Category Archives: How to Study the Bible

With Abram, God begins making a series of compounding, cumulative covenants, as follows: * Abram/Abraham * Moses * David * Jesus But the theologians sometimes also add Adam (the “Adamic covenant”) and the New Heavens and New Earth. McKnight refers … Continue reading →

“Covenant” defined First, we need to cover generally the Bible’s history of covenants. These don’t line up quite with the old Scofield Bible dispensations, but that’ll be okay. It’ll be a little unfamiliar, but it will make so much more … Continue reading →

Okay. I’m through reposting old material for a while. Now it’s time to put the ingredients together and hope the result is a cake. I’m headed toward a new outline of the entirety of the Bible — but I have to … Continue reading →

We need to add a fourth ingredient to our cake mix: the Creation as Temple of God. Lately, I’ve seen several scholars refer to the fact that the Creation is pictured as God’s Temple in Genesis 1 — which is … Continue reading →

Rather like preparing to bake a cake the old-fashioned way — from scratch — we’ve been adding ingredients to our narrative hermeneutic. We started with Scot McKnight’s A-B-A’ formulation. We added some elements from John Walton’s Covenant argument. Next, we need to … Continue reading →

Walton lays out God’s history of covenants in terms that I’d never heard before. He concludes that the covenant made with Noah is separate from all the others, as it indicates no effort toward self-revelation. God had appeared to Noah … Continue reading →

We’re continuing to work through Covenant: God’s Purpose, God’s Plan. by John H. Walton. Never do the biblical writers describe election as a reward. It does not come in response to any attribute or action of Israel. His election did … Continue reading →

So why does Genesis provide us with the material found in Genesis 1 – 11? These chapters aren’t obviously about God’s self-revelation. Genesis tells the story of how God created humankind in fellowship with him, but also relates how that … Continue reading →

So I guess you noticed that the series took a sudden left turn in the last post. We were discussing Bible study tools, and then all of sudden, we’re talking narrative hermeneutics — but hermeneutics are just another kind of tool. And … Continue reading →

[This is adapted from an earlier post.] The next step in Bible study is learning to approach the scriptures with the right questions — understanding where each element of scripture is situated within God’s story. One excellent approach is found in … Continue reading →