Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…
Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…
The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…
The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…
The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…
At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…
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One chapter of Emmanuel Katongole's A Future for Africa is a critique of the Ugandan Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTCG). He argues that the movement has a “tendency toward isolation,” fails “to reimagine the nature of Christian leadership,” and exhibits a “lack of hope”…
Tim Flannery's NYRB review of Paul Falkowski's Life's Engines and Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink's A New History of Life sums up the authors' points: “our cells are comprised of a series of highly sophisticated ‘little engines' or nanomachines that carry out life’s vital functions.” These microscopic machines all work…
The fall of Babylon brings an end to the sounds and sights of urban life. In particular it means the end of music (Revelation 18:22). Music once spread to the four corners of the city; when she is tossed into the cease, all four orchestra sections cease - harpists, musicians,…
The verb “bind” (Greek, deo ) is used four times in John's gospel. The uses form a little chiasm: A. Lazarus emerges from the grave bound with grave clothes, 11:44. B. The Romans arrest and bind Jesus, 18:12. B'. Anna sends Jesus, still bound, to Caiaphas, 18:24. A'. Jesus is…
Those who share in the first resurrection are not under the authority of the second death (Revelation 20:6). We know what the first resurrection is. John has just told us: Beheaded martyrs and those who resist the beast come to life and reign with Christ. “ This is the first…
In his A Future for Africa , Emmanuel Katongole offers this brief analysis of the roots of racism. He argues that it is a specifically modern phenomenon, and that it is entrenched in “the story of the modern self, particularly the constant anxiety at the heart of the modern project.”…
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