John Mark Hicks

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 […]

Yes and No.  Check it out at here.

After the fourth trumpet an eagle soared across the sky to announce the first of three woes (Revelation 8:13). The second woe followed the fifth trumpet (Revelation 9:12). As readers we expect to hear the third woe after the sixth trumpet in order to  transition to the seventh trumpet. Instead, the third woe does not […]

Good Friday and then Easter! But a day is missing in that story. To move from Friday to Sunday we must walk through Saturday. Saturday, however, is a lonely day. Death has won. Hope is lost. Jesus of Nazareth lies in a tomb. His disciples are afraid, hiding, and deeply depressed. Everything they had invested […]

Peter Jay Martin, following in the footsteps of his father Joseph Lemuel Martin, authored a book that surveyed Revelation. Published by the McQuiddy Company (the Gospel Advocate publisher) in 1913, it was entitled The Mystery Finished, or The New Heavens and the New Earth. Peter’s book is not as well known as his father’s (The Voice of […]

On Sunday, Jesus had entered Jerusalem triumphantly only to walk into the temple, see everything, and then go back to Bethany apparently frustrated. On Monday Jesus returned to the temple and  angrily cleansed it. On Tuesday, as Jesus taught in the temple courts, the authorities confronted him about his actions, his relation to Rome and […]

The situation in the South through 1866 and for several years thereafter was critical. The hungry, naked and homeless were present in overwhelming numbers. The War had devastated the country. I think this is one reason we see a constant stream of small blurbs from Lipscomb in the 1866 Gospel Advocate on the poor and the […]

The seemingly innocuous opening line of the Gospel of Mark is actually a broadside against the Roman Empire, or any empire. It is a loaded sentence. Many think that Mark’s Gospel was written in the context of the city of Rome, perhaps to Roman Christians. Whatever the case, it was certainly written within the context […]

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is–of course–quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.] Jesus accomplishes the divine mission to make […]

The octogenarian David Lipscomb, knowing his last years were upon him, intentionally broached subjects and pressed points that he hoped would shape the future of the church. Here are few examples. Debates Need to End. Lipscomb thought that debates between “Baptists and disciples” needed to change or cease. They needed to stress the commonalities more […]