Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I mentioned last month ( BH 82) in my essay "Like a Dove" that Genesis 8 is a recapitulation of Genesis 1. Let me explicate that assertion here. Of course, the world after the Flood is a new creation, so we may expect a recapitulation of the first creation. It…
The book of Esther is one of the most neglected of the books of the Bible. To be sure, sermons are preached on it, and commentaries have occasionally been written on it, but almost without exception Esther has been interpreted in isolation from the rest of Biblical history, chronology, and…
Dear Mr. ______, . . . Here is how I look at the geocentricity question. Since I don’t recall what I wrote you before, I may be repeating some things. 1. The Bible does not teach it. Biblical passages used to support the idea are being misinterpreted. My original paper…
Answer 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is often taken as a magnificent answer to the question, "What is God?" It reads: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." Presbyterians are fond of praising this statement, preaching on it,…
The gospels tell us that at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him "in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22 & parallels). Biblically sensitive commentators have associated this event with three Old Testament parallels: (1) the hovering of the Spirit over the creation in Genesis 1:2; (2) the…
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (John 8:6) The story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) has been part of the canonical Christian Bible from its earliest…
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It is striking that when Paul begins to discuss the specifics of life under grace and in Christ, he emphasizes the bodily character of this life. We are “co-crucified” with Jesus, so that the “body of sin” might be done away (Rom 6:6). And the key exhortation that grows out…
Brendan Byrne has this to say about Paul’s description of baptism as baptism into the death of Jesus: “behind the expression here lies the characteristically Pauline idea of the risen Lord as personally constituting a sphere of influence or milieu of salvation’into’ which believers are drawn through faith and baptism,…
Brendan Byrne has this to say about Paul’s description of baptism as baptism into the death of Jesus: “behind the expression here lies the characteristically Pauline idea of the risen Lord as personally constituting a sphere of influence or milieu of salvation’into’ which believers are drawn through faith and baptism,…
What does it mean to be “under grace”? Does this reality somehow cancel out the necessity of obedience? Is an insistence on obedience inconsistent with Paul’s insistence that we are justified by faith alone? Rom 6:14-15 provides the answer. This is the only place in Romans (unless I’ve missed something)…
The word Paul uses for “impute” in Rom 5:13 is used in only one other passage in the NT, Philemon 18. (The Greek is ELLOGEO; elsewhere, the word translated as “impute” is LOGIZOMAI.) Perhaps an examination of Philemon 18 will shed some light on Paul’s usage in Rom 5:13. Paul’s…
This is a brief overview of a project on the atonement, first delivered as my inaugural lecture as Senior Fellow of Theology at NSA a few years ago. (I don’t think this has been posted already; if it has, my deep apologies.) My title is ?Cross and Culture,?Ebut that needs…
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