The foundation of all that we do must be the revelation that God has given us in his word. Deut 29:29 us a useful summary of the purposes of God's revelation.
topChristians recognize some, but not all, books as the Word of God. The study of the canon seeks to understand why we recognize the books that we do. There is now a blog entry that discusses this subject, and that links to two papers from some years ago that give further details.
Here is another older paper that discusses why different Bible translations differ from each other, and explores differences among the underlying texts of the New Testament.
topOver the years, many traditions have crept into the church that have no foundation in Scripture. These studies try to sort out human tradition from biblical teaching in several areas:
The Bible has much to say about how families should conduct their affairs. A separate page discusses divorce and remarriage in the Bible, and gives pointers to some books I've written on the subject.
topIt is common, but completely inappropriate, to describe our Lord's sacrifice as an atonement. Here's why.
We can gain useful insight into how God saves sinners by considering parallels among three NT descriptions of this process.
The new birth is only the start of the Christian life. A paper on "Law and the Christian Life" (available in pdf, epub, and Kindle mobi formats) summarizes the NT teaching on the process of spiritual growth, and shows how understanding this process resolves potential questions about the relation between law and spirit in the Christian life.
God expects his people to live godly lives, and one mission of the
Holy Spirit is to enable us to please God by making the right choices.
Three fundamental choices involve our psychology, physiology, and
economy, and encompass the entire scope of practical Christian living.
I discuss this important pattern and collect the examples I've found in a paper on the Three Choices, available in pdf, epub, and Kindle formats. Please let me know if you find other examples of this important pattern!
The Bible describes some aspects of salvation under the metaphor of God's library.
The gift of languages (or "tongues") described in Acts 2 and 1 Cor 12-14, among other places, has been the subject of much speculation. Here's a paper from 1974 that still contains some valuable insights on the subject. More recently, we studied this gift in the light of the prophecy from Isaiah 28 quoted in 1 Cor 14:21. You can find the notes here. They were presented in two messages: the first focuses on the instances of tongues in Acts, while the second discusses 1 Cor 12-14.
topThere's a lot of discussion these days about the rapture and the tribulation. I wrote this paper to sort out my thinking on the matter.
topHere are mp3 files of studies on special Jewish and Christian days, some with written notes.