Galatians Introduction: Paul wrote this letter around 49 AD, about 15 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus to churches he founded during his first missionary journey. After Paul left, the Judaizers began teaching the Galatians they must keep the law to be fully Christian. Paul wrote this letter in response.
Paul is writing to a very young church of people from different ethnic groups in a city that is intensely hostile to them. Paul wants to encourage them to persevere in the faith and clarify some issues that confuse them.
The Old Testament book of Habakkuk speaks to two of the most fundamental questions of the Christian faith: 1) How long will God let His people suffer? and 2) Why should we keep believing Him if we’re not spared the tragedies of life?
How can God be one being and yet 3 persons? While not explained explicitly in any passage, the concept of the Trinity is progressively revealed in Scripture. The early church struggled for centuries to understand the doctrine of the Trinity before landing on 3 statements.
The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books that belong in the Bible. The Bible, the Apocrypha and history all testify to the historical development of the Old Testament canon.
Jesus claimed that “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to him (Mt 28:18). If that’s true, and I believe it is, then we benefit by learning all we can about Jesus. Matthew wrote this gospel to tell us who Jesus is and what that means for us.
Land is an important theme in the Old Testament. “Land” is the fourth most frequent noun in the Old Testament. Mankind was created from and is sustained by the land. God gave Israel the land as a gift. Land was always associated with life.
Scholars have attacked Christianity by claiming that Christians don’t know which books should belong to the New Testament canon and which ones shouldn’t. If we don’t know the answer to why these 27 books, then we do have a problem. But it’s not the Achilles heel of Christian faith that critics claim it is. We Christians do have an answer.
Jesus spent a lot of time interacting with the Jewish culture of his day. The New Testament authors assume their readers are familiar with the Jewish culture in their day. Here are some of the basics.
In Exodus, God tells the Israelites to keep the Feasts twice: once before the episode with the golden calf and once after. Here’s a summary of the 7 feasts.
God made a series of special promises, which we call covenants. There are two kinds of covenants and 5 significant covenants in Scripture.
The first third of the book of Exodus takes place in Egypt. The Israelites had lived in Egypt for 400 years and were steeped in Egyptian culture. The cultural and historical setting of Exodus is ancient Egypt. Here’s a brief introduction.