Category: NT
-
Christus Victor
Joshua’s conquest of Canaan is a foreshadowing of the great commission, the call to the church to go out into the world and bring it into submission to the King. God gave Joshua the authority of Moses and told him – go in, take the land that I have promised to give you, be careful…
-
Trinity at creation
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The Father and the Holy Spirit are clearly present at creation in Genesis 1. The Son…
-
Slaves to sin, slaves to God
We are all slaves. The Hebrews had made themselves slaves to the worthless gods of the Egyptians, so God made them slaves to Pharaoh. God did not bring the people out of Egypt so they could be an autonomous, self-mastered people. He spoke to Pharaoh through Moses, “Let my people go, that they may serve…
-
A new people, a new temple
Everett Fox, in his translation of the five books of Moses, points out that covenants were widely used to establish political relationships between kings and vassals, granting privileges and obligations for the parties involved. But no other ancient society “conceived of the possibility that a god could ‘cut a covenant’ with a people.” Calvin writes, “and…
-
An Appeal for Modesty
Compromise with the world has been an ongoing issue in the church since the beginning -from the sons of God desiring the daughters of men, to the Israelites demanding a king so they could be like other nations, to Paul dealing with the Corinthians in their drunkenness and immorality. It is certainly no less an issue today. We are…
-
Teach them diligently
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6,7 Children play a prominent role…
-
An Excellent Wife
This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Genesis 2:23 Proverbs is a book of kingly training, written by King Solomon for his son to learn to rule justly. Throughout the book, Wisdom is personified as a woman. In chapter…
-
All trifles vanish
And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. Malachi 2:15 God’s relationship with man is entirely covenantal. Deuteronomy 6 has come up several times in the Old Testament readings and it covers some very foundational…
-
Sex and the Bible
In Leviticus, the people are gathered at Sinai to receive the law. Chapter 18 deals with various sexual relationships and is bookended with God’s call for His people to set themselves apart from the practices of Egypt, which they had just left, and from those of Canaan, the place Yahweh was bringing them to. The list of…
-
Palm Sunday – Your King is Coming
Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ Mathew 21:5 Zechariah began to prophesy at the end of the exile, as God was preparing His people to return to their land and rebuild the…