Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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D erek Rishmawy is on to me . In a charitable review of The End of Protestantism , he sees through my effort to make a proposal that is “pre-emptively impervious to critique.” He’s right that I admit “that any number of my worries are indeed possible, but insists that…
T he thesis here is: Inclusion in the sacraments is a necessary privilege of membership in the covenant people. There is no covenant membership except one that is sealed by participation in covenant signs and rites. I immediately concede any number of qualifications and exceptions to this claim. A baptized…
P aedocommunion not only implies that the church is the new Israel, but that the church is the new humanity . To say the one is to say the other, for Israel was chosen from among the nations to be Yahweh’s instrument to reverse the sin at Babel, the sin…
S ummarizing Russell Moore’s 2016 Erasmus Lecture, Rod Dreher writes : Moore is “saying that the best way to influence the culture for Christ is to stop trying to ‘influence the culture for Christ,’ but rather to be deeply and thoughtfully Christian, and to allow your countercultural life to be…
A ll paedobaptists agree that the church is the new Israel, formed as the body of the Risen Christ. But paedocommunion reinforces this point dramatically, for it insists that the admission requirements to the church’s meal are exactly the same as the admission requirements to Israel’s meals. Ancient Israel celebrated…
M atthew Hutson reports in The Atlantic about technical developments that will make it impossible to know when we’re on camera: Many of the cameras that can be pointed at us today are easy to spot. But researchers are developing recording devices that can hide in plain sight, some by…
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