Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Genesis 3 ends on a decisive, and decisively negative, note. Yahweh “drove the man out” of the garden, and, in addition, “at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life.”…
When she died in 2005 at the age of 72, Anna Haycraft, the author who published under the name Alice Thomas Ellis, was a celebrated writer in Great Britain. While working at Duckworth Publishers(which her husband owned), she produced a dozen novels, a collection of short stories, a cookbook, volumes…
Some have suggested recently that my "project" is postmodern. To clarify my views on postmodernism, I'm re-posting something I wrote in 2005, with a few modifications. For a fuller discussion, you can check out my Solomon among the Postmoderns (Canon, 2008). First, it is helpful to distinguish, as many writers…
Calling Jerusalem the "holy city" comes so naturally to Christians that it comes as something of a surprise to realize how infrequently the phrase is used in Scripture. Not only is Jerusalem rarely called holy, but in the Old Testament this classification is found only in texts that refer to…
Asking why the church doesn’t sing hymns or even why men don’t sing in church is a bit like lamenting over the lame man who can’t waltz on the dance floor. While it is a valid question, the more immediate question would seem to be, “why doesn’t the lame man…
The theme of 1 Timothy is the distinction between the true children in the Household of God and false children who really belong to the household of Satan. This is seen in the fact that in the chiastic structure of the Epistle, heresy is the subject in the center (…
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Rex Koivisto argues ( One Lord, One Faith , 155-6) that all churches have traditions, including supposedly Bible-only Evangelicals. All traditions can harden into harmful habits, but Koivisto thinks that this danger is particularly threatening among Evangelicals who claim to be free of tradition. “The danger . . . comes…
The debate over the marriage pledge has died down, but it shouldn't be dismissed. It still has a useful function, a clarifying function. Those who signed the marriage pledge were refusing to sign state marriage licenses. The point behind the pledge was to distinguish between what the law now calls…
Revelation is addressed to the church in a wilderness, a generation-long period between Jesus' exaltation and the fall of Jerusalem. Like Israel in the wilderness, the church needs to find sources of fresh, life-giving water. Fresh water is promised (7:17) and eventually given (21:5-6; 22:1, 17), but in between unpolluted…
Steve Pincus argues that 1688 marked the “first modern revolution. The Glorious Revolution couldn't have taken the form it did without the “series of ideological debates that informed and transformed conceptions of state, religion, and society” in the middle of the century (8). From these debates emerged a vision for…
Paul Griffiths ( Decreation ) argues that “quietism” about political interest and judgment is a sign here and now of the future quietus of heaven. “Quietism” doesn't mean a retreat from advocacy or passion. Citing Pascal, Griffiths lays out a version of political advocacy that renounces political calculations of a…
Elizabethan Puritans were regularly denounced as “Judaizers” by others in the English church. After all, they were interested in Hebrew, kept the Sabbath, exhibited what others regarded as a legalistic strain in their piety. During the Laudian ceremony controversy of the 1630s, however, Puritans turned the tables and accused the…
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