Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
[This essay was originally published in 1988. Given the situation that our new national socialists are getting the world into, I thought it might be useful to reprint it here. – JBJordan] The Bible has quite a bit to say about gold, silver, and precious stones, and the Bible always…
I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it. There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a…
James Jordan recently pointed out in private conversation how appropriate it is, in John’s Gospel, that Nicodemus is present both to ask Jesus about being born again, and to see Jesus re-enter the womb of the mother. Nicodemus rhetorically asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?…
This is a problematic and much discussed passage. I’ve been discussing it in another forum, and have decided to move it here and present some very preliminary observations about it. One large question is this: Who is the speaker here and what is his situation? Traditionally, the speaker is seen…
1. The current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes a good fantasy novella by John C. Wright, who since his conversion has been writing Christianly. This is a fine fantasy with nods to C. S. Lewis and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and probably Gene Wolfe as well.…
“It is an experience of our days that the spoken name of Jesus alone exercises an unforeseen power; and the effort which it cost to speak this name is perhaps connected to some faint apprehension of the power which is inherent within it. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is…
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The late John Webster offers this statement about the relationship between Scripture and “dogmatic reasoning” about creation ( Christian Dogmatics , 134–5): Dogmatic reasoning is a further act of following in which, directed by the prophetic testimony and with the aid of the Spirit's sanctifying grace, theological reason endeavors to…
A nthony Kronman begins his monumental Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan with several chapters on gratitude and its shifting fortunes in Western culture. He describes the shift from a gratitude-based organization of social life to a rights-based society. Gratitude assumes that social goods come by gift, on which we have…
A haz of Judah didn't dismantle the temple, but he might as well have done. He cut up the utensils of temple worship, perhaps including the musical instruments used by the Levites (2 Chronicles 28:24). He closed the doors (28:24), which meant that the various rites of the temple ceased—lamps…
R obert Emmons's study of the “new science of gratitude” ( Thanks! ) begins with a discussion of what gratitude is and implies. To say thanks is to say “yes to life. We affirm that all things taken together, life is good and has elements that make it worth living.…
M any Reformed theologians have taught that redemption in history unfolds from a “covenant of redemption” ( pactum salutis ) between the Father and Son. As Francis Turretin defined it, the pact between the Father and the Son contains the will of the Father giving the Son as lytroten (Redeemer…
L utheran Pastor James Prothro generously allowed me to see an advance manuscript of his forthcoming Both Judge and Justifier: Biblical Legal Language and the Act of Justifying in Paul (WUNT II; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), a revision of his Cambridge doctoral dissertation (see my summary of one of his articles…
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