Redeeming God

How do you share the gospel in a simple way? Many Christians feel paralyzed by that question. They have heard long presentations, lists of laws, and outlines with several steps, and they are afraid of leaving something out. Others have been taught that a person must understand a large set of truths before he can believe and receive eternal life. The result is that sharing the...

What does the word “gospel” mean in the Bible? Many Christians answer that question too quickly. They assume that “the gospel” is a short summary of what a person must believe in order to be born again, and then they read that meaning back into every place the word appears. The Bible’s usage is wider than that, and if we miss this, we will either shrink the gospel or confuse ...

If you want to understand what the Bible says, you must learn to read the Bible in context. Every passage of Scripture sits inside at least five contexts: the historical-cultural context, the literary context, the grammatical context, the theological context, and the Christological context. When we ignore these, we can make the Bible say almost anything. When we pay attention...

Every December, someone asks me, “When was Jesus born?” Most Christians already suspect that it was not on December 25. The Bible never gives us a date. Scholars cannot even agree on the year. But Luke and John left us a few clues about the time of year, and when we put those clues together with the feasts of Israel, the picture that emerges is far richer than a date on the c...

Why are my prayers not answered? If you have ever asked this question, you are not alone. It may be the most painful question in the Christian life. We pray for a sick child, a lost job, an empty womb, or a broken marriage, and nothing seems to change. We know these requests are good. We know God cares about them. And yet the heavens seem silent. So we start to wonder what is...