Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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In Gethsemane, it seems that Jesus is being “reconsolidated” as the original Adam.  His helpers, the disciples, flee from Him, leaving Him along to face His Satanic attackers. Maybe, though, the typology works differently.  Perhaps we are to see Jesus-and-disciples as forming an Adam, an Adam that has to be…
Matthew 26:36: Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane. The word “Gethsemane” means “wine-press of oil.”  It’s built from the same Hebrew root as Gath-Hepher, “the wine-press of the well,” a city in the tribal area of Zebulun, the birthplace of Jonah, and Gath-Rimmon, the “wine-press of the…
Toby Sumpter pointed out parallels between Matthew 18 and 26, specifically on the issue of “stumbling blocks.”  Jesus condemns those who put stumbling blocks in the way of little ones, and predicts that the disciples will stumble over Him on the night of His arrest and trial. One of the…
Jesus explains His arrest and the scattering of the disciples in terms of Zechariah 13:7-9, where Yahweh commands the sword, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”  This all happens at night (Matthew 26:31), the night that happens to be Passover. Scripture records an earlier night strike at…
Peter denies Jesus three times on the night of Jesus’ arrest and trial.  The only other time the verb “deny” is used in the NT, it’s used of “self-denial,” which is immediately connected to “taking up the cross.” There are thus two options: Deny self by professing Jesus, and face…
Josh Gibbs writes: “While it might be anachronistic to read it this way (modern Christianity has likely blown the idea of the ‘sword of the Spirit’ way out of proportion), it seems best to me that we understand two entirely different, separate swords in Christ’s statement, ‘He who lives by the sword will die by…
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