Matt O'Reilly, PhD

The contributions fall into four major sections. Part 1 is on the ancient context of the New Testament and attends to the relationship between early Christianity and the Roman Empire along with attitudes toward women in the ancient world. Part 2 takes up questions related to interpretation with chapters focused on hermeneutics, Old Testament use in the New Testament, the genre of the canonical Gospels, and developments in the study of Greek. Part 3 contains essays generally o

Watch this video on YouTube. Many Christians look forward to heaven. But the Bible doesn’t actually portray life after death as the heart of Christian hope. In this video, Dr. Matt O’Reilly walks you through Revelation 6:9-10 to introduce you to some people who went to heaven but weren’t happy about it. You’ll learn why heaven is not the sum and substance of Christian hope. Rather, Christian hope is always resurrection hope. Did you enjoy this video? Give it a thumbs up. Then

…we see that orthodoxy and evangelism are the inseparable foci of a healthy church. Both must be kept in dynamic balance. Evangelism without orthodoxy becomes a tolerant pluralism and results in a community formed around diffuse human values and criteria. Orthodoxy without evangelism becomes a cold, harsh legalism and results in a community formed around debilitating “do’s and don’ts.” Sound orthodoxy and fervent evangelism result in a community of faith whose growing wholene

Revelation is the hardest book in the New Testament. With all the numbers, symbols, and images, it’s intimidating (and even scary!) to the average reader. On top of that, there’s plenty of unhelpful material out there. This video gives a quick intro to 3 books on Revelation that are accessible and rewarding. Read these and you’ll be well on your way to understanding Revelation. Revelation for Everyone by N.T. Wright Reading Revelation Responsibly by Michael J. Gorman Revelati

Dissatisfied with Heaven So what are they waiting for? To answer that question we need to look more closely at their appeal. Their complaint revolves around the wrong done to them. They did nothing wrong, yet they’ve lost their lives. They were perfectly faithful, but they suffered deep injustice. They died for their faith. And from their perspective, entrance into heaven does nothing to make things right. They want to be vindicated. So they appeal to their “Sovereign” to do