Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the previous part of this series , we showed how the serpent, through Adam’s failure to protect his bride and her subsequent deception, alienated man from woman. It’s difficult to overstate the consequences of man’s disobedience: disregarding God's commands begins to break down the order which He created. God…
In the first part of this series , we showed that God declared that the division between man and woman would be “not good.” There was a division between heaven and earth, which, in contrast to the rest of the creation account, is conspicuously not described as “good,” and there…
The evangelical community is caught in a controversy between one of its most influential members, pastor John MacArthur, and one of its rising stars, Beth Moore. For those who haven’t been following this fight, here’s the summary: Beth Moore is a well-known public teacher and author on the Bible. MacArthur,…
When one of the most famous personalities of the “young, restless, reformed” world starts sounding like an emissary from Vatican City, #BigEva social media takes note. That’s what happened this week when a sermon clip surfaced of Francis Chan hinting at his evolving view of the eucharist: “I didn't know…
All of the Gospels have a story about a fig tree. Not just parables, actually. There are those, too, when Jesus uses illustrations having to do with fig trees. But there are accounts of actual events having to do with fig trees in all four Gospels. Matthew has given the…
I. Introduction With the final installment of the sequel trilogy complete, it’s fair to say that Star Wars fans are, and evermore will be, a house divided. The sequels have split opinion since they were announced. The chief accusation has perhaps been that they amount to little more than nostalgia—not…
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The notion that the Democrats would select Hillary Clinton as their candidate has always seemed suicidal to me. Why run a candidate who immediately alienates a large proportion of the voting population? Bill Clinton’s prominence in the race makes Hillary’s candidacy seem all the more suicidal. His legacy as President…
Patterson provides a neat summary of three popular theories of festive comedy. All attempt to locate the play socially, in some setting of festivity. First, some suggest that Shakespeare paid a compliment to Elizabeth since she was in the original audience, an audience for a noble wedding, alluded to in…
A historicist angle comes out in Patterson’s discussion of the passage in 2.1.155-64, where Theseus describes the origin of the flower that Puck squeezes into the eyes of the lovers. Since the late 19 th century, critics have seen here a veiled reference to Elizabeth, who escaped Cupid’s arrow and…
In an essay on MSND entitled “Bottom’s Up: Festive Theory,” Annabel Patterson lays a historicist treatment of the play that relies in equal parts on Barber’s theory of festive comedy, Victor Turner’s studies of ritual, and Bakhtin’s theory of comedy and subversion. Here are some notes on her main themes:…
In his recent commentary on Daniel, Jim Jordan notes that the goat of Alexandrian Egypt (Daniel 8) is something new in Israel’s history - a power coming from the West: “Israel has always been the west-most power, with the Mediterranean Sea at her edge. All previous history has been involved…
Bakhtin wrote that laughter “liberated, to a certain extent, from censorship, oppression, and from the stake. But . . . laughter is essentially not an external but an interior form of truth . . . . Laughter liberates not only from exterior censorship but first of all from the great…
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