Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christmas is a joyful season, but for many it turns into something else. Instead of joy, it is full of disappointment and unhappiness. Instead of an occasion for family fellowship, it becomes an opportunity for opening old wounds, reigniting old arguments, giving new life to rancor that should have died…
The Temple of Time The “covenant-literary matrix” of the Bible is not a pattern imposed upon the text, but the internal logic of its arrangement. This fundamental structure, functioning at multiple levels simultaneously, is a ceaseless reiteration of God’s primary theme. It is an algorithm forged in the furnace of…
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus, Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. [1] That the author of Kings should date the start of the building of the temple from the Exodus is noteworthy. In Exodus 15:17, in Moses’ song following the…
Philip Schaff, a German Reformed theologian, states in The Principle of Protestantism that the material principle of Protestantism is “the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by the merit of Christ alone through faith.” This is the core message of the Church which leads “to the abandonment…
“Religion” is an attempt to create or build a tower with a top, or to build a temple that is self-contained. The story of The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is the story of mankind’s attempt to create a world that is self-contained and does not need God. All…
In the first essay in this series, I presented a case for dating Matthew before AD 70, contrary to the present scholarly consensus. In this essay, I intend to present cultural, personal, ecclesiological, and theological arguments for a very early date for Matthew. [1] The cultural argument concerns literacy in…
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Last time Andrew Sullivan took note of something I wrote, he implied I was anti-Semitic for writing a favorable obit for RJ Rushdoony. Today, he noted my little piece on health care, published on the First Things web site, on his Daily Dish. I am supposed to have concluded that…
A student, Daniel Foucachon, gave some very thoughtful perspectives on Jesus’ instructions in the Sermon on the Mount. He noted that Jesus is not commending non-resistance, but a particular kind of resistance. Our resistance is modeled on Jesus’ own; He conquered by going willingly to the cross, and He instructs…
John does not record the tearing of the veil of the temple. Alone among the gospel writers, though, he records the piercing of Jesus’ side. The two facts are related: Jesus is the temple (as He says in John 2), and in the tearing of His flesh there is a…
The folks at First Things were kind enough to include a short article of mine on their blog. You can find it at: http://www.firstthings.com.
A student suggests a creation image in John 9 - the clay and spittle on the blind man’s eyes recall the dust-and-breath of Genesis 2. Further, she suggests a connection with the land-sea imagery of the OT: Spittle and clay join Jew and Gentile in one new man, a man…
During his trial, Jesus is frequently, remarkably silent. This is particularly striking in John, where Jesus has been identified as the eternal Word of the Father. But when Jew and Gentile combine to put the Word of the Father in the dock, the Word says nothing. Is there here perhaps…
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