Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Creationism is debated widely in the US, especially when it comes to teaching creation as an alternative theory of origins in public schools. Every few months, there’s another poll showing that many Americans still believe Ussher’s claim that the world was created around 4000 BC, which always elicits a contemptuous…
Walker Percy died in 1990, but his six published novels and his collections of essays are more relevant than when he wrote them. Percy was an American Dostoevsky, and that was no accident. “The European novels,” he says in a 1974 interview, “are more philosophical, more novels of ideas.” Dostoevsky,…
The Spirit is God’s agent for renewing the creation, for restoring bonds between nations, for knitting together people into the body of Christ. The Spirit is the renewer of the world, and the bond of all relations. That means that if you want your family to be knit together, if…
In their basic physical sense , the verbs translated as "persecute" in the Bible mean “chase” or “pursue,” and that fits the context quite naturally. As Pharaoh “pursued” (LXX, dioko ; Heb. radaph ) Israel into the wilderness, for example, so the dragon chases the woman back to her place…
Seng-Kong Tan’s Fullness Received and Returned is a densely argued, thoroughly researched, contextually sensitive study of participation in the soteriology of Jonathan Edwards. Along the way, Tan deals with many of the central themes in Edwards’s theology. As with many recent studies of Edwards, Tan’s monograph demonstrates both Edwards’s creativity…
The title of James Joyce’s first novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man indicates that it is a bildungsroman , a story of formation that describes the formative experiences of a poet who aspires to artistic greatness. The education described is Joyce’s own. The novel recounts the failing…
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The Hebrew word “half” ( chetziy ) is used over 120 times in the Old Testament. Nearly half of the uses are in two books, Exodus (20x) and Joshua (29x). The word is used another 14x in Chronicles, and 13 more in Nehemiah. In Exodus, it is mostly used in…
I explore the significance of Paul’s description of Judaizers as “troublers” at the Trinity House site .
In Comment , Jonathan Chaplin helpfully defines the decision to be made in Scotland’s referendum next week. To clarify what’s being decided, Chaplin distinguishes between “nation” and “state.” “Nations are thickly-textured, evolving, porous, morally ambiguous societal amalgams. While one nation may be more or less recognisable when set against another,…
The Atlantic is running a series of essays on Coen Brothers’ films (are they Brothers, or just brothers?), written by Christopher Orr, who is re-watching the brothers’ feature films and sharing his notes. Orr gets Hudsucker wrong , but still, it’s a worthy effort. Orr’s series took me back to…
Like most of the lists in Deuteronomy, the list describing Yahweh’s power in 11:2-7 is carefully patterned. The direct description of Yahweh’s power is constructed by fives and sevens (vv. 2-3). There are five terms: greatness, mighty hand, outstretched are, signs, works. Five represents military power, and also human power…
Stephen R. Holmes argues in his contribution to Two Views of the Doctrine of the Trinity that “the doctrine of the Trinity is not primarily an ontology, nor does it depend on a particular ontology,” though Holmes admits that it does imply a “modest” set of ontological commitments (35). The…
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