Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…
It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…
Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…
It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…
It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…
In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…
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Rational people, people of good will and good sense, will differ about the wisdom of the Marriage Pledge written by Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz and endorsed by Rusty Reno this week. They have already begun to differ. A defense of the Pledge would go something like this: Churches that…
In his remarkable Acquittal by Resurrection , Markus Barth argues that the judgment by which God justifies “cannot be a paradox or a wanton and arbitrary decision.” Barth lays out three conditions that such a judgment must fulfill if it is to be considered righteous: It must have “a solid…
Timothy Larson of Wheaton has written a number of illuminating, witty books. His latest, The Slain God , examines a neglected chapter in the story of faith-and-modernity, the interaction of anthropology and Christian faith during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Larsen’s book is biographically organized, with a chapter each on…
You know how the curtain parts at the beginning of a play, and you see a new scene, with characters and sets and incidents that had remained hidden up til then? Church last week was like that. Except the curtain was made up of all the things I thought were…
1 Kings begins with a brief story about David, aging and cold, unable to stay warm at night. It’s pathetic, and also thematic, because throughout 1-2 Kings, a king’s health symbolizes the health of his kingdom. But the roots of the story go deeper. When God first created Adam, he…
John’s encounter with the strong angel from heaven is described with a chiasm, and that structure helps solve a puzzle in the passage: a. Strong angel descends from heaven and straddles land and sea, 10:1-2. b. He cries and thunder speaks; what the thunder says is sealed, 10:3-4. c. Oath…
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