Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
WHAT IS THE OT PRECURSOR OF THE NT OFFICE OF PASTOR? HOW DOES THE FORMER ILLUMINATE THE LATTER? The first problem to address is: how do we know that there is an office of pastor in the New Testament? 1 Perhaps the way the question is put may permit me…
[This essay was originally published in December, 1981, in The Biblical Educator , a publication of the Institute for Christian Economics, and again with slight revisions in Contra Mundum 7 (Spring, 1993). It is reprinted here as a supplement to my book Creation in Six Days .] In 1979, Dr.…
Anyone seeking to reverse the meaning of this promise needs to come to grips not only with the phrase "God was with the lad" later on, but also with Hagar’s response in 16:13. She worships Yahweh, putting her trust in Him and obeying Him. In fact, Hagar is at the…
Ishmael is the narrator of Melville’s fantasy-romance Moby Dick. Melville takes up the traditional view of Ishmael as a wayward son of Abraham, driven out solely because of the Divine "caprice" of election, an angry man with his hand raised against all other men. He is a fitting "anti-hero," or…
There were five cities at the center of the Canaanite culture in the circle of the Jordan, a place like the Garden of Eden, like the land of Egypt, before it became the Dead Sea at the destruction of the cities (Genesis 13:10). Genesis 14:2 tells us their names: Sodom,…
Meditations by James B. Jordan Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and the rescue of Lot, is part two of a story that begins in Genesis 18. These two chapters happen in one 24-hour period: noon and evening in Mamre, and midnight and daybreak in Sodom. God and two angels…
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Why is the location of Joab?s house mentioned (1 Ki 2:34)? The wilderness is the place of Israel?s 40-year sojourn, prior to the entry into and conquest of the land of Israel. Thus, the reference to the wilderness connects with the Joshua typology that is evident elsewhere in the chapter…
Solomon clearly considers his execution of Joab to be an act of justice: Yahweh is bringing the blood that Joab shed back on his own head. And Solomon also indicates that the execution of Joab is necessary to clear David’s house of blood-guilt. This is suggested in two ways. First,…
Solomon clearly considers his execution of Joab to be an act of justice: Yahweh is bringing the blood that Joab shed back on his own head. And Solomon also indicates that the execution of Joab is necessary to clear David’s house of blood-guilt. This is suggested in two ways. First,…
A rough and wooden translation of 1 Kings 2. And drew near the days of David to die. And he commanded Shlomoh his son, saying, ?I myself walking in the way of all the earth. You be strong. And you be as a man. Do the guard duty of Yahweh…
The late Allan Bloom points out in his interpretive essay on Plato’s Republic that Socrates’ attack on poets is qualified by the fact that he ends the Republic with a myth, the reincarnational myth of Er. Socrates banishes the poets, but offers a return if the poets will submit themselves…
According to Robert Solomon’s account, Romanticism did not LEAD to nationalism; it was nationalism. In particular, it was a German nationalist reaction to the perceived threat of French and English Enlightenment thought: “Cosmopolitan philosophers in London or Paris might pretend that they could speak for all humanity, but equally serious…
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