John Mark Hicks

This is one meditation from the published book by John Mark Hicks, Around the Bible in 80 Days: The Story of God from Creation to New Creation (Abilene: Leafwood Press, 2022).

The Reformation in a nutshell: We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone as taught by Scripture alone. • Grace alone (sola gratia) means that God took initiative, supplies grace for every good work, and completes God’s work in us, and this includes a cooperative […]

Philemon is a brief letter with only 335 words in the Greek text, and it appears in the New Testament without any specific context. Philemon and Onesimus, the main characters in the letter’s story, are unknown elsewhere in the New Testament. Many, if not most of the details, are lost to us as readers to […]

Text: Philippians 3:4-14 That can’t be a commendable hunger, can it? To hunger for power. It depends on what kind of power we are talking about. To hunger for Caesar’s power (or wealth or status) is ungodly, but to hunger for the power to become like Jesus is something different. This is not a hunger […]

The most heartfelt and gut-wrenching expression of Paul’s love for his own nation, his own people, for Israel is found in Romans 9:1-5. Israel, though gifted by God with wondrous privileges, had rejected God’s Messiah. Paul was heartbroken as he listed the gifts in an overflow of praise for God’s grace toward Israel. Gift one: […]

Do we need “authority” for what we believe and practice in the kingdom of God? I think so.  It seems that Jesus was concerned about that very question when he raised it with his inquisitors regarding the baptism of John.  “By what authority” seems to be a legitimate question (Matthew 23:23-27).  [Perhaps someone might quibble […]

With this post, I will lay down my keyboard for a few weeks on this topic as I leave Friday or Saturday for a week vacation without electronics.  But I will continue this series again upon my return.  I envision six or seven more articles on “theological hermeneutics” and then a new series on “applied” theological […]

Imbibing the theodrama by reading Scripture is critical to the development of our theological sensitivities. One of the more important dimensions of this maturing understanding of the theodrama is the concept of redemptive-historical movement within the drama itself. The theodrama is progressive; it is telos-oriented or goal-oriented. Watching the movement of the drama toward the […]