John Gill

The visiting Christian brother did not suffer from dementia, but his 90 years had removed many inhibitions. We learned this in a somewhat humorous way. Our small congregation sometimes sang Samuel J. Stone’s hymn, The Church’s One Foundation. On the day of his visit, when we sang the verse Yet…

“I know that’s what it says, but that is not what it means,” said my red-faced father to my maternal grandfather. Grandpa Smith had a second-grade education but loved God. I often saw him read the Bible and pray with tears streaming down his cheeks. He was also a died-in-the-wool…

Many of us consider Hebrews 11 to be one of our favorite scriptural passages. This “Hall of Faith” inspires us to imitate the heroes of the faith in past ages. This is as it should be. God’s word is timeless and its lessons apply to God’s people in every age.…

This post will continue tracing Paul’s thoughts as he persuades the Hebrews to stay true to their profession of faith in Christ. They must not cling to the Temple-based worship instituted by Moses but embrace the word God had now spoken through his Son. Paul presents his arguments in a…

We are tracing Paul’s arguments in Hebrews that show how Christianity excels Judaism. We contend that Inmillennialism supports his reasoning well. This will hold true as he takes the next step: Christianity excels Judaism because Christ excels Moses (Heb. 3:1–4:13). Paul supports his argument in ways that affect our prophetic…

We are exercising our prophetic model, inmillennialism, in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. The apostle argues for the superiority of God’s revelation in the “last days” of the Mosaic age over others, especially the law. One reason is the superiority of Christ as the agent through whom God gave the…

We have completed the inmillennial prophetic model. Future posts will add other details, but the basic structure is now available to help us interpret Scripture. We will begin doing so with a series of posts dealing with the letter to the Hebrews. The identity of the author of Hebrews is…

Our effort to develop a biblical prophetic model has reached a critical juncture. We will use the imagery of Hebrews 3:1–6 to show the central idea of this post. In that passage, Moses’ house signifies his management of the Old Covenant. The writer of Hebrews said Christ’s house—his administration of…

On Tuesday of his final week on earth, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. He told his disciples about the Temple’s destruction. They asked for a sign pointing to that age-changing event (Matthew 24:1–3). Jesus answered their request with a straightforward list of signs.  We categorized these signs into…