Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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Sermon outline for Feb 1: The Days of the Son of Man, Luke 17:11-37 INTRODUCTION Jesus’ mission was to proclaim “the kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43; 8:1). By this, He meant that God was taking control of the world through Him, and putting a sinful and shattered world back together.…
Barth says that the conflict of faith and heresy is far more serious and important than the conflicts between faith and unbelief. Unbelief cannot be taken with seriousness, he says, because we believe in the forgiveness of sins. But heresy is taken seriously to the extent that it has the…
Henry Ansgar Kelly (pp. 139-140 of Chaucerian Tragedy ) makes this important historical comment at the end of his analysis of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde : “The selection introduction of Aristotelian criteria of excellent in tragedy has been a source of untold confusion in modern discussions of tragedy. For Aristotle,…
While I’m on that subject: I’ve often wondered about the etymology of the “f-word.” The Shorter Oxford says that the derivation is unknown. I have a theory: Medieval courtly love poetry (such as the Roman de la Rose ) traced the development of courtship through several stages. The stage of…
While I’m on that subject: I’ve often wondered about the etymology of the “f-word.” The Shorter Oxford says that the derivation is unknown. I have a theory: Medieval courtly love poetry (such as the Roman de la Rose ) traced the development of courtship through several stages. The stage of…
In his beautifully written tribute to the ancient Greeks. Thomas Cahill interprets Euripides’ Medea as a cautionary tale to aristocratic Athenian men. The question he poses to the audience is: “What could drive a woman to such extremes that she would kill her own children.” Cahill’s summary of Euripides’ target…
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