Temple

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul tells him how to care for the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made him a shepherd (cp. Acts 20:28). Most of his instructions deal with practical matters of spiritual warfare: opposition from heretics (1 Tim 1:18–20); prayer (1 Tim 2:1–7); the…

Luke draws attention to the location where Peter preached his first two sermons. He mentions the Temple seven times (Acts 2:46; 3:1, 2, 3, 8, 10) between his accounts of these sermons. This emphasis is striking. Forty-five days earlier, Jesus had said this Temple would fall in his generation (Luke…

In Matthew 27 we have reached the zenith of prophetic revelation. Here, Jesus offers “one sacrifice for sins forever” (Heb 10:12a NKJV) in the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic age. After his resurrection in Matthew 28, Jesus “sat down at the right hand of God, from that time…

If I were John Bunyan, author of the famous Pilgrim’s Progress, I might write an allegory about Mr. Inmillennialist traveling through the book of Revelation with four companions, Misters Premillennialist, Dispensationalist, Postmillennialist, and Amillennialist. At the end of the third vision, they would say to him, The first six trumpets…

This post deals with the “two witnesses” John describes in Revelation 11. We are publishing it on Oct. 31, 2017. This day marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. This act started the Protestant Reformation. We will recognize this historic…

One proof of a good theory is its ability to suggest answers to difficult problems. We have seen how our prophetic model—inmillennialism—does this in Hebrews. We are now applying this framework to John’s visions in Revelation. The complications increase here due to the many prophetic images in this book, but,…

Revelation’s bookend time stamps raise important questions. If we interpret them as literal truth statements, what profound event(s) happened soon after John saw these visions? What fulfilled his about-to-be prophecies? The answer depends on another important question: When did John see these visions? Most conservative scholars limit the possible date…

Paul uses the same basic arrangement in many of his letters. He first lays a doctrinal foundation, then gives practical exhortations based on that foundation. Hebrews conforms to this pattern. We have seen the doctrine: Christ surpasses angels (Heb. 1:4 – 2:18), Moses (Heb. 3:1 – 4:13), and Aaron (Heb.…