As we read at the beginning of the book of Acts, the early church was devoted to fellowship, koinōnia (sharing things in common; koinon = common): “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. … And all who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:42). The… Read More
Heaven and Hell: The Only Options?
Conditional Immortality (CI) is the view that life or existence is the Creator’s provisional gift to all, which will ultimately either be granted forever on the basis of righteousness or revoked forever on the basis of unrighteousness. Believers will be raised to inherit eternal life while unbelievers will be raised to be judged by God and then be destroyed…. Read More
Does John Teach a Replacement Theology?
John does not teach a replacement theology whereby the church takes the place of Israel. As a closer look at John 15 indicates, it is not believers in Jesus who are depicted as the vine. Rather, the vine is Jesus. Jesus himself is therefore the new Israel, just as he has already been portrayed as… Read More
The Gospel, Missions, and Inclusivism
Daniel Strange, in his monograph The Possibility of Salvation Among the Unevangelised, defines the “unevangelized” as “any person in history who has lived and died without hearing and understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ from a human messenger.” As Strange notes, this would seem to include at least four groups of people: (1) children who died… Read More
JETS at 50
[Note: I gave this speech at the ETS Annual Banquet in San Diego.] Thank you, Ron, and thank you, Alan, for summarizing for us the first 40 years or so of the history of the publication of the Journal. It is a privilege and a sacred stewardship to serve the Society as JETS editor, and… Read More