Archive for category: Exegesis

First, a blessed Christmas to you all. For those rejoicing, may you do so to His glory. For those of you bearing burdens at this time of year, especially those who have lost a loved one in the past year, may you find God to be your consolation and comfort in all things. Just one entry today (and yes, I

Every apologist knows the passage by heart: 1 Peter 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; (NASB) But did you know this passage identifies Jesus as YHWH? Note the Greek

I will be preaching on the Isaiah 7-9 section (“Immanuel” and “Mighty God” passages) next Sunday at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. I just love this section (my first sermon at PRBC was on Isaiah 6, actually). Keil and Delitzsch made a comment regarding the use of “mighty God” that I’ve noted in the past: The name gibbor is used

 Gal. 5:3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.  Not only will Christ not allow himself to be joined to human self-righteousness, but the Apostle makes sure everyone understands that there is no such thing as partial righteousness in the law: one either follows the whole of

Gal. 5:2: Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.  Here is the outward manifestation of the yoke of slavery, circumcision. But here we see clearly the relationship that is being missed by many today. Why would Paul say to anyone, “Christ will be of no benefit to you”

In the midst of the battle the text of Scripture suffers at the hands of those who seek to mold it to their theology. Recently Paul’s words in Galatians 5 have suffered egregiously. Let’s remind ourselves of what Paul actually said:  Galatians 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be

Every generation is called to “agonize” for the “once for all delivered to the saints faith” (Jude 3), and ours is no exception. Indeed, it seems like those who wish to obscure the clarity of the gospel have become “legion” indeed in our day. No text of Holy Writ, no matter how clear or compelling, and no matter how often

Eric Svendsen has replied to comments by Paul Owen on Galatians 5:2. I would still like to find time to interact with Owen’s claims on exegetical grounds, but have two publishing deadlines to wrestle with as well. We will see.

On 3/26 I posted a response to an article on John 6. The authors have replied, in a sense, here. I say in a sense because in essence the entire reply is a defense of using their unique dispensational construct to avoid the grammatical and syntactical problems with their interpretation. Evidently, they believe their over-all system trumps the details of

Read the following passages in parallel: Mt. 27:35ff, Mark 15:24ff, Luke 23:33ff, and John 19:18ff.  Note a significant variation? Then realize that the first sentence of Luke 23:34 is not found in the following witnesses:P75, a1, B D* W Q 070 579 1241 pc a sys sa bopt (I know, this is for Greek geeks….it’s still interesting). Cryptic?  Yes, but

The Gobbler (don’t ask, we won’t tell) pointed out to me today the ironic words of J. Gresham Machen in his notes on Galatians…ironic because they appear under the subtitle “Plain Meaning” as I recall. Please don’t ask me where Machen absorbed these radical Anabaptistic, post-modern, discrete, separated from the space-time continuum propositions, but it is truly tragic, isn’t it?

In our constant attempt to meet the needs of the Christian community for sound theological material, we are making available this translation and commentary on the sixth chapter of John. Our reasons for doing so are to bring the powerful light of Scripture to bear upon two rather distinct issues. First, Jesus’ words in John 6 are vital for our