Showing results by author "Dr. Bill Creasy" in All Categories

God sends Amos to the northern kingdom of Israel to prophecy against it. Confronting the king and his priests, Amos tells the leaders precisely what will happen if they do not return to God: the northern kingdom of Israel will be destroyed by the Assyrians, and the high priest’s wife will become a prostitute in the city! Join Logos Bible’s Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he highlights the social, political, and historical milieu of the era in which this most unlikely of prophets speaks.

In 1 Samuel we continue our narrative. Samuel is the last of the judges, and with his end approaching the people demand a king “so we can be like all the other nations.” As God tells Samuel, “it is not you they have rejected, they have rejected me as their king.” And indeed they have. The people choose a king, Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. Saul will rule Israel for an entire generation, but although he looks like a king, he does not have the heart of a king, and the weight of kingship crushes him.

If Isaiah is the “thundering prophet” and Jeremiah is the “weeping prophet”, then Ezekiel is the “weird prophet”! Taken captive in the second wave of Babylonian attacks on Jerusalem in 597 B.C., Ezekiel writes in Babylon about the 13 “visions” that comprise his book (593-573 B.C.) And strange visions they are! Ezekiel is the “street performer” of the prophets, acting out many of his prophecies in dramatic and strange ways. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he follows Ezekiel, the weird prophet, in his street theater performance!

Abraham’s son, Isaac, plays a key role in God’s plan of salvation. But in Genesis 22, God says to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering…!

From Solomon’s reign to the prophetic call of Elijah, 1 Kings tells the story of the collapse of David’s united monarchy into a nearly 100-year civil war and the fracture of a nation into two kingdoms: Israel and Judah. Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy journeys deeply into the historical and cultural nuances that underlie this amazing and compelling story.

Although Matthew may not be the first written Gospel, like Isaiah it is positioned first in its sequence of four Gospels. Opening with a 42-generation genealogy, Matthew reminds us of the linear nature of God’s plan, and Matthew forms a link—a swinging door—between the Old and New Testaments. Matthew is a Jew writing for a Jewish audience, and his Gospel provides our first perspective on the birth and public ministry of Jesus Christ. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he leads us through this dazzling work.

Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of those who return to Judah to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem. In fact, little more than 40,000 people return, only about 10% of the Jewish population in the Persian Empire. Esther tells the story of the 90% who remain behind. This is a fabulous story - and Dr. Creasy tells us the “X-rated” version!

If Isaiah is the “thundering prophet”, then Jeremiah is the “weeping prophet”. Jeremiah holds the terrible position of being both a priest and a prophet; he represents both the people before God, and God before the people—not unlike a lawyer representing both husband and wife in a contentious and bitter divorce! Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he follows Jeremiah, the “weeping prophet”, through his many trials and tribulations.

Once thought to have been written by Paul, Hebrews is in fact written by one of Paul’s inner circle prior to A.D. 70, but no one knows exactly who. Addressed to Jewish Christians, our author examines several key issues from a Jewish perspective, drawing heavily upon the Torah for his support. In the marvelous chapters 7-10, our author sees Christ foreshadowed in the Tabernacle; the five great sacrifices of Leviticus; the priest Melchezedek from Genesis 14; and the Law itself. All, our author argues, are merely copies or shadows of the good things that were to come.

Lamentations is Jeremiah’s eyewitness account of the terrible suffering of a people who watch priest and prophet killed in the temple and are driven in desperation to “eat their own children”. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he explores the five acrostic poems that compose the book of Lamentations.

As we rebuild the temple in Ezra, so we rebuild Jerusalem in Nehemiah. Ezra and Nehemiah work together, priest and layman, to complete God’s work—and you will not find two more different characters in all of Scripture. When Ezra learns that the Israelite leaders have been unfaithful to God, he sits on the ground appalled and pulls out the hairs of his beard; when Nehemiah hears the same message, he gathers the leaders together, sits them on the ground, and he pulls out the hairs of their beards!

Written considerably later that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), John takes a very different approach to the Gospel story. Traditionally attributed to the "Beloved Apostle" John, this Gospel doesn’t give us yet another version of the events in Jesus’ public ministry; John illustrates what those events mean in light of 60 years of reflection upon them. The Gospel according to John is a brilliant book, and it offers us a profoundly intimate glimpse into the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Read through a Christian interpretative lens, Daniel foreshadows the coming of the Messiah as well as the “end time” events in the book of Revelation. Daniel is a very important book for Jesus, who draws his self-referential title “Son of Man” from Daniel 7:13-14; who quotes directly from Daniel 12 in the Olivet Discourse; and who seals his “guilty” verdict before Jerusalem’s religious leaders by reference to the book of Daniel.

As Proverbs fits squarely into the genre of “advice to a son” literature, so the Song of Songs fits squarely into the genre of erotic love poetry. Traditionally read as an allegory of God’s love for Israel or of Christ’s love for the Church, Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy explores the Song of Songs as what it is, first and foremost: an erotic love poem written by Solomon in the final years of his life, a poem tinged with deep regret and longing.

As we know from our own experience: bad things often happen to good people, even when they are fully aligned with God. So what gives? Job explores this paradox, calling into question the fundamental lessons we learn in the first 700 pages of Scripture. Each book after Esther in the Christian canon of the Hebrew Scriptures is a recapitulation into the main narrative. Job takes us back to the start, to the time of Abraham, and it raises serious questions.

As Paul writes his last will and testament in 2 Timothy, so Peter writes his in 2 Peter. It is A.D. 68, and Peter, like Paul, has been arrested during the persecutions under Nero, then tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. In his second epistle, Peter urges us to remember the foundational teachings of the Gospel and not to be led astray by false teachers and those who serve their own interests, rather than Christ’s. Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as we bid farewell to Peter and listen to his last words of encouragement.

Paul never planned to go into Galatian territory, but midway into his second missionary journey Paul becomes ill and his companions take him north over the mountains to Galatia for medical care. While there, Paul forms several churches. Once Paul arrives in Corinth toward the end of A.D. 50, he writes a letter to the churches in Galatia, expressing great concern about them. Paul’s gospel message is quite simple: we are saved by grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When the exiles return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity in 538 B.C., they begin to rebuild the temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. But very quickly resistance arises from the local population - not from military or mob attacks, but from an army of lawyers!

The third of Paul’s so-called “Prison Epistles”, Paul writes to the church in Colossae, a church he had not founded, nor ever visited. So just how did this church come to be, and what was Paul’s relationship with it? Join Logos Bible Study’s Dr. Bill Creasy as he answers these questions and explores the challenges facing this developing church.

Working hand-in-hand with the prophet Haggai, Zechariah also encourages the people to resume work on the temple in 520 B.C.; but unlike Haggai, Zechariah extends his prophecy to foreshadow future messianic and end-time events. Like Ezekiel, Zechariah has several “weird” visions, including that of an ugly woman in a flying bushel basket! Listen as Dr. Bill Creasy of Logos Bible Study explores this fascinating book.