Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
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Does judgment according to works contradict the gospel? Does it reintroduce law back in the covenant of grace at the last minute? Is judgment according to works God’s final “Gotcha”? Not at all. Judgment according to works is part of the gospel. Paul hopes for the day when “according to…
It’s been suggested that there is some conflict between my denial of human merit and my defense of judgment according to works. There is no conflict. There is not even a tension. Nary a whisper. We are judged, after all, according to works that are entirely gifts of God. The…
Was Charles Hodge out of accord with the Westminster Standards as interpreted by the FV Study Commitee? Hodge writes of the final judgment: “The ground or matter of judgment is said to be the ‘deeds done in the body,’ men are to be judged ‘according to their works;’ ‘the secrets…
Revelation 20:11-15 is widely taken as a scene of final judgment. Despite some potential preterist doubts, it does appear to be a final judgment scene. It comes after the millennium, and the ones to be judged are raised from the dead. The dead in v 12 includes all the dead,…
I’ve gotten wind that somewhere out there in the vast howling wilderness of cyberspace some have hinted - nay, more than hinted - that I have only recently begun to show my true colors, and only under pressure from the PCA GA FV study committee. I could protest my honesty,…
In his stimulating book Liturgical Theology , Simon Chan argues that a crucial weakness of Protestant and evangelical theology is that it stops the gospel story with the ascension, and doesn’t see that Pentecost and the church are integral to the evangel (as Jesus says in Luke 24 - the…
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