Does God do “bad?” It depends on what you mean by “bad.” The Bible teaches that God does not do what we would call moral evil. But yet at the same time, the Bible does teach that God makes stuff happen that we would call “bad” in a broad sense. When talking about a subject like this, language is everything. The Bible has several specific words for moral evil. They include the Hebrew words resha‘ (wickedness), pesha‘ (transgression), ‘awon and... Read more
Church compensation has come a long way from the days of the early church, or the days of the Hebrew priests and Levites. Have we have departed from the Biblical foundations for what we are doing? What would God say about how we are implementing God’s original intentions for church compensation? Read more
Lawlessness is not where people commit crimes, but when law itself is dismantled by those who are in power. Lawlessness is uglier than sin itself. It’s ugly when we get the idea that no one can stop us from evil. Read more
“Drag” versus “draw” – which way would be the best word to translate what Jesus says when he says in John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”? And what are the implications for what we believe about God and how God operates? Does God sweet-talk us or persuade us into faith? Or does God drag us into belief, kicking and screaming, against our will? The word Jesus uses in John 6:44... Read more
In my first post on holiness, I introduced the novel idea that holiness means simply being different from a dysfunctional world. I also gave some examples of being different in an attractive way, including selflessness, not living for money or possessions, being a true listener, and not being hateful or malicious. Now, let’s look at some more examples. Believe it or not, the world is looking for people who live the Bible’s sexual ethic: sex exclusively between a husband and... Read more
Here at the start of Lent is a good time to reexamine the meaning of holiness. What exactly does it mean to be holy? The answer might surprise you. When we say the word “holy,” we often think of some kind of sinless perfection, to be a religious super-hero like Mother Teresa or someone who has reached the Hall of Fame we call “sainthood.” We think of someone who scrupulously obeys a long list of do’s and don’ts. We bristle... Read more
Desire can be good, bad, or neither. In the New Testament, lust, coveting, everyday neutral desires, and even holy desires are all covered by the same Greek noun (epithymia) and related verb (epithymeō). Read more
Mother Teresa’s message that Jesus comes to us in the face of the poor and needy whoever they are, is almost certainly incorrect. Read more
Eunuchs have become another attempted Biblical argument in favor of rewriting the Bible’s sexual ethic. It is sad to hear Acts 8:26-39 turned into a story about the sexual status of the Ethiopian official. Read more
Does God care about how we dress or what we wear? Does God expect us to look unattractive in how we dress? The issues are complex, but how we dress sends a message to others about who we are and what we want from them. Read more
Biblical Words and World
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In