Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the beginning, this was home. The world, I mean. Creation wasn’t just a series of unconnected events, a flashy display of building prowess. Yes, creation was intended to give God glory—which I guess you could say means that the creation was supposed to show the greatness—the weight —of God.…
We think we know. God is a stern Rule-Maker who has a bit of an anger management problem. Or, God is the indulgent Daddy in the sky. Or, God used to be a stern Ruler, but he got nice. Christians don't believe any of that. Christians say the one God…
Unfortunately today, baptism seems so… tiny . It’s actually… cute (maybe sweet?) when it’s given to a child. A little baby, a small gathering of people, a little bowl of water, tiny drops sprinkled upon the little baby’s head followed by a small applause and a short prayer. How… small!…
Early on in the history of the church, Christians understood that the 1st century Jewish practice of meeting for prayer at set times of the day was a good and biblical practice to continue. We find references to this in several places in Scripture. In Acts 3 we find Peter…
Editors’ note: For those interested in a review of Richard Hays’s latest book, see here . Richard Hays is a renowned New Testament scholar. The professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School originally studied English literature, giving his reading of Scripture a pronounced literary sensibility. He’s perhaps best known…
As many commentators point out, Genesis is structured by 10 uses of the word toledoth , "generations." The word means something along the lines of "begotten things," and the toledoth statements head the various sections of Genesis. When Genesis 2:4 announces "these are the begettings of heaven and earth" and…
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The harlot of Revelation 17 is dressed like a priest - robes of blue and scarlet, precious stones, an inscription on her head. So is the bride of Revelation 21: She is a city adorned with precious stones with streets of gold. Why would a female city be dressed like…
In an aside, John informs us that the angel measuring the walls of new Jerusalem measures according to human measurements (measure of man), which are also angelic measurements (Revelation 21:17). One of my students, Kameron Edenfield, suggests that this is another indication late in Revelation that angels and humans have…
Rebecca Maloy’s Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and Transmission is mainly about Gregorian chant in the offertory, but early on she summarizes current opinion regarding the origins of the offertory. Contrary to some earlier liturgical historians, “A lay offering during the liturgy of the early church . . .…
Contrary to popular impressions, racial ideology does not constitute the center of Afrikaner nationalism, according to Donald Akenson’s God’s Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster , a study of the modern afterlife of biblical covenant theology. Racial beliefs did not constitute the “central vaulting arch” of…
Revelation loomed large in the political conflicts of seventeenth-century England. On every side, the images of whore and bride were deployed to defend one church and condemn another. Una and Duessa in Spenser are one version of this battle. According to Esther Richey’s The Politics of Revelation in the English…
In her contribution to To Train His Soul in Books: Syriac Asceticism in Early Christianity , Susan Harvey describes how the “emergence of the ascetic single-sex household - and later its organized communal form, the monastery - appears to have brought a sea change in the (male) awareness of and…
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