Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh answered him, "Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! This one will restrain My people" (1 Samuel 9:17) Many English versions of 1 Samuel 9:17 read, "This one will rule over My people," but that is a mistranslation. The Hebrew verb is `atsar…
We have arrived at the tentative date of A.M. 3474 for the decree of Cyrus, and we have determined to operate as if the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 are literal years. We also decided that Messiah the Prince arrives at the beginning of the 70th week, after the 69…
The book of Proverbs appears as a largely random collection of aphorisms drawn from experience saturated in law. Despite its random arrangement, however, the book does have an over-arching structure that reinforces its main themes. One way to gather clues regarding the structure of a biblical book (or any book)…
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of reading the first draught of Gary North’s Economic Commentary on Leviticus , which will be out some time next year. Gary’s comments on Leviticus 27 were stimulating, and caused me to take another look at the passage. The results, which I sent…
As we have seen in this series, each time there is a new covenant, there is a break in the year-by-year chronology. At the same time, each time the break is crossed by information provided in the text. Thus, the year-by-year chronology breaks down at the birth of Abraham, but…
The Openness of Literature Let’s discuss literature for a moment. There are two ways a story or novel can close. The first is called poetic justice. When a story ends with poetic justice, the bad guys are all punished and the good guys are all rewarded. This kind of story…
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Augustine Thompson ( Cities of God ) strongly disputes the notion that Italian urban communes of the late medieval period were “secular” organizations. They were religious, so much so that the city was defined and named as the seat of the bishop: “The city: the church. The church: the bishopric.…
When the Lamb takes the book, the angels sing a new song, a song of kingship (Revelation 5:8-10). In it, the sum up the work of the Lamb in a triadic formula that expands to a quaternity. The Lamb 1) was slain 2) to purchase for God from every tribe,…
Through the mid-19th century, American culture was dominated by a moral establishment that used the coercive authority of the state to enforce certain patterns of Christian morality. According to David Sehat ( The Myth of American Religious Freedom ), that establishment began to be challenged from within the universities, and…
At the end of his Word Made Global , Mark Gornik lists a number of the gifts that African churches can offer to the rest of the church. One is “an invitation to name ourselves by Pentecost”: “Through the name of Jesus, African Christians believe that the Spirit brings forth…
The early life of Moses anticipates the later history of Israel. Moses is rescued from water, flees from an attack by Pharaoh, finds water in the wilderness, meets Yahweh on the mountain of God, moves to a new land. The life of Moses also looks backward, recapitulating the life-history of…
Back in 1960, less that 15% of the population of the US was non-European. Most of that minority were blacks. That proportion has more than doubled in the fifty years since: “the growth of non- Europeans is expected to continue at an accelerated rate. In just the last twenty years…
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