Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This was a newspaper column that I wrote for the Minco Millennium back in January of 2000 when I had first moved to Minco, Oklahoma to pastor First Reformed Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t able to catch the recent performance of the musical, Godspell , in Oklahoma City. However, my dad…
Awhile back, there was a big debate among Evangelicals as to whether one had to trust Jesus “as Lord” as well as “as savior. Some claimed that one could be saved by Jesus through a faith that did not involve submission to him as Lord. Others claimed that one must…
I originally wrote this a few weeks ago in April 2002 as a column in the local newspaper, The Minco Millennium under the title “Faith & Follow-Through.” Several passages in the book of Hebrews are difficult for Protestants to swallow. The author affirms the once-and-for-all work of Christ and yet…
N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans is destined to be a classic. The introduction alone is worth the hefty price of the book — but the exegesis itself is, well, priceless. I will not attempt a full review — these are just miscellaneous thoughts and random reflections — but I…
At an inn in the town of Lystra three men sat around a corner table. All three were well-known disciples of Joshua Messiah, members of what the town called a new cult, the Way. The short gray-haired man with the enormous beard was clearly restless. “This is taking too long,”…
Recently there has been some surprising debate in some circles over where Paul summarizes his Gospel. I say “surprising” because many Evangelical Bible scholars have held, for quite some time, that Paul’s Gospel is encapsulated in Romans chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Here is the passage in context: Paul,…
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Simon Gathercole’s Where Is Boasting has some stimulating insights into the argument of Romans 2, and some important objections to the NPP. The following notes are based on Gathercole: 1) It is clear that in Romans 2, Paul considers this Jew to be unrepentant and an apostate from Judaism. It…
Seen on a pair of socks at the recent Atlanta AAR/SBL convention: “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders” (“Here I stand. I can do no other.”)
Graham Ward begins his book True Religion with a discussion of the use of the word “religion” in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , and then compares two film versions to explore how the religious theme of the play is handled. The two film versions are Franco Zeffirelli’s and Baz Luhrmann’s.…
Doug Jones read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back” at our weekly disputatio today. What a wonderful story! It includes a burning bush and theophany; a baptismal vigil that ends with the main character, O.E. Parker, bearing a tattooed picture of Jesus on his back; a temple-cleansing, when O.E. gets into…
Doug Jones read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back” at our weekly disputatio today. What a wonderful story! It includes a burning bush and theophany; a baptismal vigil that ends with the main character, O.E. Parker, bearing a tattooed picture of Jesus on his back; a temple-cleansing, when O.E. gets into…
I have long thought of the two parallel sections of Jonah as basically retellings of the same story, but now I’m thinking that they are consecutive thematically as well as chronologically. Here’s the typology: Jonah/Israel is called to witness to the nations, and refuses. Yahweh forces him into exile in…
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