Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
That there is something wrong with the world is obvious. It does not take much time or brilliance to notice it. Once we get the feeling that we could imagine a better world, we are tempted to fix it or, if we cannot, to escape it. For both the world-fixers…
“Our Father in heaven,” what is man that we should be called your sons and daughters, beloved children of God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, Yahweh of Hosts, the Ancient of Days. You are not a father preoccupied with work or engrossed in your smartphone; you are a present…
The Son of God took on human flesh and entered into the sin and suffering of our world. His life and teaching and suffering from His conception to His suffering on the cross teaches us a lot about how the good news enters into the world. Recently, I was teaching…
There is an unspoken rule about typology that permeates Evangelical thinking. It goes something like this: “If the New Testament authors don’t use an Old Testament character as a type, we don’t either.” There is a soundness in this reasoning, at least in a preliminary sense. There is no better…
In The world of Silence, Max Picard writes, “There does not seem to be any space left where there could possibly have been anything but noise. We take it for granted much as we take the air itself for granted. Everything begins and ends with noise.” Is it fair to…
God is Not There God is not in the book of Esther. Do a word search and you will get 0 results. Also try Lord, Yahweh, Prayer, Temple, or Sacrifice. Even names with God’s name in them, like Elijah, Jeremiah, or Daniel are missing. The fool says in his heart,…
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Revelation 21:1 concludes the last section of chapter 20, but also inaugurates a new section of the text. It's a Janus passage, looking both back and forward. 21:1-8 concludes the large section begun in 17:1-2, the fourth “in Spirit” vision of the book. The section is divided into smaller bits…
A city descends from heaven (Revelation 21:9ff). It's laid out as a cube, like the Most Holy Place. It's measured, like other holy environments in the Bible. It is adorned with jewels - precious stones like the stones of the temple or on the high priest's breastpiece. It's a golden…
Will Herberg ( Protestant Catholic Jew ) summarizes the American response to the growth of the Irish Catholic population of the US. Tension simmered throughout the middle antebellum decades of the nineteenth century, as nearly 2 million Irish, mostly Catholic, immigrated: “The Irish, precisely because in language, manners, and culture,…
At the end of his story of Texas Christianity ( Rough Country ), Robert Wuthnow assesses the strengths and weaknesses of two major theoretical perspectives on modern religion - secularization theory and rational choice theory. Secularization theory misses a lot: “It underplays the continuing importance of agriculture and the rural…
The sequence of events in Revelation 20 has some puzzles. Jesus has defeated the beast and the false prophet and thrown them into the lake of fire (19:1-21). The devil is well in hand, chained in the abyss that is shut and locked. He can't deceive the nations anymore, which…
After the dragon is bound in the abyss, John next sees thrones (Revelation 20:4). His description of the thrones and those who sit on them is arranged chiastically: A. Thrones - they sat on them B. Judgment was given to them C. Souls of the beheaded C'. Those who did…
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