Author: wilrens
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Sennacherib
Probably no event in the Old Testament is as well documented as Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 BC. The Bible itself gives us three accounts: 2 Kings 18:13-19:36, Isaiah 36-37, and 2 Chronicles 32:1-23. In addition, we have several versions of Sennacherib’s own report on the event, plus reliefs carved out in stone that…
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Codex, Kingdom of Heaven, Rapture: Three Random Things
I regularly run into bits and pieces of insight or information that fascinate me but that seem too small to turn them into a full issue of Create a Learning Site. This month, I present three such pieces: codex, kingdom of heaven, and (the true meaning of) the rapture. You can also watch this content…
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Who Wrote the Fourth Gospel?
John’s gospel is not a book I have taught often. Without giving it much thought, I have usually assumed that the “John” of its title must be the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, one of the inner circle of Jesus’ 12 disciples. After all, this is what the Church Fathers, the early leaders and…
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Do You Love the Law (David Did)? (Part 2)
Last month, I formulated a New Testament understanding of the law. Paul is emphatic that Christians are not “under the law,” because they have died to the law – all of it, not merely certain sections. It is possible to come away from such an exercise believing that the Old Testament law is therefore just…
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Do You Love the Law (David Did)? (Part 1)
What, if anything, is our relationship with the Old Testament law? I was recently asked to teach an introduction to the Torah, the first five books of our Bible, in YWAM Heidebeek’s Bible for Life course. This gave me an opportunity to wrestle anew with this important question – important because it concerns a sizeable…
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Thinking about Thinking
There is enormous diversity among Christians in what we believe and in how we understand various passages in the Bible. This is a simple and straightforward observation; at least on this, we should be able to agree. But what causes it? Is it something about the Bible? Or is it something in us, humans? I…
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The Message of the Temple
It is with a mixture of excitement and relief that I come to the end of Greg Beale’s book, The Temple and the Church’s Mission. There is excitement because of its well-argued thesis, which I will try to summarize below. There is relief because I am done with immensely dense and heavy reading. This is…
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How to Boggle Your Mind: The Miracle of Language
Language is mind-bogglingly complex – as illustrated, in a small way, by the strange word “mind-bogglingly”! The Bible is written in human language. If we care about interpreting the Bible, it pays off to think about how language works. This month, therefore, I made an excursion into linguistics, the science that studies language. What I…
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Nine Ideas to Improve Your Learning
There is a reason why this site is called Create a Learning Site. The name combines two of my main passions, learning and creating. I love to learn, and I love to share what I am learning. I created the learning site as a platform to learn and to share. I was reminded of this…
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Expository Preaching: A Power Tool for God’s Church
I don’t preach very often. I am at heart (and by profession) a teacher, not a preacher. But I do believe that preaching is of the utmost importance. There is no greater power that materially resides in our world than the word of God as it has been written down in the Bible. It is…
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Luther and the Lament Psalms
Numerous evangelicals in the West have embraced a theology that denies many forms of suffering the right to exist: this ought not to be – not if we are a new creation in Christ! More than a few even go further and deny, ‘in faith,’ not just its right to be but its very existence:…
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LXX: It Was All Greek to Them
If you have ever used Bible reference works, you may well have come across these somewhat mysterious letters: LXX. (Hint: they have nothing to do with XXL.) If you have done a fair bit of Bible teaching, chances are that you have made reference to the Septuagint, the word behind LXX, in your lectures. I…
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Reading the New Testament in Greek: What Was It Like?
Last year in February, I wrote about my intention to read the New Testament in Greek and report regularly on Tumblr and other social media on my progress. So how did I do? Well, life happened. To be more precise, we unexpectedly decided to buy a house and move, which made much of the…
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How Do People Get Hungry?
The past few months, Franziska and I have been busy with our move. We are finally getting back to a more settled state, so from here on, I should be able to give more of my attention to Create a Learning Site again. For this month, I am taking the presentation I did during the…
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The Millennium Is… When?!? (“The Battle” and the Millennium II)
Shortly before the end of his book, John writes about “the battle” and the millennium. In the previous issue, I argued that these images may be more fluid and flexible than most readers recognize. “The battle” may be a reality (a confrontation) that runs throughout salvation history (therefore a “war” rather than a “battle”). In…
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The War Is On: “The Battle” and the Millennium I
In my beginning years in the School of Biblical Studies I spent a lot of time studying and teaching subjects related to eschatology (or the end times). One of these was the millennium, a fancy term for the “thousand years” mentioned in Revelation 20. It has always struck me as odd that this brief passage,…
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Ecclesiastes: What Am I Missing?
For a long time, I have had a nagging doubt about Ecclesiastes. It is a sense that I am missing something. Let’s face it, this is not an easy book. The question of authorship is an issue (was it Solomon?), but still more its content with its seemingly negative outlook on life and its tensions…
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What Is Wrong with the SourceView Bible App?
Nothing. Everything. It all depends on how you use it. Okay, one step back: what is the SourceView Bible app? It is the app that builds on the SourceView Bible, produced by David Hamilton and available since 2011. Its unique feature is displaying the text in four colours, depending on the speaker or writer (the…
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Giving Deuteronomy a Second Chance
I often get asked what my favourite book of the Bible is. The real answer is (it is not the one people want to hear): I don’t know. A number of books come to mind but which of these would be my favourite is hard to decide. Here is what I do know: Deuteronomy is…
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What Does the Bible Say about Health?
This is the question I was asked by David and Catherine, the couple who is preparing the health track meetings that will be part of YWAM Together in Kansas City this year. As a result, this will be a premiere: this month, I am presenting the first topical study for Create a Learning Site. YWAM…
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The Revised Toolbox
It is just over a year ago that I first published the Digital Toolbox with over 200 links to resources on the Internet for studying and teaching books of the Bible. With this issue, I am revisiting the toolbox. I have checked every link to make sure it still works and I have added a…
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Invest in Romans (Get the DIY Guide)
I have often wondered how we can help individuals and small groups to explore a book of the Bible. To discover things for yourself (rather than simply being told by someone) is a key value in inductive Bible study. But this does not necessarily mean sending people off on a journey of discovery without any…
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The Lost World of Genesis 1-11
I am shamelessly paraphrasing the title of a book by John Walton on Genesis 1, because it fits so well with the point I want to make in this issue. This point is: the world in which the early chapters of Genesis were written was very different from our world. Or more accurately, since it…
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Ten TED Talks to Improve Your Public Speaking
And now, for something entirely different… I’d like to introduce you to your personal trainer in public speaking. Let’s face it: in order to effectively create a learning site for others, having good content is only half the job; a good presentation is equally important. In this issue, I turn to TED Talks as a…
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What Is Glory? And What Does It Have to Do with the End Times?
Once upon a time, The Late Great Planet Earth was a highly successful book. It was the bestselling nonfiction book of the entire decade of the 1970s, with 35 million copies sold worldwide. Today, it is no longer relevant. If its author, Hal Lindsey, would have been right, the world would have ended 30 years…