Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Study in Biblical and Practical Theology Sunday School Notes / Epiphany 2004 Introductory Note: January 6 is Epiphany in the traditional church calendar. Though Epiphany is often treated as a single day, with the Sundays following counted as “Sundays after Epiphany,” we will treat Epiphany as an extended season.…
Imagine someone from another world trying to learn to live in our society according to our customs. What if someone gave him a check for a hundred dollars for his birthday–the first check he had ever seen in his life? Would he immediately understand how a check was used? Perhaps…
According to Presbyterian doctrine, as articulated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, baptism is a baptized person’s “admission… into the visible church.” By referring to the “visible church,” the document makes clear it is referring to the present institutional Church with all her imperfections, as opposed to the future Church…
N. T. Wright claims that in the Apostle Paul’s writings “righteousness,” as it predicated of humans, denotes “covenant membership.” When he wrote this in the New Bible Dictionary edited by Sinclair Ferguson, J. I. Packer, and David Wright, no one thought this was too big a deal. However, when he…
It seems almost human nature to think that we can find something to do for God that will make Him do us favors. If we live more virtuously, or cut down on a vice or two, then God will have to reward us. But the problem with this notion is…
The First Commandment teaches us to trust in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. The First Commandment reads (I’m using NASB throughout): “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Obviously, trusting in someone or something else (even one’s own good works) for justification, sanctification, and eternal life”…
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Mark Biddle of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond examines some of the intertextual connections between 1 Sam 25 and the Jacob narratives in Genesis ( JBL 121/4 [2002]). He discovers analogies between Nabal and Laban, Saul and Laban, and of course Nabal and Saul. Abigail is comparable to Rebekah…
Timothy Wengert’s article in the Lutherjahrbuch 66 (1999) offers an analysis of the controverted relationship between Luther and Melanchthon. Wengert puts aside psychological assessments of the relationship, and does not focus on theological similarities and differences, which might have the effect of reducing the two men to their ideas. Instead,…
In a 1989 article in the WTJ , Warren Gage, now of Knox Theological Seminary, explores the connections between the Gibeah incident recorded at the end of Judges and the story of Ruth. He argues that there are literary and thematic connections and contrasts between the two narratives. As usual,…
Edward Oakes offers a fascinating review of several new books on Shakespeare in the June/July issue of First Things . He gives this summary of the recent argument of Stephen Greenblatt concerning Shakespeare’s views on Purgatory: “Shakespeare’s choice of Wittenberg as the palce where Hamlet spent time as a student…
David Bentley Hart offers a lively and wide-ranging defense of censorship in an article in the current issue of First Things . He savages the standard arguments against censorship: the slippery-slope argument (Hart: “Apparently, as a society, we are poised precariously upon the narrowest precipice of a sheer escarpment as…
According to the NB column in the May 28 TLS , the first recorded example of a limerick meter and rhyme occurs in a 13th-century prayer: Si vitiorum meorum evacuatio Concupiscentiae et libidinis exterminatio, Caritatis et patientiae, Humilitatis et obedientiae, Omniumque virtutum augmentatio . As NB goes on to say,…
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