Articles · Scripture Trove
Thematic reading on biblical background, theology and everyday faith for Christians and those exploring Christianity.
Scripture Trove Columns · All Articles
222 Bible study and pastoral articles, organized by topic.
Seeking & New Faith
- Jesus: Did He Really Exist in History? - Some imagine Jesus as a religious legend, like Zeus in Gr...
- Is the Bible Revealed by God? - Why call the Bible God's word, rather than merely an anci...
- Hinduism and the New Age Movement - Hinduism is among the world's oldest religions. The New A...
- Jesus: Is the Resurrection Credible? - The resurrection is Christianity's boldest and most centr...
- Why You Need Not Fear Death - Death is the subject we least want to discuss and none ca...
- Other Common Questions about God - On the road to knowing God, certain questions cannot be a...
- Postmodernism and Relativism - 'You have your truth; I have mine.' 'There is no absolute...
- Atheism and Scientism - 'Science has explained everything; we no longer need God'...
- How Do You Become a Christian? - Someone asks what Christianity is about, and although you...
- Jesus: Is the Virgin Birth Credible? - A virgin conceiving and bearing a child is among the Chri...
- One Tree, Three Great Branches — A Simple Guide to Judaism and the Three Major Christian Traditions - Are "Christianity," "Catholicism," and "Eastern Orthodoxy...
- How to Share the Gospel - Sharing the gospel differs from giving a testimony: testi...
- Is It Reasonable to Believe God Exists? — For Those Who Want to Believe but Can't Get Past the Rational Barrier - Do you find Christianity appealing, yet keep hitting a ra...
- God's Plan of Salvation - Our deepest problem is not a lack of religious knowledge,...
- Why Are You Precious and Valuable? - We live in a world that constantly puts a price tag on pe...
- Did the iPhone 17 "Evolve" from the iPhone 16? - Evolution may be the biggest stumbling block for many see...
- Do Demons Really Exist? What Is Their Relationship to God? - For many people raised in Chinese culture, "ghosts" are a...
- Is It Reasonable to Believe God Exists? (Condensed Version) - This article does not try to "overpower" you with one or...
- Do Christians Have a List of Taboos? - Someone online asks, 'Do you Christians have any particul...
- Is 'Once Saved, Always Saved' Right? - Someone says once saved, always saved, yet Judas and peop...
- My Family Will Not Let Me Believe: Seeking God When Relatives Oppose You - Your family is Buddhist, or simply forbids involvement in...
- Qingming, Funerals and That Stick of Incense: What Christians Can and Cannot Do - An older relative has died. The master of ceremonies call...
- If God Created the Universe, Who Created God? - “Who created God?” sounds like a challenging question, bu...
- How Should We Read Genesis Chapter 1? — "Six Days of Creation" and Modern Science - The Bible says God made heaven and earth in six days — ho...
Mental & Emotional Health
Our Times
Growing to Maturity
- Why Does Jesus Require Forgiveness? What Is True Forgiveness? - Forgiveness is among the hardest lessons in Christian fai...
- From Trying to Achieve to Learning to Grow - Many Christians are dissatisfied with their spiritual con...
- What Does It Mean to Commit to a Church? - Christians often hear the exhortation to commit to a chur...
- How Do You Care for a Loved One at the End of Life? - When someone you love is approaching the end of their lif...
- How to Face the End of Life - When the doctor says "there is little more we can do," an...
- Becoming a Good and Faithful Steward - Scripture's view of wealth, time and gifts can be summed...
- Healthy Boundaries among Believers - Christians often feel torn between loving others and prot...
- A Vision for Healthy Relationships in Christ's Body - What should healthy relationships among church members lo...
- How the Gospel Rebuilds Our Security - The fourth article in The Truth about Sin described the e...
- How to Bear Witness - Bearing witness often feels pressurising, as though it re...
- Living a Life Led by the Holy Spirit - Many Christians know they should be led by the Holy Spiri...
- Accepting and Supporting Fellow Believers in Weakness - Some believers seem hard to shepherd: they have believed...
- God's Glory Reflected in Every Person - We easily notice only what is wrong with fellow believers...
- Preparing for Small Group Multiplication - A healthy small group should not remain the same people a...
- Why Confess and Make Restitution to Others When the Father Has Forgiven Us? - 'Hasn't God forgiven me already? Why must I still apologi...
- Discerning an Opportunity from a Temptation - Life offers things that look like opportunities: higher p...
- Building a Vibrant Small Group - A vibrant small group does not depend on many activities,...
- How to Love Someone Who Is Hard to Love - Loving lovable people is easy, yet Scripture calls us to...
- Honouring God with Our Words - Words are powerful in relationships: they can build a per...
- Living Honestly in the Gospel: Do Not Become a Performer - There is an invisible pressure in church to look spiritua...
- Beware of Treating Faith like Aladdin's Lamp - One kind of faith sounds attractive: believe in God and h...
- How to Keep Growing - Coming to faith is the starting line, rather than the fin...
- Why Join a Small Group? - Sunday worship is an important part of church life, but i...
- When Loving Fellow Believers Is Hard - There are people in church you simply struggle to love: s...
- How the Gospel Rebuilds Our Belonging - Everyone asks where they belong. We cling to relationship...
- Holding to Faith in Suffering - Every Christian will eventually face trouble: the questio...
- Rebuilding Order in Your Life through God's Word - Sin damaged the order God originally established in our l...
- Handling Conflict between Believers Maturely - Conflict in church is unsurprising: when people of differ...
- Receiving and Expressing Different Views Respectfully - Brothers and sisters in church differ over parenting, dri...
- Do Not Gossip behind People's Backs - Gossip may be one of the church's most widespread and dam...
- Walking alongside New Believers as They Grow - Someone has come to faith—wonderful! But what next? Many...
- How the Gospel Rebuilds Our Worth - Where does your worth come from? The world weighs you by...
- Why Should Christians Commit to a Church? - The preceding article explained what committing to a chur...
- Understanding the New Self and the Old Self - After coming to faith, many wonder why two selves seem to...
- How Can I Know I Have Been Born Again? - Am I really saved? Many Christians repeatedly ask this, t...
- Must I Forgive Someone Who Will Not Admit Hurting Me? - The preceding article explained forgiveness, but a more p...
- How to Pray - Prayer is a basic Christian practice and one frequently m...
- Why Tithe? - Tithing often raises questions for Christians. Some say i...
- Dealing with Jealousy and Envy - Jealousy is a sin nearly everyone experiences but few wil...
- Watching and Ready: How Christians Today Should Prepare for Christ's Return - Today's believers are deeply shaped by secularism and con...
- From Knowing to Living It Out — Seven Practices for Rebuilding Security, Worth, and Belonging in Christ - Truth is not merely something to "know" — it is something...
- Discontentment, Greed, and Idols — When the Emptiness of the Soul Drives You to Keep Taking - Why does having more leave us feeling more dissatisfied?...
- Enjoying a Life of Prayer — A Study Guide - Do you find prayer feels like checking off a task? Do you...
- Security, Worth, and Belonging — How the Gospel Meets Our Three Deepest Needs - "I know all the right things — I just can't seem to do th...
- A Guide to Contemplative Prayer — From One-Way Monologue to Walking with God - Many believers do not enjoy prayer, and the root cause is...
- Where Is My Loved One Now? - After the funeral and everyone's departure, the hardest m...
- Christian Ethics — A Study Guide - Building a framework for ethical discernment from a bibli...
- Stewardship of Money: A Study Guide - Beginning from the theological foundation that everything...
- Rebuilding Your Self-Understanding in Christ — A Study Guide - Have you ever let a single failure define your entire sen...
- I Know I Should Forgive, but I Really Cannot Let Go - Deeply wounded people often carry an additional burden: S...
- How Can I Know God's Will? - Should I change jobs? Is this the person God prepared for...
- Speaking Well: A Biblical View of Nonviolent Communication - Many arguments wound through the way we speak. Psychologi...
- Hope in Suffering — A Study Guide - Where does suffering come from? Does God truly care about...
- Sharing the Gospel with Family: The Closest People Are Often the Hardest to Reach - The hardest people to reach are often the ones closest to...
Building a Family
Faith at Work
Bible Background
- Old Testament Sacrifices: Why Does God Require Blood? - Sacrifice can seem among Scripture's strangest features:...
- The Tabernacle and Temple: God Dwelling among Humanity - From the tent at Sinai's foot to the temple on Jerusalem'...
- Coins, Weights and Measures in the Bible: How Heavy Was a Talent? - Scripture is full of figures: thirty pieces of silver, fi...
- The Roman Empire and the New Testament — The Empire That Crucified Jesus, Heard Paul's Appeal, and Carried the Gospel Across the Mediterranean - From its first verse to its last, the New Testament unfol...
- Archaeology and the Bible - Archaeology cannot replace the revelatory authority of Sc...
- A Complete Guide to the Jewish Feasts — The Gospel God Wrote on the Calendar - The Israelite calendar was not merely a farming schedule...
- Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots — Jewish Factions in the Time of Jesus - Reading the Gospels, you keep encountering the Pharisees...
- Trade Routes of the Biblical World — Caravans, Ports, and the Highways of the Gospel - Though small, Palestine sat precisely at the crossroads o...
- How the Bible Came to Us — From Papyrus to Your Phone - The Bible in your hands has traveled a journey of more th...
- Daily Life in Jesus' Era — Homes, Food, Clothing, and Work in First-Century Palestine - When Jesus said "Look at the birds of the sky" and "Consi...
- The Nations of the Ancient Near East in Old Testament Times — Israel's Neighbors, Rivals, and Empires - The Old Testament is not a one-man show performed by Isra...
- "Herod" Is Not One Person — Untangling the Herodian Dynasty in the New Testament - The name "Herod" appears more than 40 times in the New Te...
- The Four Hundred Silent Years — What Happened Between Malachi and Matthew? - Turn the last page of the Old Testament, then turn to the...
- Social Hierarchy in Biblical Times — Who Was on Top, and Who Was on the Bottom? - Why did it cause such an uproar when Jesus sat at the tab...
- Marriage and Funerals in Biblical Times — Life's Greatest Milestones from Betrothal to the Grave - When Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding ba...
- When a Nation Remembers Its Creator — China as a Case Study in How God Speaks Through Cultural Heritage - Pangu separating heaven and earth, Nüwa fashioning humani...
- Introduction to Bible Geography — The Promised Land, Smaller Than Half of China's Hainan Island - The land of Israel stretches only 240 kilometers from nor...
Interpreting Scripture
Biblical Theology
- Jesus: The Messiah Promised in the Old Testament - Jesus did not appear without warning. Over more than a th...
- We Have Been Turned against Each Other! - The serpent's first words in Eden did not tell people to...
- The Gospel Saves Everyone Who Believes - One of the gospel's greatest surprises is its reach as we...
- Jesus: Declared the Son of God with Power through His Resurrection - The cross is not the end of Jesus' story: the resurrectio...
- What Is God Like? His Glorious Image - Everyone carries a picture of God: perhaps a stern heaven...
- Leaving God Creates a Bottomless Pit within Us - Our hearts have three deepest needs: security, worth and...
- Repentance Is More Than Correcting Mistakes - Many understand repentance as admitting wrong and promisi...
- The Theology of Unity - Biblical unity goes far deeper than the slogan that toget...
- Jesus: The King Who Will Return to Judge the Whole Earth - The gospel story is not finished. Jesus first came as a s...
- The Church's Mission - Why does the church exist? Its purpose reaches beyond pro...
- The Church: God's Household - Many people think the church is a building or an institut...
- The Gospel Removes Our Shame - Shame may be among humanity's deepest wounds after the fa...
- Sin's Corporate Dimension: Structural and Cultural Sin - Many think sin is purely personal: my sin is mine and has...
- The Theology of Suffering - Suffering is humanity's oldest, most universal and heavie...
- Sin's Enslaving Power: More Than Behaviour - Many think sin is simply a bad action: you did it, and ne...
- When We Expelled Justice from the World - Sin's overturning of order did not happen only once in Ed...
- The Gospel and New Birth - Jesus' words to Nicodemus, 'You must be born again', are...
- The Theology of Glory - Glory is among Scripture's grandest and most continuous t...
- Jesus: Three and a Half Years That Changed the World - Jesus' public ministry lasted only about three and a half...
- The Gospel Is God's Power - We hear the word 'gospel' so often that we sometimes forg...
- Sin: The Destroyer of Good Order - Sin often brings specific wrongs to mind: lying, theft an...
- The Theology of Redemption - Redemption may be Christianity's most central word. Traci...
- Why Did God Give the Law? - Mention Old Testament law and many people's heads ache: r...
- Faith: The Wire Connecting Us to God's Power - Faith is often misunderstood as self-hypnosis, as though...
- Sin's Hiddenness: Why Does It So Easily Disappear from View? - One of sin's greatest dangers is its skill at disguise. D...
- Christ Will Redeem Every Original Good for Us - The gospel both forgives the sins you have committed and...
- Jesus: Giving Us the Holy Spirit and Remaining with Us - On the night before his suffering, Jesus promised his dis...
- The Gospel Is the Good News about Jesus Christ - The gospel is more than an abstract system of doctrines,...
- Sin's Contagion: The Continuing Legacy of Adam's Family - Sin affects more than the person committing it. It spread...
- The Church: Christ's Body - The preceding article pictured the church as God's househ...
- The Word "Sin" Is More Complex Than You Think - Chinese has just one word for "sin" that covers everythin...
- Believing and Being Baptised - Baptism is one of the first concrete steps facing new bel...
- The Gospel Rebuilds Our Trust in God - The serpent's deadliest tactic was to undermine trust in...
- Jesus: Crucified for Our Sins - Paul's summary of the gospel begins with Christ dying for...
- False Christs, False Prophets and False Teachers - Jesus and the apostles repeatedly warn that false christs...
- Different Views of the Last Things - Christ's return, the millennium, the great tribulation, b...
- Believers Who Have Died and Believers Still Living When the Lord Returns - What happens to believers who have already died when Chri...
- Salvation History in the Old Testament: Preparing the Way for Christ - The Old Testament is not a scattered collection of histor...
- Why Do We Still Sin When Christ Has Already Borne Our Sin? - A single word for 'sin' can obscure the richness of what...
- How the New Testament Quotes the Old Testament - Matthew says a prophet's words are fulfilled, yet the Old...
- The God of the Jews, or the God of All Humanity? - 'Isn't Christianity the religion of Jewish people and for...
- The Theology of "Eyes" - A cross-canonical study of the theme of "seeing": from Go...
- Why Do I Still Sin After Believing? (Introductory Edition) - This introductory article is written for brothers and sis...
- The Lord's Supper: Why Receive It, and Who May Come? - 'May I receive communion before baptism?' 'I stumbled thi...
- Three Questions about the Holy Spirit - 'I feel nothing unusual. Do I have the Holy Spirit?' 'Som...
- Sabbath or Lord's Day? - Some insist that the biblical Sabbath is Saturday, Sunday...
- If Everything Is Predestined, Why Make Any Effort? - Hearing predestination seriously explained can leave peop...
- Scripture Trove's New All Nations Section: Thirteen Countries and Twenty-Five Group Viewing Guides - Getting to know a people is one way of getting to know Go...
Equipping for Service
Ministry Overview
Pastoral Reflection