Tag: Hermeneutics
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The apostle Paul is one of the most familiar figures in Christian history, and that familiarity is part of the problem. Many readers already “know” Paul before they read him. He is often imagined as the former Jew (Saul) who left Judaism behind, the preacher of grace who rejected law, the founder of Christianity, or…
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What is the Problem? The Law, or Torah, is often disregarded in modern Christian thought. Many believers assume the Torah is incomplete, harsh, legalistic, or unable to reveal God’s true heart. Some even speak as though Jesus came to save us from the Law. But if that is true, what exactly was wrong with it?…
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Ad fontes means “to the sources.” It was one of the great cries of the Renaissance and Reformation. Humanists and Reformers believed that renewal required returning to the earliest witnesses rather than relying only on inherited interpretations. For the Reformers, this meant returning to Scripture in its original languages—Hebrew and Greek—so the church could hear…
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Most Christians are familiar with the idea of “the end times” and are usually familiar with a modern concept of being removed from the earth to a place called “heaven” when you die. But few realize that Jesus and the apostles understood history and the end times through a very Jewish framework called the “two…
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The Forgotten Bridge: Why 1 Maccabees Matters for Followers of Jesus If you’ve ever read your Bible straight through, you may have felt the silence between Malachi and Matthew. The story seems to pause, only to suddenly reopen in a world filled with Roman rule, Temple activity, and deep expectation for a coming Messiah. But…
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When We Misread What We Don’t Understand There’s a peculiar phrase in an old American song that most of us have heard but few have ever really understood: “Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.” At face value, it sounds like nonsense. What does pasta have to do with a…
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The Not So “Silent Years” When we open the pages of the New Testament, we step into a world already in motion—a world shaped by centuries of history, struggle, faithfulness, and expectation. That world is what scholars call the Second Temple Period, and without understanding it, many parts of Scripture can feel disconnected or confusing.…
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Replacement theology—also called supersessionism in academic circles—is the belief that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s covenant plan. According to this view, the promises God made to the Jewish people in the Hebrew Scriptures are no longer directed toward them as a people. Instead, the Church is believed to have inherited those promises in…
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The Gospel of the Kingdom When most Christians hear the word gospel, they often think of a simple statement such as, “Jesus died for your sins so you can go to heaven.” While that contains truth, the Scriptures describe the gospel in a much larger way. In the Bible, the gospel is not only about…
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Free From What? Free For Whom? Few words are more celebrated in modern American life than freedom. Usually, we mean the freedom to choose, to define ourselves, and to live without restraint. Freedom sounds like autonomy. It sounds like answering to no one but ourselves. But in Scripture, freedom is not self-rule. It is deliverance…