Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This was a newspaper column that I wrote for the Minco Millennium back in January of 2000 when I had first moved to Minco, Oklahoma to pastor First Reformed Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t able to catch the recent performance of the musical, Godspell , in Oklahoma City. However, my dad…
Awhile back, there was a big debate among Evangelicals as to whether one had to trust Jesus “as Lord” as well as “as savior. Some claimed that one could be saved by Jesus through a faith that did not involve submission to him as Lord. Others claimed that one must…
I originally wrote this a few weeks ago in April 2002 as a column in the local newspaper, The Minco Millennium under the title “Faith & Follow-Through.” Several passages in the book of Hebrews are difficult for Protestants to swallow. The author affirms the once-and-for-all work of Christ and yet…
N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans is destined to be a classic. The introduction alone is worth the hefty price of the book — but the exegesis itself is, well, priceless. I will not attempt a full review — these are just miscellaneous thoughts and random reflections — but I…
At an inn in the town of Lystra three men sat around a corner table. All three were well-known disciples of Joshua Messiah, members of what the town called a new cult, the Way. The short gray-haired man with the enormous beard was clearly restless. “This is taking too long,”…
Recently there has been some surprising debate in some circles over where Paul summarizes his Gospel. I say “surprising” because many Evangelical Bible scholars have held, for quite some time, that Paul’s Gospel is encapsulated in Romans chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Here is the passage in context: Paul,…
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Jesus prayed that the church's unity would reflect the unity of the Father and Son. Paul urged the Ephesians to cultivate the virtues of peace that would express the sevenfold unity of the church (Ephesians 4). That demand is a perennial one. But we've been divided for a long time.…
Israel is a vine, transplanted from Egypt (Psalm 80; Isaiah 5). She exists to produce wine that gladdens the hearts of men. Israel is the Dionysian people. Ezekiel brings out another dimension of the vine image: “Son of man, how is the wood of the vine better than any wood…
The oracle of judgment in Ezekiel 14:12-23 is structured as a fourfold judgment: sword, famine, beasts, plague (v. 21). The descriptions of judgment are laid out in four paragraphs that use repetitive, stereotyped language. Throughout, Yahweh says that even the intercession of Noah, Daniel, and Job could not rescue Judah…
In a TLS review of several recent books on fairy tales, Fracesca Wade points to the political context and economic setting of early folk and fairy tale collections. Inspired by Herder, the Grimms, she observes, intended to recover Germanitas by study of natural German poetry: “Although the brothers drew widely…
In his Deja Vu and the End of History , Italian philosopher Paolo Virno explores the phenomenology of memory, especially in its relation to philosophies of history. The deja vu of the title isn't a metaphor; following Henri Bergson, Virno argues that it represents “the untrammelled extension of memory's jurisdiction,…
Paolo Virno ( Deja Vu and the End of History ) observes that potential and act occur simultaneously. Take language: “The language faculty irrupts into becoming in concomitance with the phrase that I am speaking. It appears precisely now, as I speak, neither before nor afterwards: but, note, right now…
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