Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“We have a God who hides things because He loves to be sought out, chewed out and found out.” As Christians, we are rightly taught that we must not question God’s Word. The problem is that the Scriptures record many things which appear to have been given to us for…
The book of Revelation is a liturgy. John begins “in the Spirit” on the “Lord’s day” (1:10). Jesus appears, and Jesus tells him to record messages to seven churches, words of encouragement and rebuke, like the call to worship and confession at the beginning of a Christian liturgy. In chapter…
In my previous posts, I looked at the theme of creation as it is found in a sequence of psalms devoted to Yahweh’s Kingship (Psalms 93-100). Among other matters, these psalms declare that when the Kingdom of Israel’s God comes, it is the Kingdom of the world’s own Creator .…
The church in Corinth was a pastoral nightmare. Factionalism, sexual immorality, incipient syncretism, using the church as a stage for self-promotion, and denial of the final resurrection were just some of the problems. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he confronts each of these problems directly and in…
The first chapters of the Word of God have a poetic rhythm. This is used to discredit their accuracy as historical narrative, but the truth is that these same rhythms continue far beyond the book of Genesis. In fact, the later texts shed light on the frustratingly succinct account of…
Mr. Martian: What’s that there? Mr. Edison: (Edison holds up a standard, 60 watt lightbulb). It’s a lightbulb. Mr. Martian: A “lightbulb” you say? What exactly is a “lightbulb”? Mr. Edison: A lightbulb is an object used to illuminate a dark area, say a room. It’s made primarily of filament…
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To her credit, Brigitte Kahl (in Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire ) recognizes that Acts gives a fairly sympathetic portrait of Rome. In the various episodes where Paul is suspected of subverting the empire, “Acts makes every effort to draw as favorable a picture as possible,” not only…
How many sacraments does the church have? It depends, says Richard Baxter. One can define sacrament as “A solemn dedication of man to God by a vow expressed by some sacred ceremony, signifying mutually our covenant to God, and God’s reception of us and his covenant with us.” By this…
Introducing the Gospel reading from John 21 this morning, Chris Schlect pointed out that Jesus instructs Peter to take up the commission of Israel. Israel was supposed to be light to the nations, but refused; Jesus tells Peter to do what Israel failed to do. That fits with a couple…
The Pharisees often act as a group, but the gospels also speak of individual Pharisees (Luke 7; 11; Acts 5:34). Some of the Pharisees even show some deference to Jesus. No individual Sadducee is ever mentioned in the gospels. They are always a collective, a single mind, a united front.
Matthew uses the verb “put to silence” twice, both in chapter 22. The first time it describes the reaction of the man who arrives at the wedding feast without the proper clothing (v. 12), and in the second it describes the silence of the Sadducees after Jesus answers their question…
Jesus says that in denying the resurrection the Sadducees are misunderstanding the Scripture. How so? He’s saying, first of all, that they don’t even understand the Scripture they’ve quoted. Matthew makes this point very subtly. The quotation from Deuteronomy 25 says that the levirate brother is supposed to “raise up…
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