Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I believe hymnals should be shorter than they are. Much shorter. 100 hymns at most, let’s say. I imagine that this will be a hard one to swallow for most of my readers, so I will attempt to bolster my argument as best I can. I can’t think of any…
Joshua is never called a king in the Bible. Yet while lacking the title, Joshua possesses the trappings of biblical kingship to a degree that it seems warranted to consider him a royal figure. There are lots of reasons for thinking this. In a 1981 Journal of Biblical Literature article,…
God speaks. He is not silent. He has designed humanity for reception of such communication and also to speak on His behalf. This speaking is not simply happenstance. It is not just a curious quirk about humanity. It is intrinsic to who we are that we speak and shape the…
One evening, years ago, home from college for Christmas break, I dreamt that I was playing the piano, passionately and well, in the church sanctuary beneath the parsonage in the renovated mansion in rural New Hampshire where my father was the minister. It was something of a lucid dream because…
I’m a big worrier. Always have been. Some of my earliest memories are of being anxious to the point of getting sick, sometimes for trivial reasons. My mind moves a million miles a minute, wondering what will happen in 5 minutes, or tomorrow, or next week, or in ten years.…
“The sun had gone up on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. And the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD from heaven, and he devastated those cities and the whole valley and all those dwelling in the cities and the growth of…
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Evangelicalism, writes Andrew Wall, is a “protest movement,” one of many illustrious such movements in the history of Christianity, beginning with St. Anthony's retreat into the desert. As protest, “Evangelical faith is about inward religion as distinct from formal, real Christianity as distinct from nominal. In other words, the evangelicalism…
“The danger inherent in all the (necessary) work of theological statement is that it may go beyond the task of protecting the gospel and become a series of additions to the gospel,” writes Lesslie Newbigin ( The Reunion of the Church , 16). Denominations add to this inherent danger because…
In a critical assessment of the ecumenical movement published in 1957, evangelical J. Marcellus Kik assessed the reasons given for pursuing unity in the church. One, he says, is that “the world situation presents a powerful incentive to act with Christian unity,” because, it is argued, “what the many denominations…
Over at The Federalist , Joy Pullmann summarizes the case in favor of expanding opportunities for midwives to offer their unique style of woman-oriented health care: “First, it’s low-cost. Second, it creates more flexible health-care arrangements for both providers and clients that greatly increase satisfaction and positive health outcomes. Third,…
Writing in 1961 ( Is Christ Divided? ), Lesslie Newbigin reflects on the use of the phrase “foreign missions.” He understands why some Christians don't like the phrase: “It has overtones of the nineteenth century, of paternalism and colonialism.” And he is well aware that the terrain of the Christian…
Each Israelite is commanded to fix a tassel at each of the four corners of his or her garments (Numbers 15:37-41). Within each tassel is a cord of blue. As Jacob Milgrom and others have argued, that cord is wool, which means that each Israelite wears slightly mixed clothing, which…
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