Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Gambling The Bible nowhere condemns gambling, and so we need to be careful in our assessment of it. Let me begin by making a strong case against gambling. Then I will surprise most readers by pointing out that gambling may not always be sinful. The reader should bear in mind…
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991). Reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Michael Crawford, a…
A close supporter of Biblical Horizons asks whether it is proper and wise to get involved in all the boycotts that Christians are being asked to observe today. She raises the point that Paul’s advice about eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to the discussion. I think she is…
Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in the fourth year of his reign, which was 480 years after Israel came out of Egypt, the year A.M. 2993 (1 Kings 6:1). Seven years later, in the year A.M. 3000, the Temple building was finished (1 Kings 6:38). The…
Several months back, a candidate for ordination was being examined for entrance into the Presbytery of which I am a member. The candidate had a good deal of trouble with the exam on the sacraments, stumbling badly as he tried to define the "nature of the sacrament." Apparently in an…
Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book, The Struggle for America’s Soul , Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow presents a typical, though hypothetical, case study: Mabel Miller. Mabel lives alone, thousands of miles from her family. She grew up in a Baptist Church, but now, approaching 65,…
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Charles Hodge challenged the abolitionist view that slavery was always sinful so effectively that his essay was included in the pro-slavery compendium Cotton is King . Mark Noll points out that the editor deleted Hodges dire prophecies about the future of American slavery (this in 1835): “The South . .…
Yahweh places words in the mouths of prophets through His Spirit. Sometimes, though, the words that He places there are spoken back to Him. Inspired by the Spirit, the prophet becomes part of an internal conversation within Yahweh. Hence: Yahweh, Spirit, and Prophet = Father, Spirit, Son.
INTRODUCTION Proverbs 24:10-20 continues, structurally speaking, in the same pattern as the 22:22-24:9. Instead of the two-line Proverbs we find elsewhere, these are small paragraphs, at least four lines long. 24:10-20 returns again and again to situations of distress, attack, battle, and the success of enemies. Verse 10 talks about…
After the flood, Noah releases a dove, which finds no rest ( manoach ; Gen 8:9). The ark finds rest ( nuach ) on Ararat (8:4). It is one of a dozen puns on the name of Noah in the flood story. Centuries later, the ark of the covenant (not…
Matthew begins and ends with scenes of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In chapters 1-2, the Mary and Joseph are his parents; in chapter 27, there’s Joseph of Arimathea and Mary has doubled into Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary.” The first story is a story of life, the second a…
Barnes writes, “when Christians were executed by imperial order under Decius and Valerian, crowds still openly jeered at martyrs and their sympathizers. In the ‘Great Persecution,’ however, evidence of similar hostility is almost entirely lacking; by the last decades of the third century, the Christian church had become an established…
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