Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A couple years ago, I read Paul Graham’s ruminations on higher- and lower-level languages in Hackers and Painters . Although he’s talking about computer languages, his insights have bearing on biblical language and hermeneutics. So bear with me while I lay out some of the basic points, and then we’ll…
Toward the end of the Revelation, John sees a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The old created order in Adam has passed away, and the new order under the lordship of Jesus has been established. Within this new creation John also sees “the holy city, the…
I have been talking with you about integration—an elusive, allusive, word, pregnant with something we long for. I have suggested that what might be rightly a natural longing has been exacerbated by our own modern Western milieu’s dominating devotion to bits and bytes, a prevailing sense of fragmentation. Fragmentation is…
Sunday morning found me kneeling at the foot of my bed, trembling, pebbles of sweat leaping off the edge of my brow and nose, and hitting the floor in front of me, but not from piety was I procumbent; though as a minister for over a decade, I had made…
In April of this year, President Trump issued a zero-tolerance border policy that separated families, specifically children from their parents who had crossed the USA/Mexico border be it illegally or as asylum seekers . In mid-June, Trump dropped this policy of splitting up families, however there are still children who…
During the Middle Ages, Joseph, the husband of Mary, was the butt of many jokes. Medieval theater and art often depicted him as something of a buffoon, decidedly marginal to the gospel story. In part, this was the unfortunate obverse of the exaltation of Mary; any man would suffer by…
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Franz Rosenzweig saw that philosophy proceeds only through humility, which means through speech and dialogue rather than abstract thought: “The ‘speaking thinker’ cannot anticipate anything: he must be able to wait because he depends on the word of the other: he requires time . . . The ‘speaking thinker’ speaks…
Thanks to my friend Alex Trochez for stimulating the following line of thought. According to Jordan’s count (confirmed by my own), the phrase “shepherding wind” occurs twice in Ecclesiastes by itself (1:17; 4:6) and 7 times with the word “vapor” (1:14; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 16; 6:9). In addition, the…
Solomon pursued knowledge and wisdom, and concluded that the pursuit was no more than vapor and shepherding wind, and besides the more he knew the more pain and grief he suffered (1:17-18). There is so much in this wispy world that we cannot know: Whether the result of our works…
John Thackara ‘s In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World , a brief for more human, and more eco-friendly, technology and economy, is full of insights that challenge much of the conventional wisdom about the “information age.” A sampling: We do not live in “the ‘weightless’ new economy we…
Solomon captures the aporia of beginnings in Ecclesiastes 3:15: “That which is has been already, and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.” This not only restates “there is nothing new under the sun” but also suggests that the search for an origin…
INTRODUCTION Solomon begins Ecclesiastes talking about the regularities of the natural world (1:3-11), and in chapter 3 turns to the regular rhythms of human life (3:1-8). THE TEXT “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to…
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