Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Your first born is a novelty. Everything seems special and unique. No one’s child is like yours. Then, over time, you begin to make mistakes. Some strategies don’t work on the additional personalities born into your family, or they simply don’t scale from a practical perspective. With maturity, you realize…
Could Jesus have sinned? Before answering the question, it's best to run through a couple of qualifiers. First, scripture clearly teaches He did not sin. Second, I realize the seeming futility when discussing hypothetical situations. The question of the peccability of Jesus, or Jesus's capacity to sin, is in reality,…
The first time I saw the inside of a prison was in 1999; I was 16. I hadn’t knocked over a fruit stand or been caught stealing hubcaps, I was just an unsuspecting teenager playing piano for a Louisiana gospel group. One Wednesday evening in October, my pastor and leader…
The act of naming carries a lot of weight in the Bible. Naming denotes authority and possession; the namer signifying that he understands the thing named, and therefore possesses the requisite wisdom to rule over it. God set the stage for naming when he named the domains during the first…
This short essay makes an obvious point: Church growth is a matter of the rate of entry into a church relative to the rate of exit from that church. Perhaps church growth literature has long recognized that fact. Yet given the greater focus in church – at least in my…
If you’ve not yet heard of Aaron Renn’s three worlds framework , here’s the quick version: once upon a time, being a Christian was a net social good in American society. Whatever was going on behind the scenes in elite institutions, the general rank-and-file perception of Christianity was positive. That…
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D. Stephen Long ( The Perfectly Simple Triune God ) claims that the doctrine of divine simplicity is designed to answer a question of Trinitarian theology, specifically, “How do we speak well of the mystery of the Holy Trinity?” Simplicity has been used to answer other questions: “ What can…
M ark Garnett ( The Snake that Swallowed Its Tail ) identifies four core beliefs of liberalism: “that the individual ought to be treated as prior to society; that human beings are capable of rational decision-making; that rational people are worthy of equal respect; and that freedom is the best…
I n a contribution to Apocalypses in Context , Christopher Hays recounts the rise of apocalyptic writing during the Hellenistic period. He briefly discusses the historical context for the book of Daniel, a book that, he says, leaves “a series of ‘clues'” indicating that it was not written in the…
N athan MacDonald ( Not Bread Alone , 176–7) has a fascinating chapter on the role of food in the establishment of Israel's monarchy. In part, this has to do with agricultural policy, but it also has an anthropological dimension: Feasts form a circle around the crowned king, and who's…
D ympna Callaghan points out in her Shakespeare's Sonnets that “Petrarchan love was always unrequited and unconsummated, like Romeo’s love for the ‘fair Rosaline' who has taken a vow of chastity in Romeo and Juliet .” Thus, the Canzoniere “detail the poet’s tormented love for Laura. Her trademark unavailability becomes…
N athan MacDonald ( Not Bread Alone ) argues that “The description of the feast in [Isaiah] 25.6–8 is usually taken to be of a coronation meal or a meal to celebrate YHWH's kingship. Although this idea has been related to theories of an enthronement festival in pre-exilic Israel, it…
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