Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Some of the key ways Biblical writers draw attention to important details in their stories are by the use of key words, repetition, and structural devices like chiasms and parallel constructions. The Bible sounds different, even odd, to us sometimes because of the use of these and similar literary conventions.…
It is pretty standard in conservative Christian circles to condemn unbelief for pretensions of “autonomy.” Cornelius Van Til famously (at least among those of us who knows who he is) said that “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.” Greg Bahnsen appealed to this quotation by labeling…
Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever taught — the Light of the World, whose pure Truth brought sight to the blind (John 9). Almost no one — even those who speak openly against Him — disputes His reputation as a wise and good teacher of the way of love.…
It is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with…
It is not coincidental that John Calvin speaks most strongly in defense of vernacular language just after his defense of singing in church. "From this also it plainly appears that public prayers must be couched not in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or English, as…
In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…
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In their The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature , Richard Emmerson and Ronald Herzman find apocalypse in unexpected places. Like Chaucer. For the medieval mind, any pilgrimage evoked the pilgrimage of the soul toward heaven, and The Canterbury Tales is no different: “For the individual pilgrims, the pilgrimage suggests the…
Someone recently referred me to Delbert L. Wiens’s Stephen’s Sermon and the Structure of Luke-Acts . It looks wonderful. He has a triple thesis: First, that Stephen’s speech is “a politike in the broadest sense, a sociological and political account of the levels and developmental stages of the Kingdom of…
In his wonderful Jesus and the Victory of God , NT Wright compiles all the passages where Jesus warns of an impending catastrophe, within “this generation.” It’s a long list. Someone needs to do the same with the rest of the New Testament. (Andrew Perriman’s The Future of the People…
Matthew doesn’t tell the parable of the Prodigal Son, but he might has well have. He records the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, which has the same structure and point. Some laborers work through the heat of the day, some come at the 11th hour and work only…
Jeremiah tells the exiles that they will be conquered by Yahweh’s “servant” Nebuchadnezzar and will be under Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:8-11). When the time’s up, Yahweh will punish Babylon and recompense them for their deeds (vv. 12-14). In preparation for this eventual judgment, Yahweh hands a cup to…
Nicolai Gogol’s mystical, exotic religious views didn’t quite fit any form of orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy deeply marked him, especially Orthodoxy monasticism. After his first visit to the monastery at Optina, Gogol wrote that he “took a memory away with me that will never fade. Clearly, grace dwells in that place.…
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