Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I've pastored a very rural church for well over a decade. Our town has about 1,000 people and will never grow until Jesus returns. 38 people attend our worship on Sundays. Here's a quick list of what we’ve done to grow our church, and what I’ve done to survive pastorally.…
Thanks for sharing so honestly about your current crisis of creativity. I totally understand and relate to that; it’s happened many times in my musical life thus far, and I’ve begun to accept it as a normal rhythm of the creative process. I actually went through a serious dry spell…
The Broken Stones of Israel At Sinai, the tablets of the Law of Moses were broken and restored. The Old Testament is a history of “new covenants,” including that promised in Jeremiah and fulfilled in Zechariah. Ultimately, the vertical Oath and the horizontal Sanctions met in the death of Jesus…
Woe to the sinful nation. Woe to those who enlarge their estates and build their portfolios. Woe to the drunks. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to the proud who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to Congressmen who pass unjust laws and to…
The interpretation of Romans 7:7-25 is notoriously difficult. Good scholars disagree on many aspects of the passage, but the central interpretative difficulty concerns the identity of the “I.” Is Paul referring to himself? Is Paul referring to himself pre- or post-conversion? Does the “I” refer to Adam? Is the “I”…
You board the Metra train at Arlington Heights station one afternoon, heading to downtown Chicago for some sight-seeing. As the train departs from the station, a man in jeans, a striped t-shirt, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap enters your train car, and begins asking to see each passenger’s…
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We have some difficulty understanding the biblical picture of prayer because we live in a country that sharply separates politics and prayer. Ancient Israel did not do that. The dedication ceremony for the temple began with the transport of the ark of the covenant from its location in the ?city…
As I’ve discussed in a previous post (and, more fully, in a forthcoming article in the Tyndale Bulletin ), Kings is organized by three parallel narratives: the story of the united kingdom (Solomon to Zedekiah and Jehoiachin); the northern kingdom (Jeroboam to the fall of Samaria and the destruction of…
I read from Genesis 2:21-23 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh at that place. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken…
Throughout the OT, there are repeated references to Yahweh’s “name” dwelling in the place of Yahweh’s choosing (Deut 12; 2 Sam 7; 1 Kings 6-8). Frequently (as in 1 Kings 8:16), there is a pun on the word “name” (SHEM) and the word “there” (SHAM). If we can extrapolate from…
1 Kings 8:12-13 begins Solomon’s lengthy speech at the temple dedication. It is a poetic and formal utterance, and contins a number of intriguing features. First, it appears to be structured chiastically: Yahweh said A. to dwell (SHAKAN) B. in the gloom C. Building I have built B’. a house…
My son Christian noted a couple of cool things in the Bible this morning: 1) The law of the firstborn requires that the firstborn male of unclean animals like donkeys either be redeemed or killed: “every first opening of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, but if you…
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