Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Part 1 We do not understand the role of women in ministry because we do not understand the role of men in ministry. We do not understand the role of men in ministry because we do not understand the church. We do not understand the church because the consumer culture…
1. One structure The Creation account (G1:1-2:4) conspicuously conveys meaning using the literary shape of the text. The narrative is told with formulaic patterns, repetitions, and parallelism. The Garden account is different. It is viewed as a separate text, with its own author, employing its own structure. This second account’s…
I was reading James Jordan’s Creation in Six Days while also preparing for Trinity Sunday in which the gospel reading is John 3:1-15. As providence would have it Jordan dropped an easter egg for me along the lines of baptism. In chapter 5 he points out, “ On the second…
It's true. There is no verse in the New Testament that commands or records an infant baptism. This poses a problem for some Christians. Those who only look for explicit commands, or those whose theology is limited to the New Testament, will conclude that infant baptism is not biblical and…
1. Goal This paper’s goal is to identify and describe a literary strategy employed by scripture, namely using two episodes that cover similar territory or themes using details drawn from opposite ends of a number of spectrums. Once described the reader may recognize numerous other instances of this strategy in…
Numbers 14 records the tragic story of Israel’s decision to rebel against Yahweh and Moses. Twelve spies had been sent into the land to bring back a report to Israel. All twelve spies agreed: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey”…
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When the angel blows the first trumpet, one-third of the land and one-third of the trees, along with all the grass, gets burned up by the fire coming from heaven (Revelation 8). It sets a trend. Throughout the trumpet section, things are destroyed by thirds. In part, this this is…
The editors of The Question of Peace in Modern Political Thought argue that peace has received more attention from philosophers than is often admitted, but they don’t think that it’s received nearly enough attention. Their collection aims to address that gap with essays on Luther, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant,…
After the Lamb ascends to heaven, the living creatures and elders suddenly have bowls ( phiale ) of incense (Revelation 5:8). The incense is identified with the “prayers of the saints.” They are like the leaders of the tribes in Numbers 7, each of whom brings, among other things, “one…
Paul gives a brief summary of his advancement in Judaism in Galatians 1:13-14, but the description is surrounded by references to an unveiling of Jesus: A. The gospel came not from man, 11-12a B. but by revelation ( apokalupsis ) of Jesus, 12b B. Former life in Judaism, 13a C.…
Terryl Givens’s forthcoming Wrestling the Angel is the first of a two-volume study of the foundations of Mormon theology and practice. Givens admits that Mormonism, for all its roots in Christian Scriptures, diverges “radically” from traditional Christianity, and he locates the difference in “a distinctive cosmology and metaphysics” which is…
Born into a pious Scottish family living in Canada in 1848, George Romanes might have been destined for ministry in the Church of Scotland. Reading Darwin upended his plans, and his early adulthood was marked by public disputes about science and faith, Romanes taking up the case for Darwin and…
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