Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Christmas is a joyful season, but for many it turns into something else. Instead of joy, it is full of disappointment and unhappiness. Instead of an occasion for family fellowship, it becomes an opportunity for opening old wounds, reigniting old arguments, giving new life to rancor that should have died…
The Temple of Time The “covenant-literary matrix” of the Bible is not a pattern imposed upon the text, but the internal logic of its arrangement. This fundamental structure, functioning at multiple levels simultaneously, is a ceaseless reiteration of God’s primary theme. It is an algorithm forged in the furnace of…
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus, Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. [1] That the author of Kings should date the start of the building of the temple from the Exodus is noteworthy. In Exodus 15:17, in Moses’ song following the…
Philip Schaff, a German Reformed theologian, states in The Principle of Protestantism that the material principle of Protestantism is “the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by the merit of Christ alone through faith.” This is the core message of the Church which leads “to the abandonment…
“Religion” is an attempt to create or build a tower with a top, or to build a temple that is self-contained. The story of The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is the story of mankind’s attempt to create a world that is self-contained and does not need God. All…
In the first essay in this series, I presented a case for dating Matthew before AD 70, contrary to the present scholarly consensus. In this essay, I intend to present cultural, personal, ecclesiological, and theological arguments for a very early date for Matthew. [1] The cultural argument concerns literacy in…
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I've noted before that the word “voice” appears seven times in Psalm 29. That suggests a link with creation, and we can see a general creation sequence in the Psalm: Days 1-2: In Genesis, the Spirit hovers over the waters, and then the Lord divides the waters above and below…
The Greek word “plague” ( plege ) is used 16 times in the book of Revelation, but twice we get a count of plagues. The hyacinth army of Revelation 9 breathes out the “ three plagues” of fire, smoke, brimstone (9:18). Those plagues show up later (14:10-11 [all three]; 19:20;…
Derrida revived the ancient myth of Thoth, told in the Phaedrus , according to which the invention of writing was like a fall of man. Writing things down destroyed the personalism and in-placedness of speech, and eventually would destroy memory. Being a book, the Bible is understandably pro-book, and the…
In a 2001 article in Evangelical Quarterly , Ralph Bowles argues that Revelation 14:10-11 does not teach that the wicked are eternally punished in hell, as many have thought. The text says that beast-worshipers will be tormented in fire and brimstone and “the smoke of their torment goes up forever…
Suppose denominations are declining in importance. Suppose other patterns and groupings are taking their place. What form will those other patterns and groupings have? The short answer is: We don't know. No patriarch could have imagined the Mosaic system, and no priest serving the tabernacle could have anticipated all the…
Princes didn't start the Reformation, but Mark Greengrass ( Christendom Destroyed ) says that they benefited most from it: “The empire's evolution allowed them to present themselves as its primary law-makers and keepers of the peace” (314). It was beginning already before the Reformation: “Princes and imperial cities attempted to…
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