Apologetics to the Glory of God

Tag: exegesis

  • Psychological Exegesis (Guest Post by cco3)

    Jordan B. Peterson has been gaining popularity, due to his tenacity in social and political arenas.  However, this popularity has spilled into his other pursuits as well. For example, his lecture series on Genesis is recorded on YouTube as having nearly 750k views.  The first in the set of lectures has nearly 2m views, and those numbers don’t even count podcast listeners like me.  That’s quite a show of interest on a topic that otherwise garners little interest from the public. I’ve only listened to the first lecture, so I can’t comment on how Peterson actually goes about handling the …

  • Second Timothy 2 and Unbelief

    I recently encountered a comment on 2Tim which asserted that this passage precludes “protracted arguments with unbelievers.” The verse cited as proof of this was 2 Timothy 2:14. Unfortunately, there was no argument accompanying this statement. The additional statement was made that “We have zero evidence that Jesus and the apostles spent protracted time dealing with unbelievers.” I’d like to deal with these comments to follow.

    Firstly, let’s look at the passage. Obviously, 2 Timothy is written to Timothy, a young pastor at Ephesus, and protege of Paul. The entire middle section of the second chapter concerns practical instructions for …

  • Romans 6 and Prolepsis

    If, as we are told by Date and Co., death spoken of a present tense is prolepsis – an event spoken of as certain to occur in the future – are we to take regeneration to be something that occurs only after this death? For what are we born again, as if we had a need? It’s not as if we are dead, is it? For, as we are told, death is something to be considered as the actual deprivation of life; and speaking of “dead in trespasses and sins” as if it was a present reality is prolepsis, is …

  • You Don’t Want to be a Fish?

    50:46 Joey: You know, parables! As I bring up here. Some of the parables have almost nothing in them that actually transfers over. I bring up the parable of the fish, in Matthew 13:47-50. In that parable, it’s very brief, it speaks of a fisherman, he catches fish, the bad fish he throws away, the good fish he keeps. Now, the good fish represent the saved, but you do not want to be a fish! (Laughs) Just think about it, either way you get killed. And in fact, though I don’t know what fishing culture was like back in the

    …

  • Undying Worms and Unquenchable Fire

    It is often asserted that there is a problem (for so-called “traditionalists”) with the use of Mark 9:48 due to it’s relation with Isaiah 66:24. This problem, according to Fudge, is that 1) Jesus quotes it “without amendment” 2) That the body is “already dead” and 3) That the fire “is a consuming, irresistible fire”. He relates “salted with fire” to mean the salting of a field, or of a place in order to make it uninhabitable. He cites Fields for his source, but we aren’t told, by Fudge, why this is supposed to have any connection with the passage …

  • Compare and Contrast: Date on Jude 7 and 2 Peter 2:6

    (24:33) What the Bible says is the nature of the final punishment: Jude assures his readers that the wicked will be punished, and tells us in verse 7 that Sodom and Gomorrah are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Of course, what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, the Bible records only their destruction, and no torment, in a short span of 4 verses, in Genesis 19 after which Abraham awakes the next morning to look out at the smoke rising from its remains. No wonder that 2 Peter 2:6 likewise uses their being destroyed

    …

  • Jude 7 and 2 Peter 2:6

    It is often asserted by annihilationists that the “example” of Sodom and Gomorrah, as seen in Jude and 2 Peter 2 are support for their position. This cannot possibly be the case, for a variety of reasons. Consider; if something is symbolic of, or is representative of something else – especially something eternal, as the fire is here – of what nature is the symbol in comparison to the actuality? Is it greater than, equal to, or lesser than? Biblically, all symbols of God’s acts and/or nature are necessarily lesser than the fulfillment, or that which is exemplified. The prefigure …

  • Does God Desire That All Be Saved?

    3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4  They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But
    …

  • Glenn Peoples on 2 Corinthians 12

    Although I’m familiar with the view that the Apostle Paul is relating an “out of body experience” at the outset of 2 Corinthians 12, I’m pretty sure that he is not. That’s partly because I’m a physicalist and I don’t think that such things are even possible, but it’s also because the evidence for this claim about the meaning of this passage is pretty weak. – Glenn Peoples (http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/2010/2-corinthians-12-an-out-of-body-experience)

    Dr. Peoples has his presuppositions out of whack. He discerns metaphysical possibility in virtue of physicalism rather than Scripture. He has it backwards. He is also confused about the …

  • Why We Should Be Reformed Catholic

    The role of tradition in a Protestant/Reformed theology is much broader and deeper than I can ever hope to go into here.

    On the one hand there are Roman Catholics and other unbelievers who ignorantly mock the notion that Word and Spirit lead us into all truth because of the supposed abundance of disagreements within the Church.

    On the other hand there are Roman Catholics and other unbelievers who piously shun the notion that Word and Spirit lead us to make such unflinchingly dogmatic affirmations of particular doctrines within the Church.

    So it is a lose-lose situation for Roman Catholics …