It is sad that the “Contributors to the Study Aids” in regard to the New King James Version assert that “in Acts 11:26, we have the inspired record of the Antiochians coining the word Christian,” and that the “Antiochians were witty, worldly and rather wicked.” On the other hand, as Moses was the mouthpiece of God for divine revelations (Exodus 19:17-25; Hebrews 12:25), so were Barnabas and Saul (Paul) mouthpieces of a divine revelation first predicted as “from the mouth of the LORD” (Isaiah 62:2). God used Barnabas (a prophet, Acts 13:1) and Saul (an apostle, Galatians 1:1) to teach [didazai, active voice] a large multitude a whole year in Antioch, and to call [chrematisai, active voice] the disciples “Christians” (Acts 11:26). The “Contributors” do not believe that the name “Christian” came “from the mouth of the LORD,” but that it “was no doubt . . . a term of reproach.” On the contrary, the inspired James wrote that the “name” by which Jesus’ disciples were called was kalon (honorable, good, worthy, beautiful) (James 2:7). The “Contributors” in 1 Peter 4:16 failed to follow the majority of Greek manuscripts in removing the word “name” in favor of “matter”: “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.” Why they changed the reading in the old KJV “behalf” to “matter” they do not say. But thank God the new KJV, as well as the old KJV, preserves the word “Christian.”

Jesus said in John 8:24, “Except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”  We have explained many times that the “he” to which he referred was the Messiah, the Promised One, or as verse 23 puts it, “the One from above.” All of this is true, but what Jesus actually said has a deeper meaning than most of us realize. The expression he used is “ego eimi.” Literally it is, “I, I am,” not “I am he.” Since “eimi” by itself means, “I am,” it has a special meaning and intensity when used with “ego.” In every case where “ego” is used with a verb in the New Testament, it appears that the purpose is to emphasize the personality or authority of the speaker. For example, in Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus said, “Ye heard that it was said, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ but I say unto you (ego de lego humin).” The verb “lego” means “I say,” so Jesus would not have needed to say “ego lego” unless he had wanted to emphasize the fact that he is the one who is speaking with authority. There is great significance in many of the expressions in which “ego eimi” is used. In Matthew 28:20 when Jesus gives the Great Commission, he tells them that when they carry it out, “Lo I am with you (ego meth’ humon eimi) always.” The approximate meaning is, “I, even I myself, will constantly be with you.” But there is an …

During the Gulf War, the radio stations oft repeated the emotionally provocative song, “From a Distance.” The thought was that God was watching over his creation from far away, and, when he did so, he saw a better situation than mankind had made for himself. From a distance, there were no bombs, no disease. From a distance, everything appeared better than it really was. The song had its theological fallacies (i.e., a God who is too far away and views the world too naively to do anything about the real problems), but it made for a stirring emotional experience. More recently, the astronauts in the earth-orbiting space station witnessed from far above the smoke rising toward them from the burning World Trade Centers. They expressed their sympathies and condolences, but obviously felt very helpless. Their feeling of helplessness, akin to most of ours, had to be magnified by the separating distance of an entire atmosphere plus. More significantly than the astronauts, and more realistically than as depicted in the song, God looks on his world feeling the pain evil causes. He is not so detached as to be able to merely express sympathy. Nor is he so distant as to erase the problems of man from his thought. Rather, as Paul stated on Mars Hill, he is quite attuned to man’s plight and everyday circumstances: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. …

Someone has illustrated the differences between men and women this way: “A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.” Probably an over generalization, but it does imply a difference between men and women that is often denied. In this age of equality, we must not lose sight of our differences. They reach beyond the obvious physical dissimilarities. There are clear distinctions between men and women, but these differences have nothing to do with our worth. At a time when a woman was viewed first as the property of her father and then of her husband, the apostle Paul asserted: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27). In the home, it was the intent of the Creator to place man in the leadership role. He is to be head over his wife even as Christ is head of his church (Ephesians 5:23). That does not imply his superiority or her inferiority. It does indicate a difference in roles. Some men have abdicated their headship, and some women have usurped the leadership role in the home. Neither negates the fact that God has ordained how the home should function. Whether we like it or not, that’s what the Bible teaches. In the church, we have a similar dichotomy. Men are given the leadership role in the …

IT’S DIFFICULT NOT to get discouraged at times about teaching a Bible class, isn’t it? Teaching is one of those spiritual tasks that rarely provides tangible results. Years ago I had a close friend in Georgia who was a carpenter by trade. On occasion, when the two of us went out driving together, he would slow his truck down, point to some nice two-story house over in an open field and say, “I built that.” He wasn’t trying to brag on himself — that wasn’t his nature; he was simply proud of what he had done and wanted to share that with me because I was his friend. I never said it, but I couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of envy during those tours around Bartow County. After three or four months of labor, my friend could back away and identify what he had accomplished. Like carpentry, other endeavors produce similar quantifiable results. Those who teach in a secular environment can give quizzes and tests to gauge the progress of their pupils. People who commit themselves to a fitness program are eventually able to see measurable changes in their body and weight. But not so with those of us who are Bible class teachers — we don’t have an apparatus to mark the growth of those entrusted to our care and tutelage. I appreciate one author’s observations in this realm. He notes: We usually try to measure success based on the wrong things. Normally, our natural tendency is …

Sad it is that the editor of a much read Gospel paper, irritated by church divisions over interpretations of the Book of Revelation, wrote that he hoped someone would publish a Bible without the last book! One can understand his irritation, but actually, he was criticizing God! “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16). All 66 of the divinely authored books impart blessings, but only in the Book of Revelation is that fact specifically stated: “Blessed is he who reads, and the ones who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things written in it, for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3). Many subjects about which God wants us to know are addressed in the first 65 books, but some are not finished. One wants to know more, and the Lord thought that we should know more, and supplied the need. The Book of Revelation completes the Bible. 1. The Heavens and the Earth The Holy Book begins with arresting words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). What a creation! The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands (Psalm 19:1), even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them (Nehemiah 9:6). But after the sin of Adam and Eve, God was forced to curse his beautiful world, putting thorns (qus) on roses, and weeds (dardar) everywhere …

Frequently we hear radio and TV evangelists encouraging people to “Join the church of your choice” and to “Attend the church of your choice.” Protestant preachers often make the statement that “One church is a good as another.” Certainly, as free moral agents, we have the right and freedom to affiliate ourselves with the religious organization of our choice. But, does God’s Word encourage a person in this matter, that is, to “Join the church of your choice”? In the book of Ephesians 4:4, Paul teaches that “There is one body…” That declaration is so clear that one should have no problem in understanding it. Regardless of what the body is, the fact is evident that there is “one body.” To further substantiate this great truth, please observe the writing of Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12, 20: “For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.” “But now they are many members, but one body.” Christ is the head of the body explains Paul in Colossians 1:18. There is but one head over the body. A plurality of heads would make for a freakish situation. We must understand there is not one head in heaven and another one on earth. The question arises, “What is the one body?” Please permit Paul to answer that question by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “And he (Christ) is the head of the body, the church…” (Colossians 1:18). Again, “And he (God) put all …

Every Christian has probably encountered many efforts to deny the necessity of baptism, or its importance. Those efforts range all the way from making sneering remarks about “water salvation” or a “mere ritual” to a more sophisticated, sometimes apparently scholarly attempt to remove water baptism from the plan of salvation. Recently, while knocking on doors and setting up Bible studies, I found a pastor of the Presbyterian persuasion who admitted that baptism MIGHT mean immersion, but in that case you could do it in sand or milk, but since it MIGHT mean “dye” as in Revelation 19:3 or “wash” as in Mark 7:4, one could not REALLY tell what it meant, but it was not a “water ritual,” and the basic meaning probably was “to be identified with,” however that might be done. He admitted that he had been immersed, but gave “his people” the choice of whatever they wanted. It would take a small booklet to deal with the errors he espoused in our short conversation, but let us consider only one or two of them in this article. I believe one can check at least two dozen Greek-English Lexicons and ALL of them define the basic meaning of “baptize” as “to dip, plunge, immerse, overwhelm, etc.” It is true that the word itself does not define the element used. It may be fire, water, Holy Spirit, suffering, milk, or anything else in which a person might be either literally or figuratively plunged, dipped or overwhelmed. But let us …

A few days ago, I received a letter from a woman asking the following questions about some things in 1 Corinthians 11. She asked, “Does this refer to an actual hat, or does it refer to a woman’s hair as a covering? If the latter, does it mean extremely long, or does it mean longer than man’s hair? Does it refer only to women praying or prophesying, or to every female?” She had some other questions, but the following is about what I wrote her. It may be that some others are asking the same question. My guess is that an increasing number do not care what the Bible actually teaches about it, and many others are saying that practically everything the Bible teaches is directed to a particular culture, and has no bearing on us today. Both attitudes are destructive to the cause of Christ and need our attention. In 1 Corinthians 11:4, we read (literally), “Every man praying or prophesying having something down the head (kata kephalas) dishonors his head.”  This is probably a colloquial expression referring to the veil hanging down from the head. The point of the chapter is not head coverings, but the order of the headship of God, Christ, man and woman. When a man goes with his head covered, acting like a woman, he dishonors his Head, Christ. Verse 5 states, “But the woman praying or prophesying with the head UNCOVERED (akatakalupto) dishonors her head.” The word is an intensive form of the …

[Biblical Notes Quarterly. Vol. 6, No. 1. January-March 2002, 4-5.] Sorcery — the word conjures (no pun intended) numerous images that fire our imaginations: spells cast in unknown tongues by gray bearded wizards, malevolent witches, otherworldly forces, runes read by candlelight, eerie chants, powerful talismans, mysterious potions, voodoo dolls, magic amulets, hexes, flying broomsticks, dark nights, mist shrouded cemeteries, full moons, ghosts, cauldrons bubbling in the shadows, eye of newt, wing of bat and all of that. No doubt, we owe much of our perception to Hollywood, but from early times, sorcery has been a real evil to be reckoned with. It was a bane of the Canaanites, and God, in no uncertain terms, forbade Israel to have anything to do with it. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12 NKJV) In fact, under Moses’ law, sorcery was a capital crime, carrying the death penalty (Exodus 22:18). To his credit, King Saul took action to remove witches from Israel (though one wonders why they were not summarily executed, as per the law). Not to his …

I love to read. It hasn’t always been that way. In my adolescent years I preferred to climb trees and run through fields than ever read a book. Somewhere along the way, I contracted a taste for it. John Wesley, the famous Methodist preacher, often encouraged his students to read. “Steadily spend all morning in this employ,” he wrote, “or at least five hours in the twenty-four.” Wesley knew that the man has not been born who can continue to put out as a preacher who does not take in as a student. Are we a reading brotherhood? Some say no. There are great values in persistent and wide reading. One who reads will never be lonely. Between the covers of good books, the reader will meet people he has only heard about, and he will encounter thoughts that will forever keep his mind employed. One who reads will never be bored. One who finds pleasure in a good book has a pleasure that is open to him at any time and place. One who reads will never be ignorant. He will be in constant touch with minds greater than his own. A preacher without a library is like a carpenter without tools. The preacher who ceases to read will also cease to preach in any real sense of the term, especially when it comes to reading the Book of books. We may study it for a lifetime, but we will never exhaust our knowledge of it.

In God’s eyes, motherhood is to be exalted. God could have sent Jesus into the world as a full-grown man. Instead, by the way of the womb of a “woman” (Galatians 4:4) Jesus “became flesh” (John 1:14). If the Creator has thus chosen to honor motherhood, human beings should do no less! Normally, women “will be saved through child-bearing if they continue in faith and love and dedication with good sense” (1 Timothy 2:15). [Paul said] “I want the younger women to marry, to bear children, to manage the household, and to give no occasion for criticism” (1 Timothy 5:14). But a woman does not have to become a mother. If she chooses to remain single, yet putting the Lord first, the Scripture blesses her: “The unmarried woman and the virgin care about the Lord’s things, that they may be dedicated, both in body and spirit” (1 Corinthians 7:34). However, God’s plan for Jesus was for him to be formed in Mary’s womb, and for her in her ninth month to ride on a donkey’s back some 60 miles, Nazareth to Bethlehem. God could have planned for Jesus to be born in a palace. Instead, Joseph and Mary were turned down at the inn. Mary said to Joseph, “‘Take me down from the, for that which is in me presses to come forth.’ …Joseph took her down, and he found there a cave, and let her into it” (The Protoevangelium of James, XII, 10-14, a 2nd century apocryphal book). In …