Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets,” Zachariah 8:5. 1. Ultimatum game Ultimatum Game is an economic experiment. Its rules are simple: I will give you $100 as long as you give part of that money to the person next…
The Nephilim of Genesis 6 has been a topic of great speculation over the centuries. The word appears in Scripture two times, first in Genesis 6 and then in Numbers 13. There have been three major theories regarding the identity of the Nephilim : The Fallen-Angel Procreation Theory: this view…
Jesus on trial was silent before all His accusers, until the high priest said to Him: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” (Matthew 26:63) The high priest commanded Jesus to declare clearly whether or not He was the…
Introduction In many ways I have been disheartened—and at times distraught—by how congregations across America have responded to Covid19, not in the first weeks when so much was unknown, but in the months since. I had, like most everyone, originally thought we'd be at home a few weeks, but from…
The dust settled as Yahweh clapped his hands together to knock off any remaining clumps of dirt and soil. He had just finished forming from the dust of the ground the crowning glory of his creation. There, lying lifeless upon the newly created earth, was the first image in Yahweh's…
When reading the Psalms Christologically, it is one thing to see the prefigured sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. But what do we do with the passages concerning recompense, judgment, or vengeance? Are we to also read these Christologically, or are these vestigial Old Covenant ways of thinking, fit…
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Before Yahweh is an object of worship, He is a teacher, issuing an invitation to Adam to eat from the fruit of the garden but prohibiting the fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:16-17). After He forms Eve, though, He disappears from the narrative, leaving Eve and Adam to…
Rex Koivisto ( One Lord, One Faith ) argues that the problem of church unity has less to do with denominational structures and more to do with a sectarian spirit. Denominations weren't sectarian in origins, but an attempt to retain catholicity in a diverse theological setting. All true, but his…
K ent Dunnington ( Addiction and Virtue ) observes that what Peter Berger called “the heretical imperative” sharpens questions about the “right ordering of the goods and activities of our lives.” Our diverse world doesn't direct us to any particular ends; it deliberately refuses to do so. As a result,…
M arion Gibbs and Sidney Johnson present a sensitive analysis of the poetry of Gottfried of Strassburg's Tristan in their introduction to Medieval German Literature . In the Prologue to the poem, Gottfried captures the contradictory qualities of love with a rich series of antitheses: ir süeze sur, ir liebez…
“Mouth” ( stoma ) appears 22 times in Revelation. Mostly, things come out of mouths, rather than going in. The book is framed by double references to the sword that comes from the mouth of Jesus (1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21). Jesus' mouth-sword is the ideal: A word that slays and…
Some of the churches that Duncan Stroik discusses in The Church Building as Sacred Place sound and look like wretched spaces. The parish church in Tor Tre Teste, thirty miles outside central Rome, for instance, is designed to disorient and decenter: “The nave is conceived as an asymmetrical space in…
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