Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…
Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…
At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…
How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…
1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…
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John Scott offers this rich interpretation of Inferno 19, where Dante comes across a collection of popes and other churchmen stuck upside-down in the rocks of Hell, their feet “licked” with fire: “Instead of turning their desires heavenward, these corrupt churchmen had sold the things of the Holy Spirit (just…
Why is it Virgil who leads Dante through Hell and as far as the top of Mount Purgatory? Well, he’s a poet for one thing, the greatest poet of all by Dante’s reckoning. Plus, for the medievals, he had taken on the role of sage and magus, and was widely…
Why did Naboth refuse to sell his vineyard to Ahab? Ray Dillard pointed to Leviticus 25 for the answer: “Because the land represented the fruit of the nation’s redemption, God commanded that it remain in the hands of the families to whom it was originally allotted. The land had been…
Why did Naboth refuse to sell his vineyard to Ahab? Ray Dillard pointed to Leviticus 25 for the answer: “Because the land represented the fruit of the nation’s redemption, God commanded that it remain in the hands of the families to whom it was originally allotted. The land had been…
INTRODUCTION Ahab?s sin begins in idolatry. But his sin is not a ?private?Esin, nor is it confined to a ?religious?Earea of life. In 1 Kings, as in all the prophets, idolatry always leads to social oppression and injustice. The sin of Ahab foreshadows the later oppressions of Manasseh and other…
Paul’s description of the church as the body of Christ parallels in both its basic conception and in its details the social theory of ancient moralists. Seneca, for instance, wrote, “What if the hands should desire to harm the feet, or the eyes the hands? As all the members of…
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