Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A couple years ago, I read Paul Graham’s ruminations on higher- and lower-level languages in Hackers and Painters . Although he’s talking about computer languages, his insights have bearing on biblical language and hermeneutics. So bear with me while I lay out some of the basic points, and then we’ll…
Toward the end of the Revelation, John sees a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The old created order in Adam has passed away, and the new order under the lordship of Jesus has been established. Within this new creation John also sees “the holy city, the…
I have been talking with you about integration—an elusive, allusive, word, pregnant with something we long for. I have suggested that what might be rightly a natural longing has been exacerbated by our own modern Western milieu’s dominating devotion to bits and bytes, a prevailing sense of fragmentation. Fragmentation is…
Sunday morning found me kneeling at the foot of my bed, trembling, pebbles of sweat leaping off the edge of my brow and nose, and hitting the floor in front of me, but not from piety was I procumbent; though as a minister for over a decade, I had made…
In April of this year, President Trump issued a zero-tolerance border policy that separated families, specifically children from their parents who had crossed the USA/Mexico border be it illegally or as asylum seekers . In mid-June, Trump dropped this policy of splitting up families, however there are still children who…
During the Middle Ages, Joseph, the husband of Mary, was the butt of many jokes. Medieval theater and art often depicted him as something of a buffoon, decidedly marginal to the gospel story. In part, this was the unfortunate obverse of the exaltation of Mary; any man would suffer by…
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Erhard Gerstenberger ( Leviticus , 34) claims that “The completely burned sacrifice is probably an Israelite peculiarity.” James Watts ( Ritual and Rhetoric ) disagrees. He argues (75) that “The practice of burning offerings gained popularity during the first millennium and spread from its original home in northwest Syria. Burnt…
Sacramental interpretations of the blood and water from Jesus’ side are too tempting to resist. We ought not resist them. Of course, it is the blood of the new covenant and the water of baptism (John 20:34). But the order brings us up short: Not water and blood, but blood…
It’s one of the most famous lines in one of the most famous songs: “You spread a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23). Israel knows very well that this is what Yahweh the Shepherd does. This is how Israel was born as a people -…
Ancient Israelites offered the inner organs of sacrificial animals - entrails, kidneys, a portion of the liver. The heart is never mentioned. In all of the complicated sacrificial instructions of Leviticus, the word leb never appears, even once. We learn what happens to the stomach (Deuteronomy 18:3) but not the…
If we stay with the strict terminology of Leviticus, the word “sacrifice” ( zabach ) is not a generic term for offering animals on altars but is used specifically of the “peace offering,” often in phrases like “the sacrifice of the peace offerings.” The burnt or ascension offering ( olah…
As Wilfried Warning points out in his engaging study, Literary Artistry in Leviticus , the book of Leviticus uses word repetitions to create meaningful literary and theological patterns. At times, the word repetitions are designed to highlight the themes of a particular section. “Fat” ( chalev ) occurs twelve times…
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