What is the Image of God?
There are four primary interpretations of the image of God in Genesis 1:26–27: the substantive view sees the image in humanity’s rational, moral, and self-aware inner nature; the physical view understands the image as a bodily resemblance to God but raises theological questions, particularly regarding the Trinity; the functional view defines the image in terms of humanity’s role as God’s representative rulers tasked with exercising dominion and spreading creation’s order; and the relational view identifies the image with humanity’s unique capacity for relationship with God and others, especially within the broader narrative of Genesis 1–3. Each view has strengths and weaknesses, with the functional view best suited to the immediate context of Genesis 1, the relational view drawing on the wider narrative, and the substantive view raising questions about its applicability to all humans. While the physical view raises doctrinal concerns, these interpretations are not necessarily mutually exclusive; together, they may contribute to a fuller understanding of the concept.
AI Use in Biblical Studies
Authentic biblical teaching requires that the teacher be personally formed by Scripture before transmitting it to others, a principle reinforced by Ambrose, Richard Baxter, and Paul's charges to Timothy — without this personal engagement, both the teacher and the congregation suffer spiritually. Understanding Scripture is not merely an intellectual exercise but a Spirit-dependent encounter, and as Paul argues in First Corinthians chapter two, and as Calvin, Luther, and Basil all affirm, no purely natural or mechanical process can participate in the divine illumination necessary for true comprehension of God's Word. Finally, presenting AI-assembled material as the fruit of one's own study before God represents a serious ethical and spiritual failure in ministry, severing the minister from the accountability, reward, and personal transformation that authentic engagement with Scripture demands — with consequences extending not only to the teacher and congregation, but to the lost who depend on genuine gospel proclamation.
Passover and the Lord’s Supper: the New Covenant and Maundy Thursday
The relationship between Passover, the Lord’s Supper, and Christian observance is examined through Scripture, arguing that the essential elements of Passover—lamb, bread, and bitter herbs—are fulfilled and transformed in the Lord’s Supper. The lamb is identified with Christ himself, the bread becomes the means of participation in his life as the true bread from heaven, and the imagery of suffering and deliverance associated with the bitter herbs is carried forward and reshaped, particularly through the symbolism of the cup as the covenant in Christ’s blood. Because these elements are already present in fulfilled form, the continuation of Passover as a separate practice is unnecessary, though optional observances may be permitted if they serve to clarify Christ-centered meaning. Emphasis is placed on the centrality of the Lord’s Supper—especially in connection with the resurrection—as the primary expression of covenant participation, with preference given to historic Christian patterns of remembering Christ’s death and resurrection rather than reconstructing earlier ritual forms.
The Way of Eden: Resisting the Darkness, Book by Jonathan Dillon
The biblical theme of Eden functions as an ongoing pattern for understanding life, community, and spiritual formation, where human flourishing is shaped not by domination or force but by cultivation, patience, and care, like a garden. Spiritual conflict is primarily against unseen powers rather than people, calling for a response marked by love, humility, and faithful presence instead of aggression or tribalism. Deep engagement with Scripture is not merely informational but transformative, steadily shaping character and action in the way a well-watered tree produces fruit for the benefit of others. This vision extends into everyday life, where relationships, hospitality, and intentional community become expressions of God’s kingdom, forming small spaces of restoration that reflect divine order within a broken world.
A Multifaceted View of Christ’s Atonement
The atonement is a multifaceted reality that cannot be reduced to a single theory, since different models capture distinct aspects of the biblical narrative, including substitution, victory, participation, and restoration. Humanity faces a twofold problem: corruption resulting from sin and the penalty of death. This requires a twofold solution: Christ both restores humanity to incorruption and bears the penalty of sin. Early Christian sources, especially Athanasius and other church fathers, contain both forensic and participatory language rather than supporting a strict division between them, showing that later theological traditions often flatten or selectively emphasize certain themes. Examination of patristic writings, liturgical texts, and theological arguments reveals recurring elements of substitutionary atonement alongside themes of deification and victory over death, indicating that these concepts are historically intertwined rather than mutually exclusive.
Christ’s Descent into Hades (The Harrowing of Hell)
Christ descends into Hades after his death, where the dead—from Adam, the patriarchs, and the prophets—are gathered in darkness awaiting redemption; they recall a promise that the Son of God would come to heal and raise humanity, while Satan and Hades debate his power and fear his arrival. A divine voice commands the gates to open, Christ enters as the King of glory, shatters the gates, binds Satan, and empties Hades by raising the dead, beginning with Adam, declaring restoration through the cross. He leads the righteous into Paradise, where figures like Enoch, Elijah, and the repentant thief testify, and the risen are sent to bear witness to the resurrection before departing.
What Does the Bible Say About the Sea of Galilee Turning Red?
The Sea of Galilee turning red is a natural event that can be understood within a biblical framework in which God works through creation to communicate spiritual realities. Such events should not be treated as precise indicators of an imminent end, but as part of recurring patterns seen throughout Scripture. Waters turning to blood often signify judgment, divine authority, and redemption, pointing to God’s control over chaos and the effects of sin in the world.
These signs are meant to lead to inward reflection and readiness rather than fear or speculation. They remind people of God’s sovereignty and the promise of restoration through Christ. Believers are called to interpret these events through Scripture, reject sensationalism, and remain grounded in hope, peace, and the kingship of Christ.
Biblical Cosmology in the ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) World
Biblical cosmology describes reality as structured into three realms: heaven above, the earth where humans live, and the depths below, associated with the grave and imprisoned rebellious beings. In the Old Testament worldview, humans live between heaven and earth and descend to Sheol in death, though there is an expectation that the grave is not the final destiny. The New Testament presents a shift after the resurrection of Jesus, opening the way for believers to ascend to heaven and redefining the grave so that the place of judgment becomes what is called hell. The Garden of Eden is portrayed as a mountain-temple where heaven and earth meet and where humanity originally lived in communion with God before descending into exile and death. In the final restoration, the new Jerusalem descends, and heaven and earth are united again, returning creation to a garden-like order in which Christ reigns over all things and God’s sovereignty extends over every realm of existence.
Where does it talk about giants in the Bible?
Biblical references to giants appear frequently as both named individuals and entire people groups, indicating that extraordinary human size was a recognized feature of the ancient world. Although many supposed archaeological discoveries of giant remains have been exposed as fraudulent, literary testimony and rare cases of extreme human height suggest that unusually large individuals did exist and would have been perceived as formidable in antiquity. Comparisons between biblical measurements (especially those related to Goliath) and known historical examples show that the described heights fall within the upper range of human possibility. More importantly, the giant traditions serve a theological purpose: they illustrate the link between supernatural rebellion and human tyranny and frame the broader biblical theme of spiritual warfare. Minimizing or dismissing the reality of giants risks flattening the Bible’s supernatural worldview and obscuring the larger conflict between the forces of God and the powers of evil that runs throughout the biblical story.
Wes Huff on Enoch, Nephilim, and Demons
Anthony reacts to Wes Huff’s comments from The Shawn Ryan Show by pulling out the “weird” biblical themes—because “if it’s weird, it’s important”—and frames the episode around five linked topics: ethics of technology and Watcher “secret knowledge” (connecting modern tech questions to 1 Enoch 8 and Azazel’s teaching of warfare and seduction), the Dead Sea Scrolls as a major confirmation that the Old Testament we have today is materially the same text Israel had then (while also clarifying that real textual variants existed before Christ, especially Deuteronomy 32’s “sons of God / angels of God / sons of Israel,” with implications for Psalm 82), Astronomical Enoch (1 Enoch 72–82, “Book of the Luminaries”) as an ancient stream of thought that helps explain the conceptual world New Testament authors wrote within, the Nephilim/giants debate (Genesis 6; LXX “giants”), pressing for taking Peter and Jude’s angel-sin framing seriously (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6) against the Sethite view, and finally demons as disembodied spirits of the Nephilim/giants (a major Second Temple thread) with biblical touchpoints in the Rephaim passages (Job 26:5–6; Psalm 88:10; Isaiah 14:9) and Jesus’ “abyss” language (Luke 8:30–31), arguing that what scripture “whispers” may be whispered because it was assumed, and that reading Enoch—without treating it as canon—can still illuminate how early Jewish and Christian readers made sense of the Bible’s supernatural worldview and storyline.
Heiser Defended Annihilationism Before It Was Cool
Annihilationism, or conditional immortality, is presented as a position that has often been labeled heresy despite lacking a settled consensus in historical theology and despite being defended by some conservative scholars as biblically and historically plausible within evangelical orthodoxy. The argument centers on the biblical relationship between life, death, and immortality, proposing that death represents the loss or absence of life sustained by God and raising questions about how the destruction of death in the final state should be understood if conscious punishment continues forever. Prophetic and apocalyptic language describing judgment as “eternal” or “forever” is interpreted as emphasizing finality and irreversibility rather than endless ongoing experience, drawing on Old and New Testament imagery of judgment, extinction, and the ultimate defeat of death. The central issue is whether Scripture requires eternal conscious torment or whether permanent destruction better coheres with the themes of judgment, the end of death, and the restoration of creation while remaining within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.
Was Jonah Really Eaten by a Fish?
Jonah 2 is a prayer, where Jonah describes himself as being both in the belly of the fish and in the belly of Sheol, drawing on ancient biblical and Near Eastern imagery in which the sea represents death, chaos, and descent into the underworld. Swallowed by the depths, Jonah understands his situation as a descent—down from Jerusalem, down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the sea, down to the roots of the mountains—yet he confesses that even there he remains under the sovereign rule of Yahweh, whose waves and billows pass over him, whose presence cannot be escaped, and whose power reaches even into the abyss. As Jonah remembers Yahweh, God “remembers” Jonah in an active, covenantal sense, bringing Jonah’s life up from the pit before the bars of death close forever. The prayer culminates in repentance, renewed allegiance, and thanksgiving, rejecting idolatry understood not only as false worship but as refusal to obey God’s positive commands, and affirming that salvation belongs to Yahweh alone. The great fish is the means of Jonah’s deliverance rather than destruction, Jonah is restored to life and vocation, and the text insists on speaking in the material, miraculous language of Scripture itself, resisting attempts to dematerialize or disenchant the narrative. Doing so ultimately erodes the coherence of biblical faith, prayer, and hope.
Why did the Devil want the body of Moses? (Jude 9)
Jude 9 raises the question, Why would the devil dispute with the archangel Michael over the body of Moses? That dispute is framed as part of a larger biblical pattern: the serpent’s deception in Genesis 3 and the “curse” that functions as the devil’s job change into the “dust eater,” the one who draws humanity toward death and Sheol. Moses’ body is a symbol of a larger contest over where humans belong in death—down in the realm of the grave, or up with God—especially in light of Christ, the Lord of life, who descends into Sheol, breaks it open, and opens heaven for the saints. The argument also draws on Second Temple literature (including the tradition associated with the Testament/Assumption of Moses) and places Michael’s restraint (“The Lord rebuke you”) alongside a warning to remain faithful and not follow the patterns of rebellion associated with Cain, Balaam, and Korah. The central exhortation is that the devil contends for the bodies of the faithful, too, so believers must keep Christ on the throne by allegiance to God’s kingdom and fidelity to Scripture, rather than by compromise, self-sovereignty, or the ethics of pagan worship.
A Theology and Practice of the Lord’s Prayer
Prayer is presented as a grace-driven practice shaped by the structure and theology of the Lord’s Prayer. It begins with adoration, recognizing God’s holiness, transcendence, and fatherly nearness, which reorients the heart away from self toward divine character. Confession is described as honest acknowledgment of specific sins, not for shame but for healing and transformation. Thanksgiving arises from the reality that Christ’s reign is already inaugurated in heaven and awaited in fullness on earth, forming the foundation for gratitude. Supplication is framed through the request for “daily bread,” which challenges inflated ideas of need and calls for trust in God’s faithful provision. Throughout, prayer is portrayed as communion with God that shapes the whole life in humility, dependence, and hope.
Theopolis VS. Heiser — Who’s Right?
This video explores the theological conversation between Dr. Michael Heiser’s Divine Council Worldview and Christopher Kou’s review for Theopolis Institute, showing how both perspectives ultimately point toward the same supernatural and sacramental vision of reality. Heiser and Theopolis share more common ground than disagreement—each affirming the Divine Council as a real biblical concept, a heavenly assembly under God’s authority, and each placing Christ as its reigning head. This worldview demonstrates how we can restore the wonder lost to modern materialism, portraying the cosmos as alive with God’s presence and humanity as participants in Christ’s rule. Along the way, we examines topics like the nature of the “gods” in Psalm 82, the meaning of Genesis 6 and the Nephilim, and the role of 1 Enoch in Second Temple Jewish thought, urging discernment without dismissing historical context. Ultimately, believers are called to recover an enchanted faith—one that sees Scripture as a living, supernatural story of Christ’s victory over the rebellious powers and his ongoing reign over heaven and earth.
The Unseen Realm Expanded Edition: Myths, Mysteries, and Majesty (3M)
The Unseen Realm: Expanded Edition presents an exploration of the Bible’s supernatural worldview, uncovering how ancient concepts of divine beings, spiritual rebellion, and cosmic order reveal the majesty and sovereignty of God. It examines themes such as the divine council, the origin and nature of the Nephilim, and the continuity of supernatural conflict from Genesis through Revelation. The book draws comparisons between biblical and ancient Near Eastern cosmologies, clarifying that while mythological parallels exist, Scripture uniquely discloses the one true God whose authority encompasses heaven, earth, and the unseen realm. It also highlights traces of Trinitarian thought in the Old Testament, the multifaceted nature of atonement, and the theological meaning of celestial order as a reflection of divine governance. Through these studies, The Unseen Realm reclaims the ancient biblical perspective that all creation—visible and invisible—is ordered under Christ, whose lordship extends beyond time, space, and every spiritual power.
Can God Exist? A Biblical-Theological Approach to God's Being
The argument contends that God does not exist in the creaturely sense because existence implies origination, contingency, and temporality—conditions that belong only to created things. God, by contrast, possesses being that is self-sufficient, uncreated, immutable, and impassable. The divine name “I AM” reveals not an existing entity among others but the source and ground of all being itself. To speak of God as “existing” places him within time and space, creating a categorical error that subjects the eternal to the temporal. Scripture distinguishes the Creator from the creature, showing that all things which exist do so contingently, while God simply is—beyond change, beyond space, beyond time. Even ancient cosmologies, such as Dante’s vision of creation enveloped in divine reality, echo this truth that everything is held within God’s being. Whereas creatures begin and may cease to be, God neither begins nor ends; his reality is necessary, not contingent. Thus, the answer to whether God can exist is no—God cannot exist as created things do, for he must simply be, the very foundation of all existence.
Did the Father turn his face away? (The Crucifixion and Psalm 22)
Psalm 22 challenges the idea that the Father “turned his face away” from the Son at the cross. When read Christologically, David’s cry of forsakenness (“Why have you forsaken me?”) is resolved within the psalm itself: God did not hide his face. The Gospels follow this pattern. Jesus truly experiences anguish, yet Luke highlights trust and communion—“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”—as the temple curtain tears, revealing open access to God. The three hours of darkness are not evidence of divine rejection but a cosmic sign: the old-covenant veil gives way to new-covenant access as heaven opens.
This truth has pastoral weight. How we think the Father viewed the Son in his suffering shapes how we think the Father views us in ours. Scripture teaches that the Son bore our sins, not the Father’s rejection. So when believers feel forsaken, they can rest assured that God has not turned his face away. Psalm 22 moves from lament to praise and to mission—nations turning to the Lord—and the church is called to live and worship in that reality. It finds its culmination at the Lord’s Table, where communion with God and his people anticipates the day every tribe and tongue will worship the Lamb.
Talking Prayer with Jon Dillon, The Two Trees Podcast
Biblical prayer is a God-shaped practice as taught in the Lord’s Prayer, where the primary purpose is not persuading God to act but allowing him to transform the one who prays. True prayer begins with adoration, hallowing God’s name by beholding his holiness through Scripture, song, and thoughtful words that shape both private and corporate worship. Confession follows as specific, situational honesty that leads to sanctification and real change, moving naturally into thanksgiving for the gospel—Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and reign—through which all other blessings flow. Supplication is framed as daily reliance on God’s provision, training the heart to trust him with necessities so that when greater trials come, faith endures. Whether asking for bread, interceding for others, or seeking strength in hardship, prayer is shown to be less about securing outcomes and more about communion with God, forming believers into the likeness of Christ.
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Learn to Pray Like Jesus [Ring Them Bells Interview, re: God-Shaped Prayer]
This interview on Ring Them Bells brings Jason Bostow together with Anthony Delgado to discuss Delgado’s book God-Shaped Prayer: A Theology and Practice of the Lord’s Prayer. While framed as a book conversation, the heart of the exchange explores what prayer is meant to accomplish in the Christian life. Delgado explains that prayer is not about manipulating God to act but about God shaping his people through communion with him. Together, they unpack the Lord’s Prayer line by line, emphasizing its Old Testament backdrop, its communal nature, and its role in spiritual warfare. Delgado highlights the depth in every word of the prayer—“Our Father” as both intimate and communal, “hallowed be your name” as active participation in God’s holiness, and “your kingdom come” as a hopeful, not fearful, anticipation of God’s reign. The discussion discusses themes of confession, forgiveness, and deliverance, connecting these practices to personal transformation and the church’s corporate life. Drawing from biblical theology, Second Temple insights, and even historic liturgical practices, Delgado insists that prayer forms us into the likeness of Christ and equips us for the mission of God’s kingdom. The interview is both pastoral and practical, urging believers to establish a rule of prayer and to see the Lord’s Prayer as both a model and a lived reality