Matt O'Reilly, PhD

Dan Wallace thinks so as well, if not more so, and recently wrote a response to Hsu criticizing him for going soft on a penal...

One common interpretation of this saying suggests that, at this very moment, God the Father abandoned God the Son. Unable to look upon...

Well-known preacher and teacher Thomas G. Long suggests that Jesus is speaking ironically and argues that “friend”, in the Gospel of...

The kings of Judah are categorized in scripture in terms of whether “they did what was right in the sight of the Lord” or not. Two of the...

“For an instant, Barabbas seemed to comprehend that this innocent man would be nailed to the cross in his place. Barabbas would be the...

Our Christmas celebrations have come to an end once again. Nevertheless, the many truths of Christmas endure all year long. One of those...

There are several passages in the gospels that suggest Jesus was not homeless. In Mark 2:1, when Jesus returned to Capernaum, it was...

First, the text of Jonah doesn’t actually say that Jonah was swallowed by a sperm whale. It simply says he was swallowed by a big fish...

As with so many issues, the IRD once again seems to think evangelical Christianity has basically the same values as conservative...

The details of the controversy are available in other places; so I’ll simply sum up the core issue. In his massive book, The Resurrection...

First, the shepherds didn’t mess with the message. They are said to have made known that which was said to them. They are courriers for...

“For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered...

Does Jesus’ cry of forsakenness from the cross point to a division within the Godhead? Or could it surprisingly point to an even deeper...

I gathered with many of my fellow clergy for last week to hear Marva Dawn speak on the topic of Sabbath. Her presentation was well-done...

In the church and seminary world, terms like Christ-centered and Christocentric get tossed around like stones in one of those little...

I preached yesterday on Peter’s denial of Jesus from Mark 14:66-72. And even though the sermon is over, I keep going back to think about...

I wanted to point to a couple of books that I was pleased to see published as of late.  The first is Commentary on Selected Passages in...

We like to have fun with Zacchaeus. We get a good laugh as we recount the story of the man who wanted to see Jesus but was too short to...

Jesus said to them, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly...

More than a few readers of scripture have been troubled by Jesus’ cursing of the figless tree recorded in Mark 11:12-14.  Jesus has been...