New Testament Texts

As we saw earlier, Matthew 9 concludes with Jesus preaching to large crowds and instructing the disciples to pray earnestly for more laborers to be sent out to gather in the harvest (Matt 9:35–38). Now Jesus takes action by instructing the disciples for their mission and sending them out to procl...

Matthew 9 concludes the two-chapter sequence of miracle stories. The chapter begins with the healing of the paralytic, but the story is more about forgiveness than healing (Matt 9:1–8). It is followed by the call of Levi (Matt 9:9) and three parables of Jesus illustrating His kingdom-based minist...

Matthew 8 begins a two-chapter sequence of miracle stories in groups of three, organized topically rather than chronologically. In the first group, Jesus cleanses a leper, heals the servant of a centurion, and banishes the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law, followed by a brief summary of further hea...

In Matthew 7, Jesus continues expounding on the ethics of the kingdom of heaven and includes some wonderful promises. But He also challenges us personally and individually regarding how we relate to God’s law and His teachings. Our attitude toward judging, asking, and giving, culminating with the...

Matthew 6, in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, contains some of Jesus’ most practical teachings. It begins by focusing on true worship, which is deeply personal, and it includes instruction on giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting (Matt 6:1–18). This leads directly into a consideration of...

The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7 is the first of Jesus’ five major discourses recorded by Matthew, each of which unfolds different facets of the kingdom of heaven. The first and last discourses act as bookends, describing the kingdom in its present and future dimensions respectively. The Se...

Matthew 4 begins with Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness for forty days. As in Mark and Luke, it occurs immediately after Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist and prior to His ministry in Galilee. The Gospel of John does not mention Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness at all and Mark’s description...

The most notorious number in the Bible is the enigmatic number of the Sea Beast, 666 (Rev 13:18). After discussing the visual representation of this number in the earliest Greek manuscripts in light of recent numerical and papyrological research, I will explore the meaning of the verb ψηφίζω in 13:18 and other biblical and extra-biblical texts. I conclude that 666 is not a number to be understood as a series of three sixes, that the interpretation of the cryptogram must be understood from the standpoint of psephical calculations of the numerical equivalents the letters of ancient alphabets, and that the symbolic meaning of the number, or of its factor of six, is not primary to the text.

SDA identity is, to a substantial degree, grounded in the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. A crucial part of that identity is dependent on the time periods in those prophecies. Yet aspects of those time prophecies have not in the past been developed in relation to solid academic exegesis. This presentation is an attempt to provide a more exegetical basis for Adventist understanding some of the five 1260 day/year passages in Revelation 11-13.

Eschatology inevitably casts a moral vision—generating a corresponding ethic and giving promise of offering a unity of life and the possibility of total fulfillment. Revelation’s eschatology and ethics interweave, informing Scripture’s ultimate moral/spiritual vision and urgent appeal. Moral realities unfold against the vivid tapestry of an eschatological horizon comprised of a historical flow (past, present, future) and in the context of an overarching worldview with its vision of God and His redemptive re-creation. These moral realities include character (being and doing), freedom and choice, truthfulness, worship, covenant faithfulness, ethical practice, reconciliation, ethical norms, moral dilemmas, and moral agency. The context for ethical reflection is nuanced through key integrating themes that call for priority in our thinking and ethical method. Revelation puts us in a moral context—telling us what condition human life is in, where we are, and where we are going. It informs us what questions need to be answered. It provides the philosophical map, the larger moral vision against which its various moral themes can be considered.