Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the beginning, this was home. The world, I mean. Creation wasn’t just a series of unconnected events, a flashy display of building prowess. Yes, creation was intended to give God glory—which I guess you could say means that the creation was supposed to show the greatness—the weight —of God.…
We think we know. God is a stern Rule-Maker who has a bit of an anger management problem. Or, God is the indulgent Daddy in the sky. Or, God used to be a stern Ruler, but he got nice. Christians don't believe any of that. Christians say the one God…
Unfortunately today, baptism seems so… tiny . It’s actually… cute (maybe sweet?) when it’s given to a child. A little baby, a small gathering of people, a little bowl of water, tiny drops sprinkled upon the little baby’s head followed by a small applause and a short prayer. How… small!…
Early on in the history of the church, Christians understood that the 1st century Jewish practice of meeting for prayer at set times of the day was a good and biblical practice to continue. We find references to this in several places in Scripture. In Acts 3 we find Peter…
Editors’ note: For those interested in a review of Richard Hays’s latest book, see here . Richard Hays is a renowned New Testament scholar. The professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School originally studied English literature, giving his reading of Scripture a pronounced literary sensibility. He’s perhaps best known…
As many commentators point out, Genesis is structured by 10 uses of the word toledoth , "generations." The word means something along the lines of "begotten things," and the toledoth statements head the various sections of Genesis. When Genesis 2:4 announces "these are the begettings of heaven and earth" and…
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I n Destroyer of the Gods , Larry Hurtado reminds us that “in the Roman era the sexual use of children, including young adolescents and also younger children, was widely tolerated and even celebrated lyrically by some pagan writers of the day, such as Juvenal, Petronius, Horace, Strato, Lucian, and…
“O riginally and properly,” writes John McManners ( Death and the Enlightenment ), the term “dechristianization” refers “to the anti-religious manifestations of the French Revolution,” which were “neither homogenous in character nor unambiguous in meaning.” Dechristianization refers in part to administrative, institutional changes: “The transfer to the secular authorities of…
M ichael Oakeshott ( Hobbes on Civil Association , 38-39) states Hobbes's solution to the dilemma of human violence in evangelical terms. Human existence is plagued by the fear of death, and for Hobbes the only salvation lies in greater fear. The saviour is not a visitor from another world,…
“D uring the first eighty-eight years of [the 20th] century,” writes R. J. Rummel ( Death by Government ) “almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other…
J imena Canales has written a history of A Tenth of a Second . It seems an arbitrary cut-off. Why not 1/100 or 1/1000? After all, we've been able to measure in finer units than 1/10 of a second: “In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge famously photographed running horses galloping in a…
W hen the Reformation and humanism are discussed together, the question is typically how the latter helped produce the former. Erika Rummel ( The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany ) turns the question around: How did the Reformation change humanism? One effect was in education: Protestant school orders, drawn…
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