The doctrine of inspiration speaks of the Bible’s dual authorship. The key issue in inspiration is the roles that God and the human authors play. The proper view of biblical inspiration has been labeled the verbal-plenary view of inspiration. In this post we will take a quick look at what verbal-plenary inspiration means and how it is evident in intertextuality.
systematic theology
New Book! Moving Forward
We’ve got a new book coming out! Its title is Moving Forward: Essays on Soteriology, Missiology, and Eschatology.
Moving Forward is a compilation of three essays that I have written for other projects. I brought them into one volume which we will be distributing soon. Here is the preface of the book:[Read More]
Dispensationalism: What It Is And Why It Matters
Dispensationalism is the school of thought that results from a plain grammatical-historical reading of Scriptures. Ryrie’s threefold sine qua non of dispensationalism includes grammatical-historical hermeneutics, doxological centrality of Scripture, and the distinction between Israel and the church,[1] but these latter two points are merely the result of the first. The doctrine that dispensationalism is most famous for is the pre-tribulational rapture, but this too is just the result of the consistent literal reading of Scripture. Even critics of dispensationalism recognize that grammatical-historicism results in dispensationalist conclusions. Since the legitimacy of dispensationalism stands or falls on the legitimacy of grammatical-historical hermeneutics, a discussion of dispensationalism’s strengths should focus on its hermeneutics.[Read More]
What about Miracle Stories?
The Bible says that we must believe in Jesus alone—not self—for eternal life. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and others say that we must contribute our works—not believe in Christ alone—for eternal life. There are stories about Catholic and Orthodox saints performing miracles, so does that mean that they were saved? The short answer is “no.”[Read More]
The False Gospel of Woke Evangelicalism
If you are a Christian, then you are almost certainly concerned about the underprivileged. Nobody wants any minority group to suffer, but Christians want much more for minorities than the secular world could possibly hope for. Since everyone is born spiritually dead and on a path to hell, Christians want people to receive eternal life. Unfortunately, the world has an ideology of wokism that is in conflict with the Gospel. What is worse, some evangelicals have fallen for wokism. Woke evangelicals keep people on the path to hell in two ways: first by distracting the church from evangelism thereby preventing the unbeliever from hearing, understanding, and believing the Gospel and second by distorting the gospel itself. This second problem, the woke perversion of the Gospel, is the topic of this post.[Read More]
Works-Universalism: Contradiction or Middle Ground?
We have developed a quadrant model for describing soteriological compromises. The biblical message of salvation is summarized as Faith Alone in Christ Alone (FACA). Two ways to reject this are by rejecting the sufficiency of FACA or the necessity of FACA. Each of these two sides has differing extremes: On the side that rejects sufficiency, a near alternative is Works-Assisted Condition while a distant alternative is Works-Assisted Merit; on the side that rejects necessity, a near alternative is Christian Pluralism while a distant alternative is Christian Universalism.[Read More]