Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In Colossians 4:7-9, Paul tells the Colossian church that he is sending Tychicus and Onesimus to them. It is clear that they are to deliver the letter Paul has written to the church and that they are also to report to the church the details of Paul’s ministry in chains…
On the 11 th of April, 1985, the communist dictator Enver Hoxha breathed his last. It was the beginning of the end of communist Albania. After 40 years of being isolated from almost the entire world, the Albanian people started to see what life really looked like outside their borders.…
Karl Ove Knausgaard once reminisced about an author he referred to as “the man with his sweater tucked into his trousers” who, upon entering the room, would declare as if it was his creed, “I write because I am dying.” Knausgaard acknowledges this to be one reason among many why…
The Missing “It Was Good” The patterns and repetitions of Genesis 1 are well known: God speaks, it happens, and God sees that it’s good; names are given, and there’s evening and there’s morning: a day. But the patterns of creation, like the patterns throughout Scripture, are marked by variation…
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the…
The Bible is a book about trees. We start in Eden with two trees, we end in the New Jerusalem with a single double-trunked tree, and the story hinges around the tree they nailed our Lord to. Seeing the Forest We find trees singled out on day three of creation.…
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When we argue with Arians, our main focus is on the deity of the Son. Arians and their modern heirs reject the Nicene Creed, which was written in response to Arianism, and which claimed that the Son was “God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God.” Such…
The tabernacle menorah is made of pure gold, hammered, apparently one piece with base, shaft, and the adornments of the shaft (Exodus 25:31). It’s one of two pure gold items in the tent, the other being the cover of the ark of the covenant, with its cherubim (Exodus 25:17-18). All…
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” we say at funerals. Why? Dust makes sense. Human beings are dust animated by the breath of God (Gen. 2:7). Since Adam’s fall, we return to the ground: “you will return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; dust you are,…
The instructions for the table of showbread (Exodus 25:23-30) occur in the "third day" section of Exodus 25-30. On "Day 1," Yahweh assembles the materials for building the tabernacle (Exodus 25:1-9). On "Day 2," he prescribes the pattern for the ark of the covenant, a "firmament" that separates and joins…
The ark of the covenant consists of two detachable parts. The lower portion is an acacia wood box, a rectangular chest 2.5 cubits by 1.5 cubits by 1.5 cubits (Exodus 25:10). The wood is overlaid, inside and out, with pure gold (Exodus 25:11). The other part is a pure gold…
Yahweh's initial instruction for the construction of the tabernacle is "take for me a contribution ( terumah ) . . . take a contribution" (Exodus 25:2). Derived from the verb rum , "lift up," terumah has often been translated as "heave offering," which implies that the offering is lifted toward…
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