Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready (Psalm 7.11, 12). David’s inspired lyrics do not sound very encouraging to modern ears–especially to modern Christian…
The story of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) is one of the best known and most loved of Jesus’ parables. I am not going to attempt to exegete the passage, as that has been done admirably and ably by others. Rather, I want to briefly examine what bearing the passage…
In Romans 2.6-16, Paul writes, He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there…
It was still dark as David approached the crest of the little ridge. The eastern horizon was not even gray. It was early. But he knew this trail well. Every morning before dawn and every evening before dark, he would walk down to the well and carry water back to…
The theme of Romans is the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:16-17). That is to say, Romans is something of a theodicy. Paul is defending God’s covenant faithfulness, particularly in light of Jewish unfaithfulness. How does it work? Without getting into exegetical details, we can still sketch out the big picture.…
The New Perspective on Paul (NPP) is a loosely defined movement held together primarily by a common understanding of Second Temple Judaism. All NPP theologians basically adhere, with varying degrees of intensity and consistency, to Ed Sanders’ claims with regard to the nature of pre-70 A.D. Judaism. Sanders has sought…
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Joel 2:25 plays a strangely prominent role in the Arian controversy.  In the NASB translation, the Lord promises to “make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, my great army which I sent among you.” In the Greek translations…
The priests pay Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:15).  The amount of the payment takes us back to Exodus 21:32 and Zechariah 11:12-13.  Here I want to muse on the connection between Matthew and the Exodus passage. The scenario in Exodus is this: A man owns…
“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” For nearly two millennia, Christians have been singing that every week, often without a second thought about the radical claims embedded in the hymn. In Isaiah 6, the song shakes the temple, but Christians…
Gifts blind the clear-sighted and subvert justice (Exodus 23:8).  In context, that’s statement about bribery, and the word used for “gift” here is almost invariably used for bribes of one sort or another (Deuteronomy 10:17; 16:19; 27:25; 1 Samuel 8:3; 1 Kings 15:29; 16:8; etc.). Occasionally, the reference seems a…
From Nabokov’s lectures on literature, quoted in Smith’s book: “All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over.  Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic relight is between the shoulder blades.  That little shiver behind is quite certainly…
Jamie Smith’s latest book ( Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies) ) is excellent.  He rightly challenges the tendency for “worldview-talk” to take a rationalist bent, and in place of the assumption that “man is a thinking being” he argues an anthropology based on the notion…
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