Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
21. Under three things the earth quakes. And under four, it cannot bear up. 22. Under a slave when he becomes king, And a fool when he is satisfied with food, 23. Under an odious woman when she gets a husband, And a maidservant when she supplants her mistress. The…
We have looked at the prima facie evidence for a short chronology in Ezra-Nehemiah, a chronology that assumes that the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7ff. and Nehemiah is in fact Darius. This month we examine the argument against the short chronology. There is only one argument, and that is that the…
The Priestly Genealogy Jeshua the high priest, who returned with Zerubbabel, was not a young man at the time. We know this because his father, Jehozadak, was taken into captivity (1 Chron. 6:15). Thus was 50 years before the decree of Cyrus (2 Kings 25:18-22, by implication). Jehozadak’s father Seraiah,…
Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity . . . What? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990. Reviewed by Rev. Jeffrey Meyers. Reading Oden’s After Modernity . . . What? was tonic. There were passages that launched me out of my chair with a hoot to pace the office floor — of course, the…
Matthew records that Jesus "withdrew" to Galilee to begin His public ministry there after He "heard that John had been delivered up" (Mt. 4:12). Matthew’s typically matter-of-fact style veils the truly remarkable character of Jesus’ withdrawal. Matthew has been presenting Jesus as the Messiah, the Seed of Abraham and Son…
John Brown called this one of the most difficult passages in the entire epistle to the Hebrews, and Hebrews is no easy book. Several questions confront us as we read and meditate on these verses. First, in what sense did the Old Testament saints described in verses 4-38 not receive…
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In an essay on Thomas Nagel’s recent Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False , Edward Feser (at firstthings.com) describes what he calls the “eliminative materialism” that is strongly implied in post-Cartesian philosophy. Feser writes, “On the new view of nature inaugurated by…
“In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah . . . Eval-merodach king of Babylon . . . released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison” (2 Kings 25:27). Jehoiachin was elevated above other kings, given royal robes, and allowed to sit at the table of the…
As John H. McKenna sees it ( Become What You Receive: A Systematic Study of the Eucharist (Hillenbrand Books) , 207 ), neither Protestants nor Catholics started from the right spot in debating Eucharistic sacrifice. The “fatal flaw” in both was the equation of sacrifice with immolation. Catholic equated the…
Adam Smith distinguishes between what is praised and what is praiseworthy, between being loved and being lovely. What we desire is “that thing which is the natural and proper object of love”; what we really want is “not only praise but praiseworthiness,” praise for those things that are the proper…
According to Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments , sympathy is necessary to maintain concord in the midst of passionate disagreement. So long as disagreements and divergence of sentiment focus on minor topics, they are tolerable: “I can much more easily overlook the want of this correspondence of sentiments…
Who said this? “The distinguishing feature of the community and the city is that every individual should maintain free and undisturbed control of his possessions.” And: “those charged with the defence of the state will dissociate themselves from the kind of lavish distribution which robs Peter to pay Paul. Their…
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