By Daniel M. Doriani Paul’s statement that an overseer must be “the husband of but one wife” seems clear, but there has been considerable debate about Paul’s precise message. Literally, the Greek says an overseer must be “a one-woman man.” This short remark can mean one of four things: Option 1: Paul believed overseers had to …
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The Great Reversal by Tim Keller
The Great Reversal in the Good Samaritan By Timothy J. Keller, Ministries of Mercy 3rd ed. Most commentaries on the gospel of Luke note that Jesus reverses the lawyer’s original question. He had asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Now Jesus tells a story and asks, “Who was the neighbor?” What was Jesus trying to do? One …
Did Matthew Use Hosea out of Context?
By Dennis E. Johnson The Holy Spirit has provided several signals to mark the route from ancient individuals, events, institutions, and offices to their fulfillment in Jesus, his work, and his people. Among the most obvious are Old Testament passages that New Testament writers explicitly quote and apply to Christ. Case study: Hosea …
The Son of Man and the Serpent
By Dennis E. Johnson In conversation with Nicodemus, a representative of the council of Judaism’s leaders (John 3:1; 7:50), Jesus suddenly turned the topic from Nicodemus’s need of birth from above, by God’s Spirit, to his own coming death as fitting the pattern of an incident in Israel’s past: “And as Moses lifted up the …
What the Bible Does Not Say: Thoughts about Contrast
Frame of Mind is a blog series featuring essays from the mind of philosopher-theologian John Frame. The content has been adapted from selected titles published through P&R. Here, Frame discusses the dangers in preaching on what the Bible does not say. VERN S. POYTHRESS, following Kenneth Pike, identifies a triad, “contrast, variation, and distribution,” as an important …