Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
And He cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars; and when He had cried out, the seven thunders spoke their voices (Revelation 10:3). In Revelation 10 John sees Jesus come down to him from heaven with a little book in His hand. Jesus cries out with…
The numbers found in Genesis 5 & 11 display characteristics that indicate a complex and meticulous symbolic schematization operating at several levels. Because these numbers are so potent symbolically, unbelieving scholars have universally (as far as I know) treated them as artificial. Believers take them literally, but believers must also…
And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the east [sunrising]. (Revelation 16:12) The kings from the east in Revelation 16:12 are generally assumed to be enemies of…
During my brief sojourn as a pastor during the 1980s, I had several occasions to be involved in settling disputes between men in the congregation I served. A typical dispute went like this: Two men formed a company to do business. After a few years, the business went sour, and…
The two harvests of Revelation 14:14-20, of grain and of grapes, are most often understood as symbolic of God’s judgment against the wicked, or against Babylon, as amplified in chapters 16 & 17. Some commentators, however, notice that the gospels speak of the grain harvest as a reaping of the…
(Conclusion of Chapter 16 in the previous Biblical Chronology Article) Month 3, 2513 According to Leviticus 23:15-16, Pentecost was to be observed 50 days after the sabbath after Passover, or 49 days after the Feast of First Fruits. I initially based my reflections on the Jewish tradition that the Law…
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Peter Brown asks this question in the first essay in Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (Canto original series) and sensibly, following the lead of RA Markus, tries to let early Christians themselves answer. There isn’t a single answer. Early in the fourth century,…
Milbank often makes this point, but it’s huge: “Likewise the household, the site of productive provision, was not an arena of ‘politics’ and dialectical disputation, but of unquestioned paternal control. The Christian gothic ‘merging’ of oikos and polis , which as Ruskin in particular grasped, opened the question of virtue…
Mediating institutions - those formations and associations that stand between the individual and the state - are essential for freedom, we’re often told. I agree with the aim, but have questions about whether the notion of mediating institutions gets at it. The main objection is that the theory appears to…
The Aaronic blessing promises the “face” and “countenance” of Yahweh, and places the name of God on the people of God (Numbers 6:27). Psalm 44 explains these words of blessing. Yahweh’s hand drove out nations and planted Israel in the land (v. 2) because He shone the “light of [His]…
David Potter confirms Augustine’s claim that the foreign wars of Rome were an extension of a lust for domination and honor: Roman “thinking [about the outside world] involved terms such as gloria , the glory that was won in battle, the ability to compel a foreign people to do something.…
David Stone Potter again: “Homeric archaeology did not begin with Calvert or Schliemann. It was a feature of life in the second and third centuries AD, when ancient monuments were recognized as such and attached to the world of the poems. There is no reason to doubt that the scepter…
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