Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…
The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…
In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…
These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…
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Jesus chooses a couple of sets of brothers to be among the Twelve: Andrew and Peter, James and John. Plus, there’s Thomas the Twin. Why did Jesus do this? Possibly, because the Old Testament so often shows us brothers in conflict, especially older brothers hating and abusing younger brothers, while…
In his 1676 parody, La Terre australe connue , Gabriel de Foigny describes the rationality and simplification of the Austral language, which works somewhat like chemical formula. All words are monosyllabic, and each letter is associated with either a substance (the vowels, which match the four classical elements, plus salt!)…
Linguistic values arise from differences between linguistic items in a system, Saussure argues. But on what basis do we conclude that those differences are differences between items at one moment? What can’t value and meaning arise in the difference between a word’s value now and a word’s value a century…
Saussure also suggests that phonetic changes sometimes have the effect of obliterating the distinct parts of composite words. Latin’s amicus (“friend”) was clearly negated by inimicus (“enemy”), but the French ami and ennemi are no longer so obviously related by derivation. Again, breaking of these historical links between words has…
Saussure notes that phonetic changes in a language can have wider consequences on a language. One of these effects is “to break the grammatical link connecting two or more words.” Where linguistic signs once wore their derivation on their sound, a phonetic change breaks the link. In Latin, house-house is…
Tom Perrotta creates a background buzz of sexuality in his 1998 novel Election . It’s appropriate to the story’s setting - an election for Winwood High’s student body president. What’s remarkable is how deftly he achieves this - mostly by gesturing and leaving a great deal unstated. We don’t know…
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