourning for “the husband of her youth,” a phrase whose interpretation is debated. Lexical choices are not algebraic codes. The careful conclusion is modest: almah means a young woman of marriageable age and is compatible with—often suggestive of…
Read article →Four popular claims tested in context
…ammad can be made to resemble someone mentioned in Scripture. The question is whether the biblical author identifies a future figure by characteristics which Muhammad actually fulfils. Three standards will govern the examination: Immediate context: words receive their meaning fro…
Read article →El, the Exodus, and the God Who Came from Sinai
…Canaanite religion. Israel lived within a wider Canaanite cultural world. Several ancient biblical poems describe Yahweh as coming from Sinai, Seir, Paran or Teman. Israelite and Judahite inscriptions attest forms of worship condemned by Scripture, including the notorious referen…
Read article →The brothers of Jesus, the sons of Mary, and an argument of strong plausibility
…s imposed upon an unrelated poem. Taken together, they establish Psalm 69 as an important biblical pattern of the Messiah’s righteous suffering. The question considered here is whether Psalm 69:8 belongs to that same pattern: “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien…
Read article →Does John 6 teach the literal eating of Christ's body?
…y is not offered as an infallible authority alongside Scripture. It demonstrates that the interpretation “eating is believing” is not a modern Protestant invention devised to escape an otherwise obvious Roman reading. What Rome claims—and what this article does not claim Fairness…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…s not name the son. Ishmael's identity must be inferred from the sequence and supplied by interpretation. This difference is fundamental. Christianity does not begin with an unnamed son and reason backwards from later religious geography. It begins with a text which repeatedly gi…
Read article →A response to Hank Hanegraaff on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation
Is the Pretribulation Rapture Without Biblical Basis? A response to Hank Hanegraaff on resurrection, Daniel’s final week, and the Tribulation In an article published by the Christian Research Institute, Hank Hanegraaff argues th…
Read article →Why a loaded label does not settle the question
Secret Rapture—or Biblical Distinction? Why a loaded label does not settle the question “The secret rapture is unbiblical.” The phrase is repeated so often that it can sound like an argument. It is not. Pretr…
Read article →The Messiah cut off before the Temple fell
…unsuspecting Jewish Bible. The prophecy was already there. The disagreement concerns its interpretation, not a Christian invention of the passage. How did Jews read it before Christianity? No surviving pre-Christian rabbinic commentary gives us a line-by-line exposition of Danie…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…swers do not prove the whole system. They clear away five common criticisms so the actual biblical questions can be heard. Criticism 1: “Dispensationalism was invented by Darby” John Nelson Darby played a major role in systematising and spreading nineteenth-century dispensational…
Read article →Why apantēsis does not settle the timing of the rapture
…The modest lexical conclusion is therefore the strongest one: apantēsis permits an escort interpretation, but it does not prove an immediate descent to earth. The forceful word in the sentence is not apantēsis The objection can focus so heavily on "meet" that it neglects Paul's m…
Read article →How Christians can think politically without surrendering conscience to a package deal
…feared or condemned. Once the package has been accepted, every new event arrives with an interpretation already attached. Christians should be especially cautious about this. We already have a faith, a moral authority and a final allegiance. A political party is a temporary coal…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
How Supersessionism Took Root in the Early Church A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension Supersessionism did not appear in one moment through one theologian. It developed as the Church became increasingly Gentile, separated socially…
Read article →Hippolytus · Exposition, prophecy, and polemic · early third century
…le for readers interested in prophecy. On Christ and Antichrist draws repeatedly from the biblical text and preserves a compelling early discussion of Daniel, the Antichrist, Christ's return, and the future kingdom. His Refutation of All Heresies also records and challenges many…
View recommendation →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…u a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." —1 Corinthians 15:51 A biblical mystery is not necessarily something never hinted at in any form. It is a divine purpose previously hidden or not disclosed with its present clarity. The bodily resurrection was not…
Read article →Michael Brown, 2 Thessalonians 1, and the public vindication of the saints
…rist’s revelation. The rapture exists to remove Christians from persecution. The first is biblical. The second is not the pretribulation claim. Would we find the rapture without first reading it in a book? Brown also tells an honest and rhetorically powerful personal story. He ha…
Read article →The positive argument of the whole series, brought together
…than it says. It is a cumulative and comparative case: which timing best explains all the biblical data together with the fewest forced exceptions? Scripture explicitly teaches the event. The Lord descends from heaven; the dead in Christ rise; living believers are changed; and to…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…resume a more distant subject, and covenant language understandably attracts a messianic interpretation. The cumulative context is stronger than the grammar by itself: a hostile ruler, an operative sacrificial order, a midpoint crisis, abomination, desolation, and a determined e…
Read article →The man of sin, the last trumpet, the first resurrection, and the last day
…ch's gathering, and the Tribulation martyrs raised for the kingdom. Augustine's spiritual interpretation deserves more respect than it sometimes receives. Scripture does speak of believers as already raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 3:1). Revelation 20's immediate…
Read article →Near-death experiences, neuroscience, and the authority of Christ
…r brain states can generate similar forms of perception; that does not mean the resulting interpretation is reliable. Nor does identifying neural correlates settle every philosophical question about consciousness. It does show that believers should be very wary of treating famili…
Read article →Spiritual ecstasy, altered states, and discerning what is from God
…. Their devotion may be sincere, disciplined, and deeply meaningful to them. In some Sufi interpretations, the movement is regarded as the consequence of ecstasy rather than a technique for creating it. Nevertheless, the comparison raises the central question of this study. Exper…
Read article →Regathering, national rebirth, and the spiritual renewal still to come
…re them to the land, cleanse them, pour out His Spirit, and bring them under Messiah? The biblical pattern is not merely return. It is national restoration completed by spiritual regeneration. Scattering and regathering belong to the same promise Moses warned Israel that covenant…
Read article →Eustathius of Antioch, the human soul of Christ and the pictures created by our words
…that the early Christians simply knew less Bible or believed in an unfinished Christ. The biblical realities were already present. What remained underdeveloped was the language capable of preserving all of them together. What must be held together John does not say that the Word…
Read article →Circumcision of the heart and the identity of Paul's inward Jew
…e circumcised in the flesh while remaining uncircumcised in heart (Jeremiah 9:25-26). The biblical contrast therefore existed within Israel long before the Church. A person could bear Abraham's physical sign and remain inwardly rebellious. The answer was not to deny that he was e…
Read article →History, heresy, and the temptation of private Christianity
…res often accompanied this architecture: aeons and the Pleroma, a Demiurge, allegorical reinterpretation of apostolic writings, claims to advanced tradition, docetic pressures on Christology, asceticism, elaborate initiation, and a distinction between an enlightened elite and ord…
Read article →Jesus and the fountain of living water
…the crowd could hear. He did not direct them towards another ceremony or merely offer an interpretation of the feast. He placed Himself at the centre of its promise: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." The water towards which the prophets pointed is found in Hi…
Read article →The LORD, Zion, and the meaning of Beulah in Isaiah 62:4–5
…brew expression, ḥepṣî-bāh, means “My delight is in her.” Isaiah immediately supplies its interpretation: “For the LORD delighteth in thee.” “Forsaken” described Zion as she appeared under judgement. Her city had been ravaged, her children scattered, and her land emptied. The nat…
Read article →Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation
…se its voice cannot be reproduced without becoming imitation. Shakespeare, Milton and the biblical prophets possess distinctive styles. No second writer can become Isaiah by approximating Isaiah's cadences. Yet stylistic singularity does not prove that every singular work was ver…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…e Gentiles, and the Church. That question matters because it touches three foundations of biblical faith: how we read Scripture, how we understand the character of God, and how we relate to the Jewish people. The words of a promise matter God called Abram from his country and pro…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
…s been enlarged and fulfilled. That argument rightly insists upon Christ's supremacy. Any interpretation which leaves Him at the edge of Israel's covenants has failed before it begins. He is not one beneficiary among many. He is the promised Seed through whom the nations are bles…
Read article →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
…ratives The Qur’an did not emerge in a cultural vacuum. It appeared in a world alive with biblical names, Jewish interpretation, Christian preaching, sectarian disagreement, devotional legend and stories carried across languages by travellers, merchants, clergy and ordinary belie…
Read article →Creation, judgement, and the coming reign of Christ
…ative Christians, the question can feel politically loaded before it has even been opened biblically. Environmental concern has become so closely associated with the political left, liberal theology, nature mysticism, animism, and neo-paganism that some Christians instinctively r…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…al fiction, not the Jesus presented across the Gospels. If he leaves because thousands of biblical manuscripts have been presented as thousands of corruptions, while every form of Qur’anic textual plurality is classified as perfect preservation, he has been taught two standards r…
Read article →One Messiah, one gospel, and God's continuing purpose for Israel
…ts, the teaching of Jesus, Acts, Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, and the history of Christian interpretation, the cumulative answer is no. God has judged Israel severely. The nation remains largely in unbelief and cannot inherit saving blessing apart from Jesus Christ. Yet God has no…
Read article →The glory philosophy could not contain
…impassible. (See Note 3.) That is not verbal evasion. It is the necessary grammar of the biblical facts. If we say that only an independent human person suffered, we divide Christ into two acting subjects. If we say that deity itself bled or died, we confuse the natures and turn…
Read article →Born, begotten and firstborn in the eternal identity and saving work of the Son
…economy; He never lacked divine authority or glory in eternity. Without this distinction, biblical statements can appear to conflict. Christ already possesses glory with the Father before the world exists (John 17:5), yet after His obedience unto death God “highly exalted him” (P…
Read article →Defining the position before testing it
…d, so that national Israel no longer possesses a distinct future in the fulfilment of the biblical covenants. The promises reach their final meaning in Christ and the Church; any future conversion of Jewish people is their entrance into the Church, not the restoration of Israel a…
Read article →A forensic reading of Christ's Olivet Discourse
…scourse is rooted in the land and institutions of Israel. Clue two: "elect" already has a biblical history The word "elect" does not arrive in Matthew without a history. In the Greek Old Testament and the KJV's rendering of Israel's Scriptures, election language can refer to the…
Read article →A sign of Israel's renewal, not Israel's disappearance
…rather than erasure. Twelve means Israel Israel's twelve-tribe identity runs through the biblical story. Jacob's twelve sons became the heads of the tribes. Moses built an altar with twelve pillars "according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Exodus 24:4). Twelve men represented…
Read article →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…doctrine of tahrif, or distortion. Muslim interpreters have consequently spoken of false interpretation, oral misrepresentation, concealment, textual alteration and loss in different combinations. But the passages do not establish that the entire Torah and Gospel had been textua…
Read article →Christ the promised Seed, Gentile inheritance, and Paul's final blessing
…e the Spirit, become sons of God, belong to Christ, and inherit according to promise. Any interpretation which leaves Gentiles outside the covenant blessings of Messiah contradicts Paul's argument. But participation must not be made to prove more than Paul says. Abraham's seed, c…
Read article →How the Law reaches its goal and appointed end in Christ
…promised Seed and the public revelation of faith in Him. Galatians therefore protects the interpretation of Romans 10:4 from two opposite errors. The Law was not a pointless detour with no relationship to Christ. Nor does its role continue unchanged after Christ has come. It poin…
Read article →Why Israel's failure cannot make the word of God fail
…d night has spoken it. Christ confirms rather than dissolves the promises Every Christian interpretation must be centred upon Jesus Christ. He is Abraham's Seed, David's Son, the mediator of the new covenant, and the only Saviour of Israel and the nations. No promise reaches fulf…
Read article →Faith, assurance, and the unseen reality of God
…s not mean we have become incapable of misunderstanding Him. We may need to reconsider an interpretation, correct an assumption, or acknowledge that we have spoken too confidently about something we do not fully understand. Assurance about God can coexist with humility about our…
Read article →The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels
…uted Jesus' disputes over the Sabbath are sometimes reduced to a disagreement about legal interpretation. He certainly exposes traditions which turned the Sabbath against human need. But His conclusion reaches beyond the authority of an ordinary interpreter: "Therefore the Son of…
Read article →Israel's Messiah, Israel's Scriptures, and a gospel for the world
…ry Jewish teacher is therefore necessary—but not sufficient. He did not merely repeat the interpretations around Him. He claimed authority over the sabbath, forgave sins, identified Himself with Daniel's Son of man, accepted messianic titles, and placed allegiance to Himself at t…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…Church receives responsibilities and privileges forfeited by the unbelieving rulers. Any interpretation which denies that transfer fails to hear the force of Jesus' warning. But the conclusion that this people permanently replaces Israel does not follow. The new husbandmen are f…
Read article →Election within Abraham's family, the believing remnant, and the future of the nation
…ticipation in God's saving purpose and traces that principle through Isaac and Jacob. Any interpretation which gives every Israelite an automatic right standing with God has missed his argument. But Paul does not mention the Church in Romans 9:6. Neither does he call Gentiles Isr…
Read article →Eitan Bar · Biblical and historical polemic · 2019
…g valuable context to questions about messianic prophecy, the New Testament, and rabbinic interpretation. The book is most useful when it sends the reader back to the Hebrew Scriptures to ask whether the traditional objection really accounts for the text in its own context. Bar w…
View recommendation →The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an
…ttab). The next verse says that Allah raised Jesus to Himself (Surah 4:158). The dominant interpretation in Islamic tradition is therefore that Jesus escaped crucifixion and another person was made to resemble Him. Some modern Muslim interpreters propose different readings, but m…
Read article →Augustine of Hippo · Spiritual autobiography and prayer · c. 397–400
…er books move from autobiography into difficult reflection on memory, time, creation, and biblical interpretation, and readers will not agree with every conclusion. Read the work prayerfully but discerningly, receiving its insight while testing its theology and exegesis by the Wo…
View recommendation →An unrequited love for the historic Church
…e confession did not invent the deity of Christ; it guarded the apostolic witness against interpretations designed to evade it. A later formulation can articulate an earlier truth with greater precision. But the category of development cannot be allowed to do unlimited work. It c…
Read article →Tal Brooke · Christian investigation · 1979
…ment reading for a subject on which personal testimony is often allowed to outrun careful biblical judgment. The book was written during the first great wave of modern interest in near-death experiences, so some research, personalities, and cultural references are now dated. Anec…
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