Biblical Studies

"I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!'" (Psalm 122:1) THE SONGS OF ASCENTS  are Psalms 120--134. These fifteen psalms are called the psalms of ascents, because traditionally they were recited on the way to the temple on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem. Each psalm has a particular theme related to being a pilgrim on the way to God's house.  Why are these psalms in the Bible? I believe that it is because we need to know that we, like the ancient Israelites, are citizens of the kingdom of God, sojourning in this world as resident aliens. We're on our way to God's glorious eternal kingdom in the new heaven and new earth (Matt 6:33; Heb 11:16; 1 Pet 2:9-12; 2 Pet 3:13). Here are the fifteen themes.  DEPARTURE (120). The psalmist does not literally dwell in Meshech (to the far north of Israel) or Kedar (far to the east) but feels as if he lives among barbarian people who do not care about the God of Israel. Their lives are characteriz...

In the preface to his book To Be Near Unto God , Abraham Kuyper has these comments about having a proper mystical sense in our relationship with God...  As in everything that risks itself in the depth of mysticism, so in the preparation of these Meditations, lurked undeniable danger. The soul that seeks God involuntarily inclines to step across the boundary appointed of God, defined by the word "near," and to force an entrance into His Being. From the first I was on guard against this danger, and I believe I have escaped it. On the other hand, fear of this danger could not be allowed to repress that fervor and that spiritual warmth, which refreshes the soul only when the feelings are aroused and the imagination awakened. Mere thinking is not meditation, this is something quite different, and, in view of the wide-awake preparedness necessary to withstand the constant onslaught waged from the gates of hell against the Church of the living God, with a fierceness that neither res...

" Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." (Psalm 73:25 ESV) Over many months I have been reading Abraham Kuyper's book, To Be Near Unto God (1908), which is a series of devotionals (110 of them), written while he served as prime minister of The Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. Eerdmans published an English edition in 1918, which I have just finished.  Kuyper was a remarkable Dutch Reformed theologian, and his devotional writings have a refreshing balance of doctrine and mysticism. He is doctrinally Protestant and Reformed, but often he writes like Thomas a Kempis.  Here's an excerpt from one of his chapters, where he is commenting on Psalm 73:25...  "By itself this means to know nothing in heaven but God, which is quite the same as to love God with all the mind and soul and heart. But Asaph's question puts the matter still more clearly before us. The struggle of our heart on earth is, that it goes out after all ...

In one of our Bible studies, we're going through Paul's epistle to the Romans. We're in chapter seven, discussing what he means by no longer being under the Law. Here's a good quote from F. F. Bruce... "The tension which finds expression in Romans 7:14-25 is the tension necessarily set up when one lives 'between the times' – in two eons simultaneously. How can one who exists temporally in 'the present evil age' nevertheless enjoy deliverance from it and live here and now the life of the age to come? By the aid of the indwelling Spirit, who not only makes effective in the believer the saving benefits of Christ's passion but also secures to him in advance the blessings of the age to come."  "Paul goes on farther to show that the law in its stricter sense, as the embodiment of God's will, is upheld and fulfilled more adequately in the age of faith than was possible 'before faith came', when law kept the people of God 'unde...

"...I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me..." (Isaiah 46:9)  "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." Romans 11:36) In a recent newsletter I wrote briefly about the aseity of God , that is, his self-existence and independence. This is the attribute we should begin with when we are thinking about what God is like. Theologian Herman Bavinck writes the following in his Reformed Dogmatics: When the church fathers, in their attempt to determine the nature of God's being, started with the name YHWH and described him as "Being," they had in mind not God's being apart from his attributes, but the total fullness of God's being as it exists and is revealed in his attributes. Hence, the being ascribed to God was not an abstraction but a living, infinitely rich, and concrete Being, a Supreme Being at once identical with supreme life, supreme truth, supreme wisdom, supreme love (...

At a weekly lunchtime study a few of us are going through Paul's epistle to the Romans. Though we should build upon our own reading and study of Romans, we will also find some commentaries helpful.   In choosing and keeping commentaries for each book of the Bible, I like to have at least one commentary in each of these categories: 1) exegetical, that is, focusing on the text in its original language; 2) expositional , which is a running commentary on the verses, both in meaning and application; and 3) devotional , relating more to the personal application of the biblical truths in that book of the Bible. Of course, some commentaries overlap these categories.  In the process of downsizing my own personal library (i.e., the physical books) over the last couple of years, I've been faced with choosing which commentaries to keep. On Romans, I have kept (and use) the following volumes:  Romans (Exegetical Commentary), by Thomas R. Schreiner (Baker Academic, 1998). Schrein...