Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
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On the second day of creation, Yahweh divided waters, putting some waters above and some waters below. In between those divided waters, the Lord put the firmament, and he called that firmament “heaven.” At the end of Day 2, there were two heavens: In addition to the highest heaven in…
A qualification to the previous post: It is not dry land as such that produces fruit. After the waters are gathered, the dry land emerges, but God immediately called the dry land “earth” ( eretz ). As eretz , the land produces fruit (v. 11). The same holds for all…
The word for “dry land” in Genesis 1:9-10 is not adamah or eretz but the rare yabash . After Genesis 1, that word is not used again until Moses pours water that turns to blood onto the dry land of Egypt (Exodus 4:9), and the word shows up again at…
On Day 3 of creation, Yahweh commands the waters below heaven to be gathered in one place so that dry land can appear (Genesis 1:10). The sequence is repeated in the new creation after the flood:After the flood covers the earth, the seas again gather to a single place and…
A couple of thoughts inspired by grading a student paper on Nehemiah. First, the student, Courtney Wright, suggested that 2:9-20 form a chiasm, and that within this chiasm 2:11 and 2:17-18 match. The first tells us that Nehemiah was in the city for three days, and verses 17-18 records Nehemiah’s…
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