Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood (2024), Keith Hayward says that we live in a “therapy culture.” This is “a way of thinking” about upbringing and education “when the values and language of counseling and psychotherapy break out from the clinical setting and take hold within the cultural imagination…
In Genesis 20:13, Abraham reveals that when he and his wife left their father’s house, he asked Sarah to call him her brother, not her husband. Abraham looked ahead to the land before them, a land full of violence, and he didn’t trust men there. He believed they would see…
Introduction I am sitting in a rural village in the northern part of a West African country. I’m in the courtyard of an imam. Two other Christians are with me. It’s hot and dusty, but we have come to read Scripture and talk together. As a local Christian takes the…
This is the wey to al good aventure; Be glad, thou reder, and thy sorwe of-caste -Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Foulys, 131–132 In January I had the honor and delight of speaking at the Church of the Redeemer’s 2025 Christendom Lectures. What follows are drawn from the notes for…
I had often heard that wisdom is visible in the countenance and I thought that I had seen examples of it in the past. But the man who stood before me, loosely holding the reins of the mare and peering around him with sharp interest, gave no outward hint of…
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light — 1 Corinthians 11:14 In Revelation 5:2, the first of three “Mighty Angels” appears before the throne of God and preaches in a great voice, asking, “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the…
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When he talks about prayer, Calvin emphasizes that everything in Scripture encourages us to pray. Our condition encourages us to pray: We have no good in ourselves, no hope for salvation in our own efforts; and therefore we must seek help from outside ourselves. The gift of Jesus encourages us…
Assuming that Matthew was composed very early in the history of the church - in the early 30s, I suspect - it fits neatly into the early persecution situation of the church. As a retelling of Israel’s history, it mimics Stephen’s sermon, which presents the history of Israel as a…
Albert Wolters suggests in an old Calvin Theological Journal article that Peter’s phrase “partakers of divine nature” should be understood covenantally, rather than ontologically. “Partaker” should be rendered “partner” and “divine nature” is simply a circumlocution for “God.” We become partners with God when we are delivered from the world.
David Daube suggests in his book on the New Testament and rabbinic Judaism that the image of the Spirit “overshadowing” Mary is ultimately drawn from the image of Boaz covering Ruth with the wing of his garment. The Lord spreads his skirt over Mary - who, like Ruth, calls herself…
The story of Israel is the story of her repeated rejection of Yahweh’s emissaries, and thus of Yahweh himself. The gospel is the announcement that Yahweh will not allow Himself to be rejected: Resurrection is the I in the TULIP. Jacob, the first Israel, wrestled with everyone, and found he…
In his classic essay on the “Reasonableness of Typology,” GWH Lampe argued that critical scholarship reintroduced history into biblical interpretation: “In place of the unhistorical attitude which saw the Bible as a vast harmonious complex of prophecy and fulfillment, type and antitype, allegorical picture and spiritual reality, fused together by…
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