Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
G.K. Chesterton assumes a surprising and memorable perspective from which to view the events of Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The Donkey by: G.K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head…
There is a common biblical principle: you must give back what you steal. In the Bible, restitution is repayment with interest. If you rob someone of their money, you have to pay back double what you stole. A thief must pay back fourfold if he steals a sheep, and if…
Identifying Isaiah’s suffering servant with the promised Messiah is unthinkable for a Jew because it combines the offices of humble priest and victorious king. While it is frustrating that Jews refuse to see the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53, the reluctance of Christians to interpret the passage in its…
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6 (ESV) The command to praise God is pervasive throughout Scripture. In the verse above the Spirit calls all things with breath to praise the Lord. Song is also clearly featured all throughout Scripture and is a featured…
“Gender is a social construct.” That’s shocking to people who have assumed that gender and sex were synonyms but at least since I was in college, in the ‘80s, we were taught that “gender” refers to the forms, the customs, the traditions that our culture teaches us to define what…
In Genesis 49, Jacob prophesies about (blesses and curses?) his twelve sons. The first three of them don’t fare well. Jacob recalls Reuben’s offense of taking his concubine (Genesis 35:22) and the murderous violence of Simeon’s and Levi against the Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Shechem (Genesis 34). He…
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In the “Well, duh” category: After mentioning Warren Gage’s work on the parallels between Ruth and Tamar here earlier in the week, now I’ve read a student paper that helps to fill out that point. She points out that in both stories, men and specifically husbands die and that in…
Sermon Outline for Third Sunday in Advent: God With Us INTRODUCTION When John describes the incarnation, he uses an image drawn from the Pentateuch, saying that the “Word became flesh and ‘pitched His tent’ among us” (John 1:14). The phrase “pitch his tent” can also be translated as “tabernacled,” and…
Some interesting things going on in Paul’s quotation from Psalm 51 in Romans 3:4: 1) The surface significance is pretty clear. Earlier in the chapter, Paul has raised the question about how the PISTIS of God can be manifest if “some” in Israel have been APISTIA, so unfaithful to their…
Some speculations on death in the original creation, inspired by Jim Jordan’s lecture on Daniel 4 and by discussion with a colleague at NSA. As usual, anytime I write about the Trinity, Jeff Meyers is also lurking in the background. This is not all set in stone, only musings and…
Warren Gage of Knox Seminary in Ft Lauderdale is a treasure. In a very rich and as-yet unpublished paper on the typology of Samson, Gage points out a number of very striking typologies. He suggests, for instance, that Absalom is a Christ figure, dying on a tree, being struck in…
The editors of The New Republic got it right, it IS the correction of the year, issued by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on November 18: “Because of an editing error, a story on the front page yesterday misattributed a quote from the speaker on an audiotape purportedly of Saddam Hussein…
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