Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I revisited Athanasius’s On the Incarnation in light of Advent this year. A particular passage struck me with a question that I hadn’t considered before. When addressing Adam’s fall, Athanasius says this: “If then there were only the offense and not the consequence of corruption, repentance would have been fine.…
There is much wisdom for kings in the first letter of Paul to the Church in Corinth. As I am preaching through this letter, this is one of the major themes that stands out. That is the theme of the reign of the Christian as we live in union with…
1 The title should not be a surprise to anyone who believes the Bible to be true. According to the Bible, any and every faith and religion that does not conform to the Gospel of Christ are not only false, but ultimately inspired by false spirits. Though Jeffrey Niehaus is…
Names are weighty things, a fact repeatedly evidenced in the biblical narrative. There are several occasions when the names mothers or fathers chose for their children, and the reasons for which the names were chosen, are given extended attention in the text. Much of Genesis 29 and 30, for instance,…
Growing up, I was crestfallen about any Christmas that fell on Sunday. Christmas on Sunday meant going to church when I’d rather lollygag around the Christmas tree in my pajamas, playing with new toys. Christmas on Sunday was a drag. If I still felt that way, I know what I’d…
Growing up in the church in Southern America, there was an oft-used category for leaders in the church. It was a category which was used to justify a variety of rules and restrictions on church leaders. Leaders were to be “above reproach” and that meant not drinking in public or…
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It’s terribly hard, Seneca thinks, for a beneficiary to escape the debt of gratitude he owes. The benefactor goes first, and his gift is gratuitous, not a response to a prior gift. The recipient can only catch up if he outstrips the original gift ( On Benefits (The Complete Works…
Christian critics of just war theory sometimes point out that the tradition originates not with Christian thinkers but with pagans, Romans like Cicero. True enough, says James Brundage in his contribution to The Holy War (p. 102), but the Christians who took up the Roman theory modified it. “In Roman…
Joel 2:18: Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and will have pity on His people. Few books of the Bible portray as bleak a wasteland as Joel. A locust plague leaves the land desolate. A fire consumes everything green: “The land is like the garden of Eden…
Psalm 72:6-7: May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon is no more. The Spirit is like water from heaven. Judah is a wasteland “until the Spirit is…
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist – all were sons of barren women. God makes the barren woman a joyful mother of children. But He does more: He makes those born from the barren the best. He does the same with the land. When the patriarchs first enter…
Psalm 49 is a Psalm of wisdom, a parable and riddle (vv. 3-4). Like other wisdom Psalms, it addresses the question of the prosperity of the wicked - the ancient Israelite version of the problem of evil (vv. 5-6). Being wise when you see the wicked prosper means seeing the…
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