Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why was Abel’s offering approved and Cain’s rejected? This question has been debated for many centuries. Some have argued that Cain’s offering was rejected because it was not a bloody offering; others that Cain’s offering was rejected because it was not from the firstfruits; others that Cain’s offering was rejected…
Last year I had occasion to work through the book of Luke as I did some work for one of my editorial clients, and this year my pastor has been preaching through Luke. Thus, I have twice been reminded of the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-13), a parable…
We come now to what some have called the "Gordian Knot" of Biblical chronology: the period of the kings of Israel and Judah. We do not have a summary figure that tells exactly how long this period of time was. The book of Kings provides the years each king reigned,…
In an earlier article , while examining the biblical symbolism of dew, I noted the parallel in Psalm 133 between the dew upon Mount Hermon and the oil poured upon the head of Aaron. Both the dew of Hermon and the oil of ordination are compared to the pleasantness of…
The Covenantal Gospel was the last book written by the remarkable South African theologian and exegete Cornelius van der Waal. Two other works of van der Waal’s have been translated: Hal Lindsey and Biblical Prophecy , and Search the Scriptures . Because this book was written in 1979, it does…
A year or so ago, my wife and I were invited to a Christian school in order to preview a film on drug abuse that was going to be shown to our children. One of the children in this film turned out, of course, to be using drugs. This child’s…
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Adorno writes that enjoyment is not the be-all of art.  Certainly it isn’t for the producers of art: “If you ask a musician if he enjoys playing his instrument, he will probably reply: ‘I hate it’ . . . People who have a genuine relation to art would rather immerse…
Soteriology is eschatology, and that means soteriology  has to have an already/not yet structure.  Rejecting either justification by faith or judgment according to works breaks the bond of eschatology and soteriology.  Another way to say this is soteriology is about what happens in time . The alternatives are: 1) Antinomian:…
Commenting on the “seal” in Song of Songs 4:12, Luther writes, “In the same way we Christians are now sealed by the Word, Baptism, and the Sacramental of the Altar, by which we are distinguished from all other races, not just before the world, but rather in God’s own judgment.”…
In his classic essay on the “work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,” Walter Benjamin made some trenchant observations on the way film affects actors and audiences.   Importantly, he believes these effects are not the result of some perversion of the medium of film, but inherent in…
Paul Niskanen has an insightful analysis of Genesis 1:27 in the latest JBL .  He starts with the question of whether Barth’s view that the image of God is found in relationality and specifically in sexual difference has any exegetical support.  He reviews the current discussion, and notes that there…
Ouch!  Schaeffer again, this time on Heidegger’s interpretive methods: “Paraphrase, translation, dismantling of the syntax, making the text autonomous with regard to the concrete subject who utters it, absolute silence regarding the poetic form: to these five characteristics we must add hermeneutic authoritarianism,” the last of which “postulates an opposition…
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