Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In an earlier paper 1 I argued that the story of Jonah belongs in the book of KINGS. Jonah and the unnamed Judean prophet in 1K13 are paired by the author through literary links. The Judean prophet travels longitudinally to confront national paganism and is killed but not swallowed by…
The Scriptures have much to say about “the day.” “This is the day that the Lord has made,” sings the Psalmist (Psalm 118:24). But what exactly is the day ? Or, more broadly, what even is a day? Days make up human life like water, light, and air. There’s no…
According to the Westminster Confession of Faith 21:5, “God is to be worshipped everywhere, in spirit and truth, …” A similar phrase is found in the OPC’s Directory for Public Worship (II.6). In my experience in the OPC and other Reformed churches, the phrase is often interpreted to mean that…
Introduction In Genesis 3:16, after the fall, God said that Eve would “desire” her husband and that her husband would “rule” over her. It is popular for Christians to interpret Eve's desire as sinful, that she would try to usurp her husband's authority. Likewise, some interpret Adam's rule as sinful,…
White Western/Christian society has long discriminated against lesbians and homosexuals — ever since the days of Moses — who was neither white nor Christian, but that is beside the point — who claimed that God gave him revelation about what a man or woman is and how they should relate…
They Found a Book in a Wall, You Won’t Believe What Happens Next The secret behind the history of quiet times will make your quiet times more effective than ever. One of the enduring mysteries of American Evangelicalism is the question of the source of Quiet Times: A Handbook ,…
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Christians today often think that the church needs to be powerful and well-ordered to attract notice. This is nothing less than unbelief. Think of Ruth the Moabitess, who attaches herself to Naomi when Naomi has nothing (Ruth 1:15-18). Naomi went out of Israel full — with husband, two sons, everything…
Moses' blessing of Levi (Deuteronomy 33:8-11) includes a curse against Levi's enemies: “Yahweh, bless his substance, and accept the work of his hands; shatter the loins of those who rise up against him, and those who hate him, so that they may not rise” (v. 11). Levi's substance consists of…
The description of the angels on Jacob's ladder has long been a puzzle: They are “ascending and descending” (Genesis 28). Since angels come from heaven to earth, shouldn't it be the opposite? Shouldn't they come down before they go up? Yitzhak Pegel suggests a solution in his Going Up and…
Tomoko Masuzawa was startled to discover that one of the “precepts” of modern religious studies was “Thou shalt not quest for the origin of religion” ( In Search of Dreamtime , 2). This was odd on a couple of fronts. For starters, “every one of the ‘founding fathers' of our…
In her 1959 study of Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes , Lily Campbell treats the four main tragedies of tragedies of passion. Shakespeare places characters of different humor in similar circumstances, and depicts how the characters react. Hamlet is a tragedy of grief, Othello of jealousy, Lear of old-age wrath, Macbeth of…
Mark Chaves observes ( Congregations in America ) that it is difficult to say what congregations do, and that for two reasons. On the one hand, a congregation's “ministry” may actually be the work of a tiny minority of a congregation., On the other hand, congregations in the US are…
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