Outward appearance in the Saul narrative (1 Samuel 9-31) operates as an unstable and ultimately unreliable criterion for leadership. As the narrative progresses, leadership quality is disclosed more consistently through the king’s relationship to animals, both literal and figurative, which function as narrative tests and witnesses to obedience, competence, and covenantal faithfulness.
Calvin’s position was rejected by the Lutherans, but it turned out to be an enormously influential one among the Anglophone heirs of the Reformation: it was followed by the English and American Puritans and such eighteenth-century Evangelicals as Jonathan Edwards (1703‒1758) and Charles Wesley (1707‒1788). And it was the position of the Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth centuries.
Through various thematic and textual allusions, the author of Ruth presents the narrative as a typological microcosm of Yahweh’s redemptive purposes for Israel (and the nations) as anticipated in the Pentateuch and carried forward in the Prophets.
The human authors of Scripture were aware that their writings were inspired of God, and thus, the written, authoritative words of God.
Our Congregational and Baptist forefathers concluded that church covenants were an essential ingredient of church membership and foundational for church discipline.
It is desirable to render the word “only begotten” to ensure that our English versions are in sync with historic Trinitarian orthodoxy.
Patriotism is a rightly ordered love of country that comes from gratitude and joy in the good gifts God has freely given by his grace
Moses intentionally, consciously includes YHWH using the term “seed” in his narrative as a metaphor for the promised Savior (Gen 3:15) because the promised Savior will do what seeds do—go into the ground, which is akin to death, and then reappear out of the ground alive, which is akin to resurrection, and he will do so on “the third day.”
Giving close attention to the Bible’s account of the origins of church and state yields insight into their purpose and aids Christians in understanding their proper relationship, the nature of their authority, and how we ought to live under the administration of each.
This essay defines biblical theology as the task of understanding the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors. If we are seeking the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors, the best way to pursue that perspective is to move book by book through the canon of Scripture, establishing a central idea on which all the biblical authors agree aids us in discerning their perspective.