Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Evangelistic Message to the Uninformed: 1 Timothy 3.14-16 Even though this is written as a sermon for delivery, and even though it was preached in a homiletics class, I decided I can’t post it as a sermon because it was not truly preached at a place where nonchristians wanted to…
If we only read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, we might get the impression that Jesus’ ascension was on resurrection Sunday. Matthew speaks of going to Galilee but he does not put things into a clear time frame. John shows us that Jesus appeared to the disciples eight days…
The most cursory glance at the history of Western literature reveals that it has been deeply influenced by the Bible. Some of the greatest classics of Western literature draw their plots, characters, and ideas largely from Scripture; Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two of the most notable…
Few themes emerge as profoundly and persistently in the streams of biblical narrative as the conflict between light and darkness, and the juxtaposition of humanity with monstrosity. These themes not only weave through the fabric of Scripture, emerging in stories from Genesis to Revelation, but also stitch together the human…
In John Wenham’s work, Easter Enigma , he devotes an entire chapter to Mary Magdalene, which is rephrased and summarized here. 1 One of the interesting things that Wenham said was that Mary Magdalene was the second “most favored woman in the Bible.” 2 He adds, “Yet apart from a…
God made man to live in a larger relational context, and even in high rebellion, man cannot escape his created nature. Instead, that nature takes revenge on rebellious man. Autonomous and alone, the self craves absolution but recognizes no authority that might give it; it thirsts for glory but rejects…
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When Absalom took over Israel, David fled east, over the Kidron and up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went (2 Samuel 15:30). He had two donkeys with him (2 Samuel 16:1-4). David returns to Israel, and to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 20:3), but it was hardly a triumphal return.…
Matthew doesn’t know where to put his “fulfillment formulae.” In chapter 2, he quotes Hosea when Jesus is leaving Israel; in chapter 21, he quotes Zechariah 9 before Jesus has climbed aboard the double-donkey mount. Jesus gives instructions to His disciples (vv. 2-3, then there’s a quotation from Zechariah (vv.…
The verb “fulfill” is used some 18 times in Matthew’s gospel, and 14 of those uses describe Jesus’ fulfllment of something spoken by the prophets or by “Scripture.” A double of the number of creation, Jesus brings a new creation; God spoke over seven days to create, and His spoken…
To the right of this page is an icon of a book cover for a biography of Jane Austen. I wrote that book. Really, I did. But you can’t have it, not yet. The publisher, Cumberland House, has been forced to sell out, and the buyer didn’t buy my book.…
The Commerce Department tells us this morning that the GDP grew during 2008, though at the slowest pace since 2001. It shrank faster during the fourth quarter than at any time since 1982. Funny, nobody in Congress is raising the spectre of 1982 to describe our economic woes. It’s always…
Do we murder the poor when we abuse them? James thinks so. At the beginning of chapter 5, he sharply rebukes the rich, reminding them that they have not paid the laborers who mowed their fields (v. 3). Like Abel’s blood, the laborers “cry out against you, and the outcry…
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