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Guest Post by Isaac Shrum

As Christians living in this increasingly secular age, we’re called to graciously endure suffering from unbelievers when it comes our way. We never go looking for trouble or wish to partake in foolish quarrels, because we’re instructed “to put no obstacle in anyone’s way” to come to Christ [2 Cor. 6:3].  

But when we stand for truth, righteousness, and the Gospel, we can expect the majority response from this [post-modern] world to be detestation. This should not surprise us, since we ourselves once walked in their shoes, even scorning and mocking the message of the Gospel like the Apostle Paul did before his conversion [Acts 9:1; 22:4]. Why the hostile response you might ask?

Simply put, the Bible tells us that apart from the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, men naturally hate the Light [John 3:19], are hostile towards God [Rom. 8:7], and are enemies of God through their wicked deeds [Col. 1]. In stark contrast to the humanistic-progressivism of our day [i.e. ‘man is basically good’], the Scriptures teach that men are depraved through and through. Instead of walking in fellowship with God, men shake their fists at Him while running the other way.

As a result of this deep-seated hatred for God flows distaste towards Christians. Jesus warned us, “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first” [John 15:18]. This sense of hostility should grieve us [Phil. 3:18], but it should not be surprising [1 John 3:13]. If men hate God, should it really shock us when they despise His followers too?

A Christian is someone who, by the grace of God, faces the world as it actually exists. The Christian is devoted to understanding reality rather than deny it. The postmodern secularist, on the other hand, denies the very existence of truth as a reality outside of themselves. This means that many people today believe the truth neither exists nor can be known, except what they determine it to be by their self-declared authority. But why is reality so difficult to face for many people? The answer is that many avoid or suppress reality because they are either dissatisfied with or afraid of it and so are highly resistant to accepting it.

The postmodern man does not know who he is, where he came from or where he is going. So he makes up a story, a narrative, about himself and how he fits into the world even though it flies in the face of reality. But the man whose eyes God opens and, by grace, adopts as His own knows who he is, how he got here and where he is going. And he shares this grand vision with his family and all who are around him. He finds his identity and meaning in this, and no other narrative. This narrative frames his thinking and his life: everything he thinks, decides and does and he is accountable to this narrative, a narrative that possesses him. And it possesses him because it is true. He knows there is work to be done and lives to be saved.

The NIV Zondervan Study Bible releases on August 25.

• 50-page PDF sample
• the book’s website: NIVZondervanStudyBible.com

D. A. Carson is the general editor; Desi Alexander, Rick Hess, and Doug Moo are the associate editors; and Andy Naselli served as the assistant editor. Andy Naselli worked on this study Bible full-time for four years and for a fifth year part-time. He managed the project and helped copyedit all of the notes and essays for content and style.

The study Bible has completely fresh content from new contributors. Its audience is as general as the target audience for the NIV itself: the English-speaking world.

Naselli says that the top two study Bibles available are now clearly the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Zondervan Study Bible. I would also give very high marks to the The Reformation Study Bible which also just came out in 2015.

Here is a quick sweeping picture of the history of redemption.  

God has revealed Himself in space-time history by becoming flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ. His purpose was to glorify Himself by redeeming sinful, fallen creatures from their bondage and captivity to sin and its deadly consequences. He did this by becoming our representative (Heb 2:17; 4:15), doing for us from our side what we were unable to do for ourselves. He is the center, the focal point of human history, and all of human history prior to the coming of Jesus Christ was a preparation for His coming:

After human beings rebelled against God and lost their original favor with Him, death and suffering entered into their world,  God, not wanting His people to perish forever, was merciful and immediately made a promise that he would eventually redeem them through the woman's seed (Gen 3:15). God initiated and fulfilled his redemptive promise through the establishment of covenants with humanity:

1) His covenant promise to Abraham, the chosen line through which the Redeemer would come, introduced His merciful, sovereign and infallible determination to rescue a multitude of fallen sinners, by grace alone through faith alone (Gal 3:8).

2) In His covenant promise to Moses, God established His unchangeable Law (or eternal moral principles) that humanity must meet in order for that redemption to actually be completed.  But no man having the moral capacity to do so...